pepperflash chromium plugin doesn't work

[Martin Vysny]

I have chromium-browser and pepperflashplugin-nonfree installed on my Ubuntu 16.10 x86-64. Yet, the Flash plugin apparently doesn't work: when I head to https://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ the "Couldn't load plugin" text is displayed instead of the expected Flash animation. Also, Spotify web player does not work.

The plugin seems to be installed correctly, the chrome://plugins page says:
Adobe Flash Player - Version: 11.2.999.999
Shockwave Flash 11.2 r999

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: pepperflashplugin-nonfree 1.8.2+nmu1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-27.29-generic 4.8.1
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-27-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Nov 27 11:07:00 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-03-07 (995 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130423.1)
SourcePackage: pepperflashplugin-nonfree
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to yakkety on 2016-09-29 (59 days ago)

[Naël (nathanael-naeri)]

pepperflashplugin-nonfree is well-known to be broken since Google stopped shipping the PPAPI Flash plugin with Chrome 54: see e.g. bug 1632870. The package has not been fixed yet. Besides, if it worked, it would install PPAPI Flash version 23.0, not the NPAPI Flash version 11.2 that is inexplicably detected by chrome://plugins in your case (I thought Chromium only supported PPAPI plugins?).

If you want an up-to-date version of pepperflashplugin-nonfree specifically, try the one in Jonathon Fernyhough's PPA, it's fixed (https://launchpad.net/~jonathonf/+archive/ubuntu/pepperflashplugin-nonfree).

The recommended way to install the NPAPI and PPAPI Flash plugins is through the adobe-flashplugin package though, which is in Canonical's Partner repository (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Chromium/Getting-Flash). Enable this repository, remove ALL other Flash-providing packages (pepflashplugin-nonfree, flashplugin-installer, pepperflashplugin-nonfree...), and install adobe-flashplugin.

[Naël (nathanael-naeri)]

Bug fixed in Debian Sid and Ubuntu Zesty, pepperflashplugin-nonfree version 1.8.3+nmu1ubuntu1. See bug 1632870 comment 34.

Pepperflashplugin-nonfree is still not recommended over adobe-flashplugin though.