Ubuntu
flashplugin-nonfree package

Flash videos on sites such as The Daily Show stopped working

Bug #258899 reported by wvarner
46
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
flashplugin-nonfree (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Flash videos on www.thedailyshow.com are no longer viewable in Ubuntu Hardy. In place of the flash content you only get gray squares. This is a recent problem because less than a week ago I was able to view the videos on this site without any problems.

More information about this problem can be found here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=c1bb3a94e4f9fe720266d6cda0d1259f&t=891458

Revision history for this message
Robert McMeekin (rrm3) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please answer these questions:
Is this crash reproducible? If so, which are the steps that lead to it?
Which flash package do you have installed?
Which Java package do you have installed?
Which Firefox extensions do you have installed?

This will greatly aid us in tracking down your problem.

Revision history for this message
wvarner (winshipvarner) wrote :

To answer your questions:

Yes, the bug is reproducible. The problem isn't that flash sometimes doesn't work on this site, but that as of a week ago it hasn't worked once. To reproduce, go to www.thedailyshow.com and try and watch any videos.

Flash Version: flashplugin-nonfree 10.0.1.218+10.0.0.525ubuntu1~hardy1+really9.0.124.0ubuntu2
Java Version: sun-java6-jre 6-07-3ubuntu2
Firefox extensions (and I've tried to disable them to get it to work, but without success): adblock plus, cookiesafe, Ubuntu Firefox modifications.

Hope this helps.

Revision history for this message
Erik Zoltan (erik-zoltan) wrote :

I am having the same problem. It affects videos on the Daily Show and South Park web sites which have the same hosting company, it appears. They both have the same kind of "watch full episode" interface. I can reproduce this 100% in Konqueror, Firefox and Opera. I am able to use Flash and videos on numerous other sites.

I have Hardy 8.04 Kubuntu, with KDE 4.1.
Flash packages:
 - flashplugin-nonfree (9.0.124.0ubuntu2)
 - libswfdec-06.90 (0.6.4-2)
 - swfdec-gnome (2.22.2-1)
 - swfdec-mozilla (0.6.0-2ubuntu1)

Java:
 - sun-java6-jre (6-06-ubuntu1)
 - sun-java6-bin (6-06-ubuntu1)

Firefox Extensions
 - DOM Inspector 2.0.0
 - GooglePreview 3.11

Revision history for this message
Robert McMeekin (rrm3) wrote :

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

Revision history for this message
Erik Zoltan (erik-zoltan) wrote :

The problem also seems to affect hulu.com. (Thought I'd add this information just in case it provides any useful clues.)

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Chengiz (saurabh-hotmail) wrote :

I was having the same problem on windows. It was a pain but I did figure it out eventually:
- If you have flashblock, add thedailyshow.com to its whitelist.
- Make sure network.http.sendRefererHeader in ff is set to 2.
- I have Norton Internet Security. In its Privacy Control -> Configure -> Advanced menu, I changed the "Defaults" options under "Information about visited sites" from "Permit same site" to Permit. YMMV - this is just another control for the referer header information that your firewall software may have.

Revision history for this message
effell (effell) wrote :

Same problem here with FF2, ubuntu 7.10. Can't watch neither TDS nor Colbert clips.
I have tried disabling both NoScript and Flashblock and sendRefererHeader was already set to 2.

For the time being, I have found a tiresome workaround,
create a small html with the embed reference found next to the clips on those site:

<html><head><title></title></head>
<body><embed ...> </embed>
</body></html>

On the plus side, no ads.

Revision history for this message
Adam Hooper (adamh) wrote :

Mine may or may not be the same problem: in Epiphany and Firefox I was getting full-fledged crashes--"segmentation fault" on the console. I fixed my problem by removing libflashsupport and reinstalling flashplugin-nonfree.

Revision history for this message
har0ld (har0ld) wrote :

I have had the same problem and what Adam said worked for me too
TDS wasn't working in either firefox, opera and seamonkey
now it's working flawlessly

actually I used the flashplugin from adobes website which may be one reason why it didn't work in the first place

Revision history for this message
skorasaurus (skoraw) wrote :

There are several users who have fixed this problem by download manually, version 10 of flash, and copying it into the home user's plugin folder (see the thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=c1bb3a94e4f9fe720266d6cda0d1259f&t=891458
for details).

I tried to do the same thing with the version 9 plug-in (found in /usr/lib/flashplayer-nonfree, iirc) and it ended up crashing.

Revision history for this message
skorasaurus (skoraw) wrote :

forgot to add my specs:

8.04, flash 9.0.124.0ubuntu2, java 6-06-0ubuntu1

I have fireftp installed; flashblock installed, but disabled.

