flash plugin keeps on crashing

[xmonkey]

So i decided to say goodby to windows and go for linux after reading about it for a while and because i'v got tired of windows. So far it is great and works like a charm even though i still really new at this.

But now i have a problem with flash plugin for firefox 15.0.1. Every time i try to play any video on youtube, vimeo or anything else the video skips very fast forward and is all edgy.

I installed linux mint maya for the first time yesterday but my laptop ran out of power during the updates and it resulted in a lot of problems (genius....) so i installed it all over again today without any issues. I run Mint Maya 64bit. i could see a few videos on youtube without any problems earlyer today but the first time i tried to play a video fullscreen the flash plugin crashed. Videos on my computer work fine, so i don't think it's a hardware related problem.

After that i noticed that my flash version is outdated so i installed the newest version according to these instructions and it didn't help at all.

I tried to remove flash by typing sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree and i get an error saying flashplugin-nonfree can not be removed.

I googled for the answer and didn't find anything that worked for me. What am i doing wrong?

sorry for inconvinience if i sound really stupid.
and more info can be provided

[sserbanro]

Hi!
it seems that Flash Age under Linux has come to an end.
I am also looking for a fix.
Since yesterday, 29 september 2012, flash plugin refuses to work, stating that "it is out of date".
Since the issue is well-known, I changed from Chromium to FFox, but got the same result.
Even if the video starts playing, it stops after a few seconds showing the "loading..." animation.
Now, searching for a fix, I found two distinct issues:
1. Adobe ceased support for Linux, since version 11.2 (Adobe site) albeit 11.2.202.238
"NOTE: Adobe Flash Player 11.2 will be the last version to target Linux as a supported platform. Adobe will continue to provide security backports to Flash Player 11.2 for Linux."
2. IF you install this version, all goes crazy. There is another thread on this forum explaining the behaviour. Briefly, image runs faster, and sound either looks like muted or vobbles at least 1 octave lower, both on Chromium and FFox.
Trying to solve this, I found the solution that worked one month ago, but now Adobe blocks FlashPlugin v. 11.0.r1 which we used on Linux distros and worked fine.
The reason pushed forward by Adobe, is "Critical Security Update".
Now, under those circumstances, what might be the solution?
Is there any other way to continue watching videos on Linux?
The issue has far more implications and let me point out only one:
I am producing video tutorials for instructional purposes, for the Romanian market (I am Romanian). Hosting such stuff, in a Linux format (OGV for instance) means spending lots of money. Besides, reinventing the wheel, is my last concern. On the other hand, there are thousands of video tutorials that render useless without the flash support. And this will push us back to Windows, which remains the only choice in this case.
I would like to know what do you think about this and, if possible, a solution for this.

[mephisto]

Flash plugin crashes are all over the place with this latest Linux Flash version. That version did so on Windows too. Later versions are better but still buggy.

Although mine still works fine most of the time, the issue as reported: that the video stops after a couple of seconds/minutes has happened occasionally, using Opera.
It's annoying but not really that problematic for me (yet). On the other hand, I have been watching full live concerts going for over 2 hours without any glitch at all as well.
So the problem is rather irregular.

Since Google uses their own Flash version in Chrome I switched to using Chrome for Youtube/Flash.
I'm not a great fan of Google but youtube works a lot better in Chrome than in my main browser Opera.
I wouldn't be surprised if Google does that on purpose. Blogger (=Google) also said it might not work properly in Opera, which is rubbish, since I never had any problems with it.
I run a video site so Flash is an absolute necessity for me too.
Switching to html5 video for youtube helps as well - obviously.
If you embed youtube videos use the iframe embed, it will detect if the browser supports html5 and if so it will use it instead of flash. (Some videos that use Flash ads will still be Flash though)

If you upload all your flash videos to youtube they should automatically convert them to html5 for you... I think.
Since Flash is proprietary software I don't think there will ever be any solution that Adobe will authorize.
By then html5 video might actually outperform flash.

html5 video seems to work better on Linux than on Win XP at the moment. I had to turn it off on Win XP. It had about all the problems somebody else described above, so I wonder if it was his Flash or Html5 that was problematic.

And if it's any consolation: WIndows 8 will only allow sites whitelisted by Microsoft to use Flash in their "Metro" or "Modern" user interface. For now desktop browsers can still use Flash everywhere. So Flash will be on the way out pretty fast over the next year or so. You will have to re-encode all your videos no matter what over the next years anyway. You better start planning for that. Because that will be inevitable, on Windows or on Linux or Apple or whatever. Flash will soon be a relic of the past. There's simply no way around that.

Also: if you are using/watching youtube videos, right click on the player to see if it actually is the Flash player or the html5 player. Youtube is testing html5 and they are enrolling everybody with an html5 compatible browser in their testing automatically. Both players look identical, only if you right click on the player you can tell from the menu that will open up. If the bottom menu item is : About HTML5 you're using html5 video and NOT Flash..

You can sign out from their trial here http://www.youtube.com/html5

[sserbanro]

@mephisto
Thanks a lot for the info! Kudos!
I tried all the solutions suggested in your reply but results are the same.
I downloaded the so-called Chrome HTML5 beta from Google. The result is a Chrome that has a FlashPlugin inside, instead of HTML5 for YouTube, as stated on the download page. So, in the end, it is a cheap dirty trick to force you install Chrome browser with the latest Adobe plugin and eventually mess all your other browser installations and custom settings, as it happened in fact.
I ended up in fact with having the Flashplugin Shockwave Flash 11.1 r550, which behaves same as the old version that used to work before.
In Chrome, the current installed version, as it is listed in plugins/details:

Code: Select all

Shockwave Flash 11.3 r31
Name:   Shockwave Flash
Description:   Shockwave Flash 11.3 r31
Version:   11.3.31.331
Location:   /opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so
Type:   PPAPI (out-of-process)
     Disable
MIME types:   
MIME type   Description   File extensions
application/x-shockwave-flash   Shockwave Flash   .swf
application/futuresplash   FutureSplash Player   .spl


The previous version, 11.0.1.152 (Linux Mint version) worked fine until yesterday.
I tried all the solutions available for now (GNash, Lightspark). Same result.
Gnash seems to be the closest to a result, but stalls after about 8 seconds, and it takes ages to show something inside the frame.
Chrome, installed FlashPlugin 11.3.31.331 which takes control, instead of using HTML 5, although the 3 browsers are SUPPORTING HTML 5!!
Since the licence states "it is a beta version",...
Anyway, if Google is going to implement HTML 5 on YouTube, in time, this might work.
On Scribd.com for instance, things work fine in all browsers, and now Scribd is rendering the pages using HTML 5 and only as alternate view, you may choose HTML 4.x. This is already a one year or so experience.
Google is one of the toughest supporters of ACTA and SOPA.
Looking from this perspective, I FOUND WHAT HAPPENS.
See my later post on this subject:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=113713