flash issues with Mint [SOLVED]

[dsimpson]

I have Mint 7 (Gloria) and have had problems playing flash video since I installed it. I am using FF-3.5 Shiretoko and when I play a flash video it goes for anywhere from 30 seconds to around 2 minutes then stop and displays the symbol which shows it to be buffering but it never does start up again. I have had the same problem with FF-3.0 and have the same issues if I try that version also. I have tried the suggestions shown in this link: (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=12341) which pointed to this one: (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766683) and went through them step by step with no luck. I have set up youtube for downloading and that will work but streaming isn't available. I visit some webpages that have embedded flash video and it will stall, and when I click on the video and it takes me to youtube that video will also fail after a few seconds to a couple of minutes max. and then I have to download, which is a pain in the neck. The site that I am trying to view the video is here: (http://jorgecruise.com/http://jorgecruise.com/). I would appreciate any help that can be offered to resolve this issue. Oh yeah, I almost forgot another quirk in FF-3.5 and that is on some pages the faces of the people displayed will be a dark blue in color, on sites such as foxnews or espn etc. What can be causing this strange display?


lspci;
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82840 840 [Carmel] Chipset Host Bridge (Hub A) (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82840 840 [Carmel] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801AA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA USB Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801AA SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV10GL [Quadro] (rev 10)
02:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
02:0e.0 PCI bridge: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21152 (rev 03)
03:05.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)
03:0a.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7899P U160/m (rev 01)
03:0a.1 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7899P U160/m (rev 01)

[lagagnon]

First of all do you have the correct nVidia driver for your video card? Did you go to Control Center, Hardware, Hardware Drivers, and if so did you install the suggested driver there?

Secondly, I have noticed slowdowns the past 24 hours from YouTube servers and buffering here just as you have. Are your effects long term or short term? If just the past 2 days it may not be your problem whatsoever....

[dsimpson]

First off, thank you for your reply, now to answer your questions...
I checked the driver, it says that I have no proprietary drivers installed on my system, although it lists an alternative madwifi driver that I can install if I have any problems with the ath5k atheros driver, which seems to have worked without any problems. As to the question of time of problem, yes, it has been happening for several months at least, I finally told my wife I would check and see if I could do something to improve the video problem. I did notice the problem also on my wife's computer, she also is having problems viewing the videos and when downloading it will stop and, pause then resume has to be pressed to restart the download. But this seems to be happening on all downloads of video, not just the youtube site, but on video embedded on a host webpage. And as to the buffering, I could see that if it would buffer and then resume, but it just sits there and continues the buffering and never resumes playing. I have to move the bar which shows how much progress the video has played and then click pause and resume which sometimes will work and it will again play, but that doesn't work.I have Mint on both computers and am running FF-3.5 on mine predominently and FF-3.0 is on my wife's computer.
My daughter was home during the summer and has XP on her laptop and doesn't seem to have this problem at all. I have a satellite internet connection which downloads on the average of about 180kbs on a rated 1.5mbs download speed, and that has been about average for as long as I have had the satellite system (about 3 years). Also there was the question I posed about the graphics, well not the graphics but the pictures of people being dark blue, has anyone else had that phenomenon show up on there FF-3.5 setup? It isn't all pictures and only a few graphics that are shown this way, so it seems the rendering of some sites, but not all, are faulty, which is strange.

[htismaqe]

If you're using Mint Gloria, try using the Epiphany browser.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=34253

[dsimpson]

Hi htismage,
Thank you for the suggestion, tried and it is the same. Downloaded Epiphany and it took forever and 3 different reloads to finally get to my homepage, then played the embedded video and it ran for 1min.22secs and then went to the buffering mode and I let it try for 10 minutes and it never did resume, this is the same issue I am having with FF-3.5 so I am back to square 1 again. What did play of the video was jumpy and not smooth like in FF-3.5. I won't write it off yet if you can offer some fixes or solutions for the slowness and the jumpy video. Sometimes when changing url's I will get the message that it has timed out and I will keep retrying several time before it finally will load the webpage.
I will wait for more input, later, Duane

whoops! while I was posting this on FF-3.5, Epiphany mysteriously disappeared, just closed on its own for whatever reason.

