!SOLVED! Flash gives a white/black screen on youtube

Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
TPUSER

!SOLVED! Flash gives a white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

Okay, I've read tons of threads on here about flash problems. It used to work for me and I went through the 'needs to be updated' stuff. I followed the wiki and installed 11.2.202. When I go to youtube (on Firefox), I get a black screen like the video is going to load, but it then switches to white, then black again. I am now starting to think that my video card in my ancient T23 isn't up to the task. It's a S3 SuperSavage/IXC. I don't get any error messages at all, and flash shows as enabled in the Firefox plugins.
I tried Google Chrome and it says that I need the Adobe plugin. I thought it was INCLUDED with Chrome?
Any ideas, or is my laptop too old? I never have had flash issues until rcently.
Thank you.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
bigj231

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by bigj231 »

How did you get the S3 supersavage to work? I used to have one that I could never get to work at all. I don't think that the card is powerful enough for flash decoding though. I seem to recall a few threads about the old, low end nVidia cards having issues as well.

Which version of chrome did you try? I think the 64 bit version did not come with flash but the 32 bit did. I think it also preferred the system version over its own version. I could be mistaken on that though.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

I'm pretty sure I used VESA when I installed to avoid any problems. I'm not sure. It says "VGA compatible controller.......S3 Inc. SuperSavage IX/C SDR (rev 05)
However it says it loads savagefb module which is framebuffer I suppose.
I've never had a problem before with flash on this machine, even using default 360dpi on youtube.
My other T23 with XP works fine with flash.
I guess if this problem continues, I'll be using my XP machine, at least until Chromium gets its act together with integrated flash.
Thanks for your reply.
BTW, using XFCE. I have 1GB ram with a 1.13g processor. Isn't this the type of machine that's meant for XFCE? I thought so.
bigj231

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by bigj231 »

You are correct, XFCE is meant for lower system requirements. If you're looking for another DE to try, I've heard good things about LXDE and Enlightenment. I've only used LXDE once or twice on knoppix when I was trying to fix something. Never tried Enlightenment. Either one beats JWM.

Chromium doesn't have integrated flash if I recall correctly. Chrome does, but I don't recall if it's only the 32 bit version or if the 64 bit version now has it too.
You should probably only run 32 bit on that system anyway. There's no good reason to run a 64 bit OS with less than 4GB of RAM.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

I DID d'l and install Chrome. Got the same error message as Chromium. "Could not load Shockwave Flash".
I might give LXDE a try. I am wondering if a new kernal might have messed me up. Mint 13 XFCE used to work perfectly. Might try a re-install, and NOT do kernal upgrades.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

Ya just gotta love Linux! Installed Chrome again and flash works. It'll probably quit working, though, so I'm not holding my breath nor will I be surprised when it quits working.
bigj231

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by bigj231 »

Glad you got it to work. I don't see why a kernel upgrade would remove flash. It's possible that the mint-flasplugin or the adobe flash plugin upgraded at the same time and caused issues. I would recommend removing both of those if either of them are still installed on your system.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

I don't think mint-flash-plugin and the adobe plugin can coexist. Adobe will remove Mint's plugin.
bigj231

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by bigj231 »

You are correct, but I think uninstalling one installs the other. I could be mistaken on that though. There are some packages that do that in any case.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

I think you have it backwards; i.e. if you install one, it uninstalls the other.
bigj231

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by bigj231 »

Flash may do that, but I distinctly recall it being a pain in the *** to remove both versions of some package to build it from source. Maybe ffmpeg? I don't recall. All I know is it took me a few days to get it to work.
Flash may not be like that. It may only remove packages as you install new ones. It's been a while since I had to install anything not in the repositories.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

I am going to try the new Antix. They state they are using an older version of flash for older PII & PIII machines.
Can anybody tell me how to install an older version of Flash on my machine?
palo
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 7:28 am
Location: Walking on sunshine

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by palo »

TPUSER wrote:I am going to try the new Antix. They state they are using an older version of flash for older PII & PIII machines.
Can anybody tell me how to install an older version of Flash on my machine?
Have you tried the version 10.2.153.1 that is in the Mint repo? How far back do you want to go? I have tried getting good flash performance on older hardware using a variety of nixs including antiX, Puppy, etc but found though they excelled at everything else flash performance was not as good as it is with XP. So if flash is that important you may find
TPUSER wrote:My other T23 with XP works fine with flash.
I guess if this problem continues, I'll be using my XP machine,


That was the option I had to settle for on a box that I used solely to stream to my TV (I used TinyXP though).

