The module SWF::Parser can also read SWF files. It is more heavyweight than SWF::Search, requiring you to create some callback functions, but you may have more success with it. If you still cannot extract the text elements, the SWF file may be non-compliant or corrupt. SWF::Parser can still be useful in this case, allowing you to pinpoint the problem area in the file by detecting the point at which the parser starts giving you garbage.