[dawgdoc]

lspci;
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV10GL [Quadro] (rev 10)

Isn't the Quadro series of graphics card more in line for professional workstations?

I checked the driver, it says that I have no proprietary drivers installed on my system...

If it makes a difference: nVidia has linux drivers at this site for their Quadro cards. There are different drivers depending on the series of your card.

Linux Display Driver - x86
Version: 185.18.36
Release Date: 2009.08.21
FOR
Quadro FX series:
FX 3800, FX 570, FX 370, FX 5500, FX 4500 X2, FX 550, FX 580, FX 1800, FX 1700, FX 1500, FX 3700, FX 4600, FX 5600, FX 3450, FX 1400, FX 540, FX 4700 X2, CX, FX 4800, FX 4000, FX 560, FX 370 Low Profile, FX 350, FX 4500, FX 3500, FX 3400/4400, FX 5800, FX 380

Quadro FX Notebook series: FX 1700M, FX 1600M, FX 3600M, FX 570M, FX 2700M, FX 370M, FX 360M
Quadro NVS series: NVS 450, NVS 295, NVS 290, NVS 210, NVS 420, NVS 280, NVS 285, NVS 440
Quadro Plex series: D Series, Model IV, Model II
Quadro G-Sync series: G-Sync II, G-Sync I
Quadro SDI series: Quadro SDI

Another driver on their site is:
Linux Display Driver - x86
Version: 96.43.13
Operating System: Linux x86
Release Date: July 01, 2009

[htismaqe]

Hi htismage,
Thank you for the suggestion, tried and it is the same. Downloaded Epiphany and it took forever and 3 different reloads to finally get to my homepage, then played the embedded video and it ran for 1min.22secs and then went to the buffering mode and I let it try for 10 minutes and it never did resume, this is the same issue I am having with FF-3.5 so I am back to square 1 again. What did play of the video was jumpy and not smooth like in FF-3.5. I won't write it off yet if you can offer some fixes or solutions for the slowness and the jumpy video. Sometimes when changing url's I will get the message that it has timed out and I will keep retrying several time before it finally will load the webpage.
I will wait for more input, later, Duane

If you're seeing that kind of performance out of Ephiphany, then the problem is likely a lower common denominator, like your video drivers, so I would start there.

whoops! while I was posting this on FF-3.5, Epiphany mysteriously disappeared, just closed on its own for whatever reason.

That is an unfortunate issue with Webkit-based browsers in Ubuntu 9.04. It's better if you upgrade Webkit and Libsoup from PPA, but it probably won't be completely fixed until Karmic is released.

[dsimpson]

Hi,
Yes, I believe the Quadro may have been designed for that, this one specifically came from a workstation, but was configured with it's own hd for storage while connected to a network. It was used for cad/cam work and the files stored on the hd but accessible to the workgroup. I got it when it was retired a few years back because I wanted to check out a dual cpu, rimm memory system to see how it would hold up, but it has caused me alot of work getting it configured to run well with linux, starting with the bios and working forward to the hd's one a scsi (Primary) and the other ide (secondary). I have tried Ubuntu, but Mint seems to be the easiest so I would like to get it working properly, especially on the graphics and video side.
I checked the NVIDIA site for drivers and there wasn't anything listed for my version, so I posted a message to their support area and am awaiting a response, which may take a day or so concerning updated drivers for linux. Now, how would one go about upgrading webkit and libsoup, is this done through synaptic? If so how is it listed so I can find and install?
Will be waiting for more info coming my way, and thanks for what has been offered so far, later, Duane

[dawgdoc]

...Now, how would one go about upgrading webkit and libsoup, is this done through synaptic? If so how is it listed so I can find and install?
Will be waiting for more info coming my way, and thanks for what has been offered so far, later, Duane

Yes, go to Synaptic to install these packages. Either enter in to the QuickSearch box or click the Search icon. Synaptic searches in the package name and the description/extended description.

