Flash problems (what else is new?)

English Multimedia
1

Recently I upgraded my 64-bit system, replacing OpenSusE 11.2 with 12.3. Got everything to work, including YouTube Flash videos – after putting myself in the video and audio groups. This upgrade gave me confidence to apply 12.3 to my 32-bit system (AMD Athlon XP 2500).

The upgrade went smoothly, but the flash plug-in no longer works, either in Opera or in Firefox. I know it’s not hardware, because flash was working on the 32-bit machine prior to the upgrade. The video and audio groups didn’t help. Browsing as root (with all possible groups) didn’t help.

I found out that I can disable the plug-in and get some of the YouTube videos to display – those implemented with HTML5. But the majority still require Adobe flash. Adobe froze its Linux development at “Shockwave Flash 11.2 r202”. Question: If Adobe can’t maintain it, why not give the specs to the Linux community, so that it can we can maintain it?

The next step, I thought, would be to install the Chrome browser, which has its own Linux version of flash, Pepper-flash. But the latest version of Chrome, google-chrome-stable-31.0.1650.63-1, fails to load. Running from the terminal, I get a series of error messages:


[1220/120555:ERROR:nacl_helper_linux.cc(233)] NaCl helper process running without a sandbox!
Most likely you need to configure your SUID sandbox correctly

[3645:3645:1220/122835:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(327)] Failed to launch child process
[3645:3667:1220/122836:ERROR:child_process_launcher.cc(327)] Failed to launch child process
...

I found that others have been getting the same message with the latest Chrome release. See

Google Groups

One person suggested using the --disable-setuid-sandbox option. That gets Chrome to load, but Chrome then displays the web-pages as blank.

Another person had good results using an earlier version of Chrome – 27.0.1453.110 at Google Chrome old versions - Ubuntu . That looks like a Debian version. However I found 27.0.1425.0 for 32-bit and OpenSuSE 12.1 at software.opensuse.org:

I removed chrome (zypper rm google-chrome-stable). The original Chrome install (31.0.1650.63-1, through YaST invoked by Google’s web-page) created a google-chrome repository (http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/i386) . I disabled this (zypper mr -d 1) to block the newer (31.0.1650.63-1) version. Then I installed the older version (zypper install -D chromium-27.0.1425.0-1.55.1.i586.rpm). I’m operating under the assumption that zypper will check dependencies and refuse to install anything that is incompatible with 12.3.

I got these messages:


The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
  chromium chromium-desktop-gnome chromium-ffmpegsumo chromium-suid-helper libudev0 

The following recommended package was automatically selected:
  chromium-desktop-gnome 

The following package is recommended, but will not be installed due to conflicts or dependency issues:
  chromium-desktop-kde 

5 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 37.8 MiB. After the operation, additional 140.1 MiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/? shows all options] (y): y
Retrieving package chromium-suid-helper-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1.i586                                                                              (1/5),  56.6 KiB ( 13.6 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: chromium-suid-helper-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1.i586.rpm .................................................................................................[done (107.6 KiB/s)]
Retrieving package libudev0-182-3.1.1.i586                                                                                                  (2/5),  27.1 KiB ( 57.8 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: libudev0-182-3.1.1.i586.rpm ...................................................................................................................................[done]
Retrieving package chromium-ffmpegsumo-31.0.1650.57-1.17.1.i586                                                                             (3/5), 750.7 KiB (  2.2 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving: chromium-ffmpegsumo-31.0.1650.57-1.17.1.i586.rpm ................................................................................................[done (494.5 KiB/s)]
Retrieving package chromium-27.0.1425.0-1.55.1.i586                                                                                         (4/5),  36.9 MiB (137.8 MiB unpacked)
Retrieving package chromium-desktop-gnome-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1.i586                                                                            (5/5),  52.2 KiB (  3.2 KiB unpacked)
Retrieving: chromium-desktop-gnome-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1.i586.rpm ...............................................................................................[done (480.6 KiB/s)]
(1/5) Installing: chromium-suid-helper-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1 ..................................................................................................................[done]
Additional rpm output:
setting /usr/lib/chrome_sandbox to root:root 4755. (wrong permissions 0755)


