Installing Macromedia flash player doesn't cause Flash to work immediately

[Gerv]

I did a usability test recently with my housemate, who has never used Linux before. We installed Hardy on his Dell laptop after the Windows install died, and then I watched his first half an hour while giving him tasks to do. This bug comes out of that experience.

a) The installation process for Flash in Firefox, when prompted via YouTube, sucks. YouTube gives you a link to the Macromedia website, which (if you can find your way round it) gives you .tar.gz, rpm or yum. Not that my housemate knows what any of those are anyway. We need a process as smooth as the codec download stuff.

c) (The thing this bug is about) Once you've installed flashplugin-nonfree, Firefox still doesn't work. You have to restart Firefox. But he didn't know that. He assumed it hadn't worked. Either:

- The installation should end with a screen saying "now restart Firefox"
or
- It should Just Work(TM).

Gerv

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

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Gerv wrote:
| Public bug reported:
|
| I did a usability test recently with my housemate, who has never used
| Linux before. We installed Hardy on his Dell laptop after the Windows
| install died, and then I watched his first half an hour while giving him
| tasks to do. This bug comes out of that experience.
|
| a) The installation process for Flash in Firefox, when prompted via
| YouTube, sucks. YouTube gives you a link to the Macromedia website,
| which (if you can find your way round it) gives you .tar.gz, rpm or yum.
| Not that my housemate knows what any of those are anyway. We need a
| process as smooth as the codec download stuff.
|
| c) (The thing this bug is about) Once you've installed flashplugin-
| nonfree, Firefox still doesn't work. You have to restart Firefox. But he
| didn't know that. He assumed it hadn't worked. Either:
|
| - The installation should end with a screen saying "now restart Firefox"
| or
| - It should Just Work(TM).
|
| Gerv
|
| ** Affects: flashplugin-nonfree (Ubuntu)
| Importance: Undecided
| Status: New
|
We introduced the "Get Extensions" dialog to help you with this process.
It sounds like you were using the Adobe Flash Extension Kit the one that
shows up in top right corner of page.

the adobe flash detection kit prevents the plugin finder wizard to pop
up and instead sends the user to flash site asking user to install it
manually. We are working on a way to make the flash detection kit void
but we have to see what flash and mozilla think before we can do this.

As for the Firefox need to be restarted this is normal behavior and if
you look in upper gnome panel if using gnome a light bulb looking icon
will be there prompting user to restart Firefox. I will change this to a
wish list bug and change the summary to fit just teh plugin finder

~ Status Confirmed
~ Importance Wishlist

- --
Sincerely Yours,
~ John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246
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[Gerv (gerv)]

John: I think you've mistriaged this. I don't know what the "Adobe Flash Extension Kit" is, and I wasn't using it. Nothing showed up in the top right hand corner of the page. He visited YouTube, and it told him (in the page) "either JS is off or you need an upgraded Flash", and gave him a link to Macromedia. Neither Firefox nor Ubuntu did anything special to prompt Flash installation.

Exactly the same problem was reported in the great Ubuntu Girlfriend Experiment:
http://contentconsumer.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enough-for-my-girlfriend/
(Second task)

In addition, after installing flashplugin-nonfree via Synaptic we didn't see any light bulb suggesting that Firefox be restarted. It's possible we may have missed it, but I don't think so. Regardless, a small lightbulb appearing wouldn't be enough - you need a desktop notification.

I work for the Mozilla Foundation, so I do know a bit about how this works. :-)

Gerv

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[Gerv (gerv)]

Joel: what information are you looking for?

Gerv

[Joel Goguen (jgoguen)]

Hi Gerv,

We would like to know if this is still an issue for you using the latest version of Firefox and Ubuntu. Are you able to give this a try with Firefox 3.0.11 in Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty)?