[regression] Severe graphical artifacting with Hulu/Flash in Firefox

[Tristan Schmelcher]

Binary package hint: firefox

Since upgrading to Ubuntu 11.04, www.hulu.com has severe graphical artifacting in Firefox. The artifacting affects areas of the page controlled by the Flash plugin. Basically various areas within the Flash content are randomly obscured by dark grey rectangles, which have the same colour as the background. I've attached an example screenshot showing a common case where the episode description text is obscured by an artifact (circled in red). Other areas that are often affected include the left and right buttons at the edge of the screen and the horizontal row of show selection radio buttons right below the show screenshot.

The problem does not happen in Chrome.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: firefox 4.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.11.04.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat May 21 13:35:48 2011
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 4.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.11.04.2
 flashplugin-installer 10.3.181.14ubuntu0.11.04.1
 adobe-flashplugin N/A
 icedtea-plugin N/A
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-05-08 (13 days ago)

[m1fcj (hakan-koseoglu)]

Someone nicely demonstrated this issue in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAOLL2pUV08

[Tristan Schmelcher (tschmelcher)]

Nice find. That indeed looks very similar to the Hulu artifacting that I see.

[Joe Pearson (secretcode343)]

I believe this is related to bug #761074 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/761074 and applies to all flash videos in Firefox. Also, rectangles can sometimes be white instead of dark grey.

I also believe it's specific to 64bit, and the 64bit flash PPA mentioned in the above bug may be a fix.

[Tristan Schmelcher (tschmelcher)]

Thanks for the link. You are right, they are the same issue, and that PPA fixes it for me too.