Shockwave Flash outdated version. Can't update it.

[Jim Otto]

From https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/ clicked the update button. Tried to follow the update instructions. Wasn't able to update.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-30.56-generic 2.6.35.13
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-30-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Aug 20 13:07:29 2011
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
 firefox-gnome-support 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
 firefox-branding 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
 abroswer N/A
 abrowser-branding N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox

[Tomasz Chrzczonowicz (tch)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090909 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090909 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.3

I'm using Gnash (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/) and not Adobe Flash. And yet, Firefox tells me to update to new Adobe Flash player.This is seriously wrong.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run Firefox with Gnash installed

[Davemgarrett (davemgarrett)]

Confirmed. Gnash gets caught as old flash with the current checks.

It likes to call itself something like "Shockwave Flash 8.0 r99. Gnash 0.8.2". If we're checking for old Flash an exception needs to be made for Gnash here. If we really want to get fancy, it could even check for specifically what Gnash version is in use and see if that is too old and needs updating itself.

[Bugzilla-dolphinling (bugzilla-dolphinling)]

This probably affects swfdec users as well (haven't tested, I don't use swfdec).

A simple fix for gnash would be to check navigator.plugins['Shockwave Flash'].description, and see if it contains the string "Gnash".

[morgamic (morgamic)]

This is a bug with Gnash. It shouldn't pose itself as Flash if it's not Flash.

[Davemgarrett (davemgarrett)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> This is a bug with Gnash. It shouldn't pose itself as Flash if it's not Flash.

And every browser in existence reports itself as Mozilla, but that doesn't mean we ignore that fact in user agent detection.

It's a Flash substitute so it needs to pretend to be Flash to be used by things that need to detect Flash. They aren't going to change this any time soon and we really shouldn't tell every Linux user with Gnash that they should install latest Adobe Flash.

[morgamic (morgamic)]

Yes, was aware of the stuff in comment #4. Reopening if someone wants to patch.

[Michal Nowak (newman)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> If we really want to get fancy, it could even check for specifically what Gnash
> version is in use and see if that is too old and needs updating itself.

Please do not. This is distros area, they should take care of having gnash, swfdec, ... security threats-free. Since they are open source it is not the same as with Adobe Flash Player.

[Davemgarrett (davemgarrett)]

*** Bug 527350 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Gervase Markham (gerv-mozilla)]

Michal: Gnash is not just used on Linux. We should certainly be checking Gnash versions, just as we check Adobe Flash versions and versions of all sorts of other plug-ins. That's what the plugin checker is for :-)

Gerv

[Davemgarrett (davemgarrett)]

*** Bug 641140 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[skierpage (skierpage)]

For the URL http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/whatsnew/ mentioned in bug 641140 , the problem is in function flashWarning(). This winds up calling DetectFlashVer() and GetSwfVer(). I think these are minified versions of Adobe's example code to embed flash (but I can't find the "source" for mozilla.com on mxr). The simplest fix is to have GetSwfVer() short-circuit as comment #2 suggests:

  var flashDescription=navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"+swVer2].description;
+ if (flashDescription.indexOf("Gnash") !== -1) { return -1 };
  var descArray=flashDescription.split(" ");

[Mail-wz6bkyhu4uq (mail-wz6bkyhu4uq)]

This bug affects me too and I'd really like to see it resolved.

I hate seeing a huge notice telling me to install the non-Free flash software with a link to Adobe even though I'm using Free Gnash.

Appreciate it's in a grey area regarding responsibility to fix (Mozilla / Gnash).

Please mediate and fix it though; this message is very confusing to non-technical users who are quite likely to cause package problems if they try and follow the unnecessary link to Adobe with which they are presented.

[maximi89 (maximi89)]

This happens like comment 4 said...

it's a substitute, so it self identify like Adobe Flash, due to the Flash detection identifiers versions... i guess this could be done creating an additional identifier... this could be done creating a bug in the Gnash bugtrack to create this identifier, this additional identifier will help to mozilla to detect when the people are using SWFdec, LightSpark, Gnash, Adobe or others...

IE, an additional field in the plugins, that identify itself as one of the Flash alternative... then if the plugin it's too old, the same flash alternative have another field with the URL of the flash... so Firefox use that field to tell to the user to update to last version in that URL... or if that field who identify the flash alternative doesn't exist, in that case Firefox just tell to the user to update to Adobe Flash, but if that fields exist, so Firefox tell the other alternative...
More easy could be to have another option, if the flash plugin crash, just tell:

"You need to upgrade to the last version of the flash you use:
http://www.gnashdev.org
https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/wiki
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/"

[Jim Otto (james-r-otto-jr)]

I just updated to working 64-bit flash using the firefox add-on flash-aid.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. This is not exactly a firefox bug, but tracking in any event since it's perceived as such. Upstream doesn't do proper detection of gnash. Please report any other issues you may find.