Pat

I am not employed by, nor have stock in Microsoft....just sayin'
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

It's kind of sad, isn't it? The Pepper plugin for Chromium/Chrome doesn't work, Flash on Firefox doesn't work, and nobody seems to have the answer. I've spent 20 hours over various nights searching for an answer. At this point, I'm tired of it. I am very surprised that this issue hasn't been dealt with in the Linux community. We need our own open source flash plugin that works. Youtube is one of the most popular sites in the world, and one I use a lot, since I am an active working musician. I have used Linux since 2003, so until Chrome/Chromium/Firefox/---- works with flash I will have to RELUCTENTLY ditch my favorite operating system (Mint) and go back to XP. However I will try Antix, since they do state that they use an older version of flash. I'll use the live CD to see what flash version they are using, and then I might come back here or elsewhere to hopefully find help with installing it if I have a problem.
Thank you all for your time, and THANK YOU CLEM, for all your efforts!
palo
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 476
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 7:28 am
Location: Walking on sunshine

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by palo »

TPUSER wrote: I am very surprised that this issue hasn't been dealt with in the Linux community.
I think you are very mistaken with your assumption that it is a Linux issue to fix. Macromedia/Adobe flash was optimized for Windows and having it work on Linux is an afterthought. Linux is not responsible for making it work right no more than it is responsible for making nVidia drivers work right. New hardware plays flash in Linux just fine. You want to use old hardware - well your choices/options/expectations need to be adjusted.

Pat
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

palo wrote:
TPUSER wrote: I am very surprised that this issue hasn't been dealt with in the Linux community.
I think you are very mistaken with your assumption that it is a Linux issue to fix. Macromedia/Adobe flash was optimized for Windows and having it work on Linux is an afterthought. Linux is not responsible for making it work right no more than it is responsible for making nVidia drivers work right. New hardware plays flash in Linux just fine. You want to use old hardware - well your choices/options/expectations need to be adjusted.

Pat
Part of the popularity with Linux is that it's less resource-hungry than Windows. Linux has always been a saviour of systems that are less than state of the art. My S3 Savage video is more than capable of watching a Youtube video. I've had it since I've been using Linux (2003) and have never had a problem with Flash until now. It recognizes my video subsystem correctly. The latest Flash for Linux (11.2) should work on my machine, and HAS worked on my machine. I am not saying that Linux is RESPONSIBLE for my problem. My machine is capable of watching a youtube video. So, if Linux stops support for PIII processors, are we to say it's not an issue that Linux should fix? If Linux is not an option for older hardware, then why are the devlopers of Xfce, LXDE, IceWM, etc., wasting their time? Why are so many developers wasting their time on distros meant for older hardware? Do they want to make a OS that only boots up but will not play music or display a picture on anything but the latest hardware? I think not. It was not the open source community's 'problem' to come up with an office suite either, but they did, with OpenOffice and now LibreOffice, because people needed it. I am not dissing Linux. I am and have been a promoter of Linux. All I am saying is, that there is someone capable enough out there somewhere to come up with a Flash replacement, and while I agree with your Nvidia comparison, Flash is software and Nvidia is hardware that needs to be reverse-engineered. We're talking apples and oranges here in comparing a hardware driver and a software solution.
Furthermore, I don't like your attitude.
"You want to use old hardware - well your choices/options/expectations need to be adjusted". My hardware has worked since 2003 with Flash, using Debian, Redhat, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Mint, and a thousand other live CD's. I will ditch my T23 when it won't run XP any longer, at which point it will be ready for the trash anyway. Sorry, I don't need to adjust anything. Good day.
TPUSER

Re: Flash gives an alternating white/black screen on youtube

Post by TPUSER »

Just removed 11.2, installed 10.3.183.50. All is well!
Locked

Return to “Sound”