When I enter libsoup, I receive a list of 10 packages, two of which are installed; libsoup2.4-1 and libsoup-gnome2.4-1. (libsoup2.2-8 packages are some of the others available.) When I search for webkit, 29 packages were found, none were installed. Be sure of what you want before marking for installation. I doubt that you need all of either group.

To mark for installation, click on the box to the left of the package name. Pick the appropriate option from the dialog box that appears. Now click Apply in the toolbar.

[dsimpson]

yep, will agree about not installing something that I am unsure of, there is too much there for me to make a decision. Will wait for Karmic for the fix.

[htismaqe]

With the libsoup and webkit packages available in the Ubuntu Jaunty repos, I had quite a few crashes in Midori. I ended up upgrading by adding the webkit developers PPA to my 3rd party sources. It's much better.

But if you're not sure about doing that, the latest versions of webkit and libsoup will be included in Karmic. (As will the latest GTK+ libs - I wanted to upgrade those but it's far too risky, so I too am waiting for Karmic).

[dsimpson]

dawgdoc,
I downloaded the updated driver for my version of nVidea driver, & am trying to build up the nerve to go ahead with the install, there are so many cautions in the directions, but eventually it will have to be done so it might as well be tonight.
htismage,
I think I will wait for the libsoup and webkit upgrades to come out in Karmic, I will check that out until the next "Helena" mint is out, then switch back to that, by then I hope that I will know enough about any glitches that it won't be a major problem.
Well guys,
back to the issue at hand, which is trying to make flash work with what I am running now, and also the problem with blue pictures on some websites. Any ideas that I can try?

[htismaqe]

I tried pretty much everything to get Flash to work under Mint 7 and just couldn't get it to where it was good enough. Sorry.

[dsimpson]

thank you htismaqe for the reply, sorry it took so long to get back to you on this but it is hunting season and must fill the freezer for the year. I appreciate you help, and will keep this open until the next version Helena comes out and hopefully that can address the problems with flash utilization. Later.

[htismaqe]

Karmic release is still on track for tomorrow, so I should be able to comment on it by the weekend. Since it will be the base for Helena, hopefully we'll get some positives.

[dsimpson]

Updating this issue,

I tried Ubuntu Karmic and had the same problem, flash video would play for a short time then stop and go into buffering mode, waited for Helena to see if the problem was resolved here, still have the same issue. If I am playing utube or embedded utube video on my computer, it will play for up to 2 minutes and then the video stops loading and will go into buffering mode and just sit there and go no further. I just want to reopen this thread to see if anyone else has the problem and if there is a solution out there.
I know there are add-ons that I can install in firefox to download and view the videos but that takes extra time and for videos which are 3-4 minutes long it is a pain, not a real remedy. I would like to get this working the way it is supposed to, any ideas?

[gn2]

Whenever I've had issues with Flash in Firefox on a 32-bit Ubuntu (or derivative) I've found that removing Pulseaudio and the libflashplayer package cured the problem.

On a 64-bit system, using the Adobe 64-bit version downloaded from their site rather than the repo version worked.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-I ... 8076.shtml
(works on newer versions too)

[dsimpson]

Hi gn2, thanks for the suggestion. How do I go about removing pulseaudio and libflashplayer? do I do it through synaptic or terminal, and if terminal what exactly are the commands? What is the purpose of pulseaudio and libflashplayer? are they essential to the Helena audio or video environment? will this trash or harm my system in any way? can it be undone if it causes problems. I know, alot of questions, but I like to cover all the bases.

[gn2]

Use synaptic, they can be replaced later on if required.

[dsimpson]

Hi again, I removed pulseaudio but on the search for libflashplayer I didn't get any hits so that wasn't removed, could it be listed under some other header such as "plugins" or something similar, I can't seem to find it listed.