# Detecting if a layer has a movie clip in it

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/detecting-if-a-layer-has-a-movie-clip-in-it/266601>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [July 22, 2008, 4:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/detecting-if-a-layer-has-a-movie-clip-in-it/266601 "2008-07-22T16:08:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![markbeeson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ec9cab/32.png) [@markbeeson](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/markbeeson)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 4:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/detecting-if-a-layer-has-a-movie-clip-in-it/266601/1 "2008-07-22T16:08:15Z")

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I need to know if there is a way to detect if a specific layer (say, layer 5) has a movie clip in it and if so, ignore it and continue loading movie clips into the other designated layers. If there isn’t a clip in layer 5, then load the designated movie clip.

Basically layer 5 would load a shaded background and layer 6 would load a series of thumbnails or text. I don’t need to keep reloading layer 5 if it’s already loaded the shaded background.

Does this make sense?

I’m not a very skilled Action Scripter and cannot write from scratch but I’ve had success modifying scripts. Any help would be appreciated.