(2/5) Installing: libudev0-182-3.1.1 ......................................................................................................................................[done]
(3/5) Installing: chromium-ffmpegsumo-31.0.1650.57-1.17.1 .................................................................................................................[done]
Retrieving package chromium-27.0.1425.0-1.55.1.i586                                                                                         (1/5),  36.9 MiB (137.8 MiB unpacked)
(4/5) Installing: chromium-27.0.1425.0-1.55.1 .............................................................................................................................[done]
Additional rpm output:
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/chromium/chromium-generic to provide /usr/bin/chromium (chromium) in auto mode


(5/5) Installing: chromium-desktop-gnome-27.0.1425.0-1.1.1 ................................................................................................................[done]
Additional rpm output:
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/chromium/chromium-gnome to provide /usr/bin/chromium (chromium) in auto mode

The XFCE Chrome launcher left from the original (31.0.1650.63-1) install had

/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable – where 31.0.1650.63-1 resided
to
/usr/bin/chromium %U – link to /etc/alternatives/chromium, where 27.0.1425.0-1.55.1.i586 resides

Loaded Chrome and managed to browse a few web pages. Got “Unable to load Shockwave Flash plug-in” with pages that use flash. And clicking on links frequently logged me out of XFCE.

So chrome didn’t help. What now?

2

Flash-Player 11 uses SSE2 even on 32bit systems, which your CPU does not support.
Your only chance is to install the older Flash-Player 10 either by downloading it manually from Adobe or you could also just install the package from 11.2 (which worked for you) I guess:
http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/update/11.2/rpm/i586/flash-player-10.2.159.1-0.2.1.i586.rpm

On second thought maybe try the latest 10.x version from openSUSE 11.4 first:
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/i586/flash-player-10.3.183.10-0.2.1.i586.rpm

3

Found the thread titled “Re: Shockwave/Flash in 13.1 (again, I’m sure)”.

Followed advice. Removed flash-player-11.2.202.332-2.44.1 . Used 12.3 one-click to download file flash-player.ymp from:

http://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home%3Acornelisbb&package=flash-player

This was supposed to be version 10, but when I apply zypper install -D to it, I get


'flash-player.ymp' not found in package names. Trying capabilities.
No provider of 'flash-player.ymp' found.

When I follow the advice in http://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home%3Acornelisbb&package=flash-player and run “zypper if flash-player”, I get


Repository: openSUSE-12.3-Update-Non-Oss
Name: flash-player
Version: 11.2.202.332-2.48.1
Arch: i586

So it pulls flash-player in from the Update-Non-Oss repository, and not from cornelisbb. When I disable Update-Non-Oss, I get


Repository: openSUSE-12.3-Non-Oss
Name: flash-player
Version: 11.2.202.261-2.1.3
Arch: i586

When I disable Non-Oss, I get:


Repository: cornelisbb's Home Project (openSUSE_12.3)
Name: flash-player
Version: 10.3.183.86-1.1
Arch: i586
Vendor: obs://build.opensuse.org/home:cornelisbb

Woohoo! There it is! I proceed with the zypper install flash-player and get three warnings:


warning: /var/cache/zypp/packages/home_cornelisbb/i586/flash-player-10.3.183.86-1.1.i586.rpm: Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 836d031a: NOKEY

Under Opera > Tools > Advanced > Plug-ins, I click on “refresh” and see “Shockwave Flash 10.3 r183”. Looking good!

I enter my YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9CZYsYqp-8

And there she is in all her glory!

My sincere thanks to wolfi323, whose post at https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/492364-shockwave-flash-13-1-again-im-sure-2.html#post2600464 in the “Shockwave/Flash in 13.1 (again, I’m sure)” thread gave me the clue I needed.

I’ve also gained familiarity with zypper. I’m sure I’m doing a lot of redundant steps – like doing “zypper ref” after every “zypper mr” – but better safe than sorry. Now I have to re-enable Non-Oss and Update-Non-Oss.

