Flash plugin: Unable to interact with on host browser after a while

[Andrew de Quincey]

System details: Arch Linux, 3.12.9, KDE 4.12.1, firefox 26.0 (I've also tried chromium 32.0.1700 with the same results), pipelight 0.2.4.1, wine 1.7.11, Nvidia eForce GTX 570 card, driver 331.38, flash 12.0.0.43

Symptoms: on 4od and BBC IPlayer, the plugin works fine initially, and plays fine. However, after interacting for a while (especially right clicking and /hovering/ over the "Settings" menu item), I can no longer interact with the host browser (can't click links, or even the browser navigation controls/tab switching etc). Flash still plays videos fine though, but I can't always click on controls in flash either.

To get control back, I need to alt-tab; then it all works again. Unfortunately I'm running this on a TV without a keyboard, so I can't alt tab very easily. Its also quite annoying generally.

I've just enabled linuxWindowlessMode, and that helps a great deal with normal interaction with the flash plugin (pausing video etc). It still has the issue if I open the right click menu and do the hover on settings thing though, but I can avoid that.

The release notes say linuxWindowlessMode disables HW acceleration, so its not ideal.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Attached startup log with linuxwindowless mode disabled. Nothing is actually output to the log when the problem occurs though.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

By "alt tab", I mean I need to switch focus to another window and back again; simply running another app (eg xterm etc) also suffices.

[Sebastian Lackner (slackner)]

Hi,

sorry for the delayed answer, we were all at FOSDEM the last weekend. ;-)

Based on your post #1 you're not using the latest version of Pipelight.

Where did you get this version from? Please try to upgrade to a newer one, or if you compiled it manually, then repeat this step for 0.2.4.2. Version 0.2.4.1 contained some problems, which could probably explain why it sometimes behaves incorrectly.

If the problem still occurs afterwards please report back. The log above unfortunately doesn't contain any other possible reasons, that could explain this effect.

Sebastian

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Hi sorry, typo, I meant 0.2.4.2: downloaded and compiled by me last night.

I saw the same problem with 0.2.3 as well.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Hey, just tried disabling everything in my .xinitrc so the only thing I was running was firefox (in case it was some bizarre kwin/compositing/whatever problem). Same symtoms so it ain't that.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Another check: switched over to using the "wine-compholio" (uses the prebuilt binaries from your PPA) rather than "wine-silverlight" under arch. Same problem occurs.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Follow up: this is getting even weirder:

I've just noticed if I run firefox+flash and trigger the issue, I can then Ctrl-C firefox, and I can't click on *anything*; no X window works. Alt-Tab and it works again.

Looking at the process list after I've ctrl-Ced, I see a few wine related processes still running, and a couple of "[pluginloader.ex] <defunct>". ones If I manually kill -9 those defunct processes (sshing from remote machine), my mouse starts working fine again.

Using xorg-server 1.15.0 in case its some X thing...

[Michael Müller (mqchael)]

Hi,

does this problem still exist with a more recent version of Pipelight and Wine? I would suggest you to try our prebuilt packages for Arch Linux: http://fds-team.de/cms/pipelight-installation.html#section_1_2

Michael

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

Hi, have just switched to your prebuilt binaries (after making sure to remove the old AUR pipelight+wine-silverlight).

Unfortunately its still happening. Surefire method to trigger it: open the right click menu, then click settings. Flash plays, but I can't interact with anything on X as described before.

[Andrew de Quincey (adq)]

hmm, linuxWindowless doesn't work any more either; the picture is completely scrambled.

[Sebastian Lackner (slackner)]

Hi,

what do you mean with linuxWindowlessMode doesn't work anymore? There
wasn't anything changed with this mode, so its highly unlikely that one of
our recent updates broke something. Nevertheless I would suggest you try
out an older version, and check if the problem exists there, too. You can
find some older versions for example here:
http://repos.fds-team.de/stable/arch/CHANGELOG.html (please note that there
aren't any prebuilt binaries yet for the latest pipelight/wine-compholio
version which was released last weekend. Unfortunately I was very busy, so
I didn't have time to update it yet - I will do this later today and inform
you when you can test this version.) If you can indeed confirm that an
older version still works, it would be nice to provide some more details:
Is it related to a wine-compholio or pipelight update? Which is the first
version that contains this bug?

Back to the original problem: Do you have some other setups to test with,
and does the problem occur there, too? Or can you maybe try to reproduce it
with the pipelightOS boot cd? (see:
http://repos.fds-team.de/pipelightos/releases/ ). It is almost impossible
to track down an issue, when we're not able to reproduce it. Other things
you could try out: Are you maybe using some other browser extensions
besides Adblocker/User agent switcher? Disable them for testing purposes,
as they can cause a lot of problem with NPAPI plugins, which depend on
JavaScript for the website <-> plugin interaction.

Regards,
Sebastian

2014-04-16 20:05 GMT+02:00 Andrew de Quincey <email address hidden>:

> Hi, have just switched to your prebuilt binaries (after making sure to
> remove the old AUR pipelight+wine-silverlight).
>
> Unfortunately its still happening. Surefire method to trigger it: open
> the right click menu, then click settings. Flash plays, but I can't
> interact with anything on X as described before.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> Pipelight.
> Matching subscriptions: pipelight
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1275382
>
> Title:
> Flash plugin: Unable to interact with on host browser after a while
>
> Status in Pipelight:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> System details: Arch Linux, 3.12.9, KDE 4.12.1, firefox 26.0 (I've
> also tried chromium 32.0.1700 with the same results), pipelight
> 0.2.4.1, wine 1.7.11, Nvidia eForce GTX 570 card, driver 331.38, flash
> 12.0.0.43
>
> Symptoms: on 4od and BBC IPlayer, the plugin works fine initially, and
> plays fine. However, after interacting for a while (especially right
> clicking and /hovering/ over the "Settings" menu item), I can no
> longer interact with the host browser (can't click links, or even the
> browser navigation controls/tab switching etc). Flash still plays
> videos fine though, but I can't always click on controls in flash
> either.
>
> To get control back, I need to alt-tab; then it all works again.
> Unfortunately I'm running this on a TV without a keyboard, so I can't
> alt tab very easily. Its also quite annoying generally.
>
> I've just enabled linuxWindowlessMode, and that helps a great deal
> with normal interaction with the flash plugi...

[Michael Müller (mqchael)]

The problem with the linuxWindowlessMode should be fixed now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Pipelight because there has been no activity for 60 days.]