OSX Only Allows 8 LocalConnection Instances

While bug hunting I came across this very unusual bug. In a project that I am working on, I am using multiple unique instances of the LocalConnection object to communicate between an AS3 master and an AS2 slave. These LocalConnection instances use a random number to keep them unique, so each time the program is reloaded it makes a new LocalConnection instance. After refreshing the browser exactly 8 times the LocalConnection object stops sending out messages. I remember reading about an 8 connection limit somewhere, but I didn’t connect the dots until right now. These dots suck to connect.

Quitting all browsers that used the LocalConnection object fixes the problem, or actually just resets the count back to zero. The bigger problem here is that this RIA I’m working on can contain up to 99 AS2 slave files. That means only 8 will work, and after a page reload, none of them will. This may not be an Apple bug per se; it is probably intentional on Apple’s part for whatever reason. I wish it wasn’t because it means they just effectively destroyed a feature, because there is probably no way around it. I can understand a limitation but that seems to be a really small number. Here is an example of the problem at hand.