Revision history for this message
Eero (eero+launchpad) wrote :

This is still a problem with 64-bit Intrepid upgraded from Hardy.

$ dpkg -l | egrep 'flash|firefox|swf'
ii firefox 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 meta package for the popular mozilla web bro
ii firefox-3.0 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
ii firefox-3.0-branding 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 Package that ships the firefox branding
ii firefox-3.0-gnome-support 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 Support for Gnome in Mozilla Firefox
ii firefox-gnome-support 3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 meta package pointing to the latest gnome-su
ii flashplugin-nonfree 10.0.12.36ubuntu1

Revision history for this message
Sean Fenton (bobodod) wrote :

I was having this problem as well for all mtvnservices.com videos (Colbert Report, Daily Show & South Park). This is on Ubuntu 8.10 64bit Desktop Ed. (fully updated yesterday) with Firefox 3.0.3 and the Adobe Flash Player plugin v.10.0.12.36.

I would get a light-gray field where videos should have been. Flash worked fine on other sites. I first confirmed that it wasn't NoScript or disabled third party cookies that were causing the issue by testing on a blank profile.

What worked was to download the older v.10 plugin referenced in <a href="http://ubuntu-virginia.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5818117&postcount=25">this post</a> in the forums and copy it to /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree after renaming the newer plugin.

Revision history for this message
Bryan McLellan (btm) wrote :

flashplugin-nonfree=10.0.12.36ubuntu1
firefox-3.0=3.0.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
Linux wm-0150-bryanm 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 19:33:06 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu intrepid, recent fresh install (not upgraded from hardy)

I see the same issue. Youtube and other flash sites worked alright, The Daily show did not. As mentioned by bobodod, downloading [1] and replacing /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so with the one from [1] resolves the problem.

[1] http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_install_linux_091508.tar.gz

Revision history for this message
effell (effell) wrote :

Getting the newer plugin .so into /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree did not work for me.

Also instead of a gray field, I am getting a link to "Get flash player". Anyone getting this?

(I'm using Ubuntu 7.10 with Firefox2, perhaps time to upgrade to the newest bugs.)

Revision history for this message
Alan Johnson (nilgiri) wrote :

hulu.com works great on my system.

Erik Z., is it still broken for you?

All, if hulu.com works for you, it should serve as a nice work around for TDS, Colbert Report, and much other content.

Revision history for this message
Eero (eero+launchpad) wrote :

The Daily Show started to work after removing package flashplugin-nonfree and installing new 64-bit flash plugin from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Revision history for this message
Dan Taylor (slash) wrote :

I've tried the 64-bit flash and upon visiting The Daily Show, the whole browser crashes. Not sure why -- I've purged the old flashplugin-nonfree package and nspluginwrapper and it still doesn't seem to work.

Revision history for this message
Dan Taylor (slash) wrote :

Turns out it my last post was an error on my part, I can confirm the 64-bit release of Flash resolves this issue.

Revision history for this message
Erik Zoltan (erik-zoltan) wrote :

Yes it now works for me as well. I've gotten this to work on multiple systems now, both 32 and 64 bit.

Thanks,
Erik Z.

Revision history for this message
JT (eksabajt) wrote :

All mtvnservices.com videos fail (only a grey box shows up, no video no audio). Youtube videos work intermittently: sometimes I get a grey box with audio still working, but refresh a couple times and it works. Hulu also works intermittently. Most other Flash sites work consistently.

When I checked network.http.sendRefererHeader it was already set to 2.

I'm running 64-bit Intrepid.

sudo update-alternatives --config xulrunner-addons-flashplugin
-----------------------------------------------
*+ 1 /var/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
          2 /usr/lib/gnash/libgnashplugin.so
          3 /usr/lib/swfdec-mozilla/libswfdecmozilla.so

sudo update-alternatives --config java
-----------------------------------------------
          1 /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
*+ 2 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/bin/java
          3 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
          4 /usr/bin/gij-4.2
          5 /usr/bin/gij-4.3
          6 /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj/jre/bin/java

Revision history for this message
Alexander Sack (asac) wrote :

does this only happen on amd64?

Revision history for this message
asdir (dirkroettgers) wrote :

I don't think this is a duplicate of #238606. Please look at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9450177#post9450177 for my issue, which sounds like this bug report, and the solution I found.

In short: change the nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf to 8.8.8.8 instead of 192.168.1.1 and restart your network. Don't know why the problem came up or this is the solution. I just know it did not have anything to do with flash and that it works. But then again, maybe my problem was a different one...

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