4

Iconoclasmic wrote:

> And there she is in all her glory!
>
> My sincere thanks to wolfi323, whose post at
http://tinyurl.com/leu9z3l
> in the “Shockwave/Flash in 13.1 (again, I’m sure)” thread gave me the
> clue I needed.
You might want to lock the flash package so it doesn’t get changed.
For how long that old version of flash will work I have no idea and
your current experience may be limited on some sites.
And in any case, flash is basically being flushed down the toilet
especially as far as Linux is concerned.

5

actually, the vast majority of youtube videos play just fine in the HTML5 player.
On your 32bit system I’d recommend using the html5 player and only switch to the flash player on those few occasions that it might be needed.

6

On 12/20/2013 11:16 PM, farcusnz wrote:
>
> Iconoclasmic;2610198 Wrote:
>> . . . – those implemented with HTML5. But the majority still require
>> Adobe flash.
>
> actually, the vast majority of youtube videos play just fine in the
> HTML5 player.
> On your 32bit system I’d recommend using the html5 player and only
> switch to the flash player on those few occasions that it might be
> needed.
>

To add to this, you can force HTML5 and embed a VLC plugin when HTML5 is
not an option (very rare) using the Viewtube and ViewtubePlus scripts
for greasemonkey. It will even work on sites other than Youtube!

–
Was I helpful? Click that little star so that I can brag about it to my
invisible friends >:)
Bring the Penguins Back! https://features.opensuse.org/316767

7

Ran “zypper al flash-player” to lock in version 10. Very nice! Thanks for the suggestion. I assume the lock applies to the “automatic updates”. Will it also apply when I update to a new OpenSuSE version, using a LinuxCollections DVD, for example?

I haven’t used one-click-install before. Once I download the .ymp file, what should I do with it? Run it with /sbin/OCICLI ? I’m uncomfortable with the browser invoking YaST directly – just superstitious, I guess. I like to know what is happening to my computer!

I see now that there is an “-r” option with “zypper in”. So I didn’t need to disable the other repositories: I could have used


zypper in -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/cornelisbb/openSUSE_12.3/ flash-player

? Or I could have used the .ypm file with /sbin/OCICLI ?

How is it possible to flush flash? How else can one view a flash video? It seems like Adobe has acquired a stranglehold on Linux. What prevents Linux from developing its own flash player?

8

The “vast majority” depends on the sampling. In my case, the vast majority of videos I sampled required Shockwave Flash. And videos on other sites also required flash.

Does YouTube have plans to convert all of its videos to HTML5? I suppose the prevalence of older browsers – that lack HTML5 support – is the main obstacle.

9

Very interesting. I want to try this.

I found more information here:

http://isebaro.com/viewtube/?ln=en – source
Dance Party – review
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/viewtube/jpmdfboedkdealhjmnmkdhmgbaeajgfo?hl=en – ViewTube with Chrome

Thank you!

10

On 2013-12-21 05:04, caf4926 wrote:
> Iconoclasmic wrote:
>
>> And there she is in all her glory!
>>
>> My sincere thanks to wolfi323, whose post at
> http://tinyurl.com/leu9z3l
>> in the “Shockwave/Flash in 13.1 (again, I’m sure)” thread gave me the
>> clue I needed.
> You might want to lock the flash package so it doesn’t get changed.
> For how long that old version of flash will work I have no idea and
> your current experience may be limited on some sites.

Considering that the old flash version has security holes, I’d be careful where I used it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Elessar))

11

On 12/21/2013 01:36 PM, Iconoclasmic wrote:
>
> Does YouTube have plans to convert all of its videos to HTML5? I
> suppose the prevalence of older browsers – that lack HTML5 support –
> is the main obstacle.
>

Dont get your hopes up, the old browsers are not googles concern. In
fact one could argue, going to HTML5 would be a selling point for chrome
over say IE6. The issue for Google, as always, is ad revenue. From what
I understand they dont like how their ads work in HTML5 so they are
avoiding it until they figure out a way to have advertisements in videos
in a way they deem acceptable. This is made even more obvious when you
realize the HTML5 beta for youtube has been around for a while now and
google still has not shown they have any real plans for ditching flash
until DRM HTML5 is a thing.

–
Was I helpful? Click that little star so that I can brag about it to my
invisible friends >:)
Bring the Penguins Back! https://features.opensuse.org/316767