[Gary D (gmd3006)]

I reported similar problems on bug report 933509. There does seem to be a conflict between the "GNU Gnash free GPL'd SWF player" and the Adobe Flash player; both seem to want to be the only Flash player on the PC.

I had removed, then reinstalled the Adobe player, and kept getting a message saying my Flash was out-of-date. Today, I removed both the Adobe and the GNU Gnash player, and then just reinstalled the Adobe Flash player.

Now, Tools > Addons > "Check to see if your plugins are up to date" reports that my Flash player IS up to date. I can play Youtube OK. The videos on http://tv.yahoo.com/primetime/ no longer report that Flash is not present on the PC, but it plays in erratic 2-5 second snippets skipping through the various videos available there. Likewise on the ABC.com site.

The Adobe flash player installed alone seems to work better than the Gnu Gnash SWF player installed alone. Neither works as well as Adobe Flash on In****** Ex****** on Wi***** XP, though.

.

[Jim Otto (james-r-otto-jr)]

The Firefox add-on Flash-Aid 2.2.3 seems to handle my Flash/Ubuntu problems.

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Gary D <email address hidden> wrote:
> I reported similar problems on bug report 933509.  There does seem to be
> a conflict between the "GNU Gnash free GPL'd SWF player" and the Adobe
> Flash player; both seem to want to be the only Flash player on the PC.
>
> I had removed, then reinstalled the Adobe player, and kept getting a
> message saying my Flash was out-of-date.  Today, I removed both the
> Adobe and the GNU Gnash player, and then just reinstalled the Adobe
> Flash player.
>
> Now, Tools > Addons > "Check to see if your plugins are up to date"
> reports that my Flash player IS up to date.   I can play Youtube OK.
> The videos on http://tv.yahoo.com/primetime/  no longer report that
> Flash is not present on the PC, but it plays in erratic 2-5 second
> snippets skipping through the various videos available there.  Likewise
> on the ABC.com site.
>
> The Adobe flash player installed alone seems to work better than the Gnu
> Gnash SWF player installed alone.  Neither works as well as Adobe Flash
> on  In****** Ex******  on Wi***** XP, though.
>
> .
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/830173
>
> Title:
>  Shockwave Flash outdated version. Can't update it.
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser:
>  Confirmed
> Status in “firefox” package in Ubuntu:
>  Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>  From https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/ clicked the update
>  button. Tried to follow the update instructions. Wasn't able to
>  update.
>
>  ProblemType: Bug
>  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
>  Package: firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-30.56-generic 2.6.35.13
>  Uname: Linux 2.6.35-30-generic x86_64
>  NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
>  Architecture: amd64
>  Date: Sat Aug 20 13:07:29 2011
>  FirefoxPackages:
>   firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   firefox-gnome-support 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   firefox-branding 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   abroswer N/A
>   abrowser-branding N/A
>  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
>  ProcEnviron:
>   LANG=en_US.utf8
>   SHELL=/bin/bash
>  SourcePackage: firefox
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/830173/+subscriptions

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Flash aid isn't a work around. This issue is caused by having gnash installed and Mozilla's website not recognizing gnash as being up to date. If you want Adobe flash, just install it.

[Jim Otto (james-r-otto-jr)]

What Flash-Aid seems to do is 1 remove flash that is in the way and 2
install up to date Adobe. In principle -- as I think you are saying --
Flash-Aid shouldn't be necessary. But for naive users such as myself
-- I'm currently trying to use Ubuntu as a tool rather than as a
development target -- Flash-Aid currently works without my having to
know how.

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Micah Gersten
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Flash aid isn't a work around. This issue is caused by having gnash
> installed and Mozilla's website not recognizing gnash as being up to
> date.  If you want Adobe flash, just install it.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/830173
>
> Title:
>  Shockwave Flash outdated version. Can't update it.
>
> Status in The Mozilla Firefox Browser:
>  Confirmed
> Status in “firefox” package in Ubuntu:
>  Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>  From https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/ clicked the update
>  button. Tried to follow the update instructions. Wasn't able to
>  update.
>
>  ProblemType: Bug
>  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
>  Package: firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-30.56-generic 2.6.35.13
>  Uname: Linux 2.6.35-30-generic x86_64
>  NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
>  Architecture: amd64
>  Date: Sat Aug 20 13:07:29 2011
>  FirefoxPackages:
>   firefox 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   firefox-gnome-support 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   firefox-branding 3.6.20+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.10.10.1
>   abroswer N/A
>   abrowser-branding N/A
>  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
>  ProcEnviron:
>   LANG=en_US.utf8
>   SHELL=/bin/bash
>  SourcePackage: firefox
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/830173/+subscriptions