Package is broken since Google stopped shipping Flash with Chrome 54 for Linux
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
pepperflashplugin-nonfree (Debian) |
Fix Released
|
Unknown
|
|||
pepperflashplugin-nonfree (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Trusty |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Bhavani Shankar | ||
Xenial |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Bhavani Shankar | ||
Yakkety |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Bhavani Shankar |
Bug Description
[Impact]
Pepperflashplug
Versions that download the PPAPI plugin from Google are currently broken since Google decided to unbundle the plugin from Chrome 54, released in late 2016-10. Until that date, ripping the PPAPI plugin from a download of Google Chrome (which comes as a .deb package) was a popular way to get it, and the only possible way on Linux in the early days of the PPAPI plugin, when it was only available to Google. Then Adobe made the Linux PPAPI plugin available to Canonical and on their download site.
The Debian package was changed to download the plugin from Adobe, in version 1.8.3+nmu1 on 2017-01-14, and that fix landed in 1.8.3+nmu1ubuntu1 in Ubuntu 17.04 (the current development release) on 2017-01-22.
The package is still broken in the published releases: 16.10 16.04 14.04. It could be repaired by merging the changes made between 1.8.3ubuntu1 and 1.8.3+nmu1ubuntu1 into the published releases' versions of the package.
This would qualify for an SRU because the bug comes from a change in a web service that made the package stop being installable. This change also causes a security vulnerability in so far as the Flash plugin can no longer be updated (updates were processed by downloading a new version of Google Chrome and extracting the bundled Flash plugin).
[Test Case]
On Ubuntu < 17.04, installation and reinstallation of pepperflashplug
[Regression Potential]
I can't think of any. The new version has been in Debian Sid for one month without any report of a regression, so that's a good sign. It was initially tested in debbug 833741.
[Why not to SRU]
On the one hand, it's bad form to leave an utterly broken package in the published releases when it has been fixed in the development release and works there. Theoretically, SRUs should be performed.
On the other hand, pepperflashplug
https:/
https:/
We can consider intentionally not fixing that package in the published releases, in which case this bug report should be marked Won't Fix in Yakkety, Xenial, Trusty.
summary: |
- Package is broken since Google stopped shipping Flash with Chrome 54 on + Package is broken since Google stopped shipping Flash with Chrome 54 for Linux |
description: | updated |
description: | updated |
no longer affects: | freshplayerplugin (Ubuntu) |
Changed in pepperflashplugin-nonfree (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
Changed in pepperflashplugin-nonfree (Debian): | |
status: | Unknown → New |
Changed in pepperflashplugin-nonfree (Debian): | |
status: | New → Fix Released |
description: | updated |
I installed Google Chrome 54 on Kubuntu 16.04. Chrome downloaded libpepflashplay er.so to: .config/ google- chrome/ PepperFlash/ 23.0.0. 185/libpepflash player. so
/home/kubuntu/
It looks like Google Chrome downloads the Flash plugin at runtime.