Description of problem: Adobe upgraded their official Flashplayer plug-in for Linux recently from 11.x series to brand-new 24.x series (now same version for all platforms). The new Flashplayer 24.x runs fine with Mozilla's generic Linux 64-bit build of Firefox (downloaded from mozilla.org). With Fedora's customized build of Firefox the new Flashplayer 24.x runs fine in general (it's pretty hard to find sites still requiring Flash) but always crashes on Google Play Music (https://play.google.com/music/). It worked fine with the previous Flashplayer 11.x series. Unfortunately, Google Play Music (in case you don't know, Google's version of Spotify) requires login with Google account and either a paid subscription or at least valid credit card details. (I'm really sorry, but I don't know how to make the problem easier to reproduce.) When loading the page, Flashplayer plug-in is required, and then it crashes before the page has even finished to load. (Verified with freshly created test accounts, no cookies, no cached data; also checked on 4 different systems with very different hardware.) Maybe it's not Fedora's fault - but Google's fault or Adobe's fault. (It's not about blaming anybody, I just want to happily listen to music. :-) I've already asked Adobe support for help and they replied within hours and asked for the crash report... However, it's impossible to debug any further because Fedora's Firefox build has the Crash Reporter disabled (--disable-crashreporter). Why is that? That makes it hard for Adobe (or Google) to help. That's the reason for this ticket. Only Fedora can help! Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): firefox-50.0.2-1.fc25.x86_64 (Fedora 25) firefox-50.0.2.tar.bz2 (Linux 64-bit, via mozilla.org) flash-plugin-11.2.202.644-release.x86_64 (via adobe.com) flash-plugin-24.0.0.186-release.x86_64 (via adobe.com) How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install "flash-plugin" package (directly as RPM or via DNF) from adobe.com, current official version series 24.x 2. Start Firefox (Fedora build) and go to https://play.google.com/music/ 3. Watch the Flashplayer plug-in crash when page loads. 4. Firefox offers to reload page, but same crash then. Actual results: Flashplayer 24.x plug-in crashes. No crash report available because that feature is disabled in Fedora's Firefox build. Expected results: Flashplayer 24.x should run fine like it does in Mozilla's build of Firefox (and as it did with the previous Flashplayer version 11.x). At least a working crash reporter would be nice to get support from Adobe and Google. Additional info: During the crashes, Firefox outputs messages like these in terminal: ###!!! [Parent][MessageChannel::Call] Error: Channel error: cannot send/recv ###!!! [Parent][MessageChannel::Call] Error: (msgtype=0xB80006,name=PPluginInstance::Msg_NPP_SetWindow) Channel error: cannot send/recv Besides what other people on the web say, Firefox (Fedora build) and Flashplayer (11.x) worked rock-solid for years. No problems here. This is the first problem since years, honestly. I'm just an end-user. To me, both builds of Firefox (Mozilla & Firefox) look pretty much the same. However, the build options (about:buildconfig) are very different. They are appended, just in case, maybe some Fedora guru spots a potential problem at first glance. Fedora Firefox build (50.0.2) ----------------------------- Build platform target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags /usr/bin/gcc -std=gnu99 6.2.1 -Wall -Wempty-body -Wignored-qualifiers -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits -Wunreachable-code -Wno-error=maybe-uninitialized -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-bounds -O2 -g -pipe -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -m64 -mtune=generic -Wformat-security -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks -fPIC -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -fno-strict-aliasing -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-math-errno -pthread -pipe /usr/bin/g++ -std=gnu++11 6.2.1 -Wall -Wc++11-compat -Wempty-body -Wignored-qualifiers -Woverloaded-virtual -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits -Wunreachable-code -Wwrite-strings -Wc++14-compat -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-error=maybe-uninitialized -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-bounds -O2 -g -pipe -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -m64 -mtune=generic -Wformat-security -Wformat -Werror=format-security -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks -fPIC -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -fno-exceptions -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-rtti -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-exceptions -fno-math-errno -pthread -pipe -g -freorder-blocks -Os -fomit-frame-pointer Configure options --enable-application=browser --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk3 --disable-tests --enable-rust --enable-system-hunspell --disable-crashreporter --enable-gio --enable-necko-wifi --enable-official-branding --enable-optimize --enable-pie --enable-pulseaudio --enable-release --enable-startup-notification --disable-strip --disable-system-cairo --enable-system-ffi --enable-system-sqlite --disable-updater --enable-url-classifier --libdir=/usr/lib64 --prefix=/usr --with-mozilla-api-keyfile=../mozilla-api-key --with-pthreads --with-system-bz2 --with-system-icu --with-system-jpeg --with-system-libvpx --with-system-nspr --with-system-nss --with-system-zlib Mozilla Firefox build (50.0.2) ------------------------------ Source Built from https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/rev/cc272f7d48d3544ffaf242b51430ffcf3a932a29 Build platform target x86_64-pc-linux-gnu Build tools Compiler Version Compiler flags /builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/gcc/bin/gcc -std=gnu99 4.8.5 -Wall -Wempty-body -Wignored-qualifiers -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits -Wunreachable-code -Wno-error=maybe-uninitialized -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-bounds -Wno-error=coverage-mismatch -Wno-error=free-nonheap-object -fno-strict-aliasing -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-math-errno -pthread -pipe /builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/gcc/bin/g++ -std=gnu++11 4.8.5 -Wall -Wc++11-compat -Wempty-body -Wignored-qualifiers -Woverloaded-virtual -Wpointer-arith -Wsign-compare -Wtype-limits -Wunreachable-code -Wwrite-strings -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-error=maybe-uninitialized -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wno-error=array-bounds -Wno-error=coverage-mismatch -Wno-error=free-nonheap-object -fno-exceptions -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-rtti -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-exceptions -fno-math-errno -pthread -D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0 -pipe -g -fprofile-use -fprofile-correction -Wcoverage-mismatch -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -Werror Configure options --enable-update-channel=release PKG_CONFIG=/builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/gtk3/usr/local/bin/pkg-config --enable-js-shell --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk3 CC=/builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/gcc/bin/gcc CXX=/builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/gcc/bin/g++ --enable-rust RUSTC=/builds/slave/m-rel-l64-00000000000000000000/build/src/rustc/bin/rustc --enable-crashreporter --enable-elf-hack --enable-official-branding --enable-release --enable-stdcxx-compat --enable-verify-mar --enable-warnings-as-errors --with-google-api-keyfile=/builds/gapi.data --with-google-oauth-api-keyfile=/builds/google-oauth-api.key --with-mozilla-api-keyfile=/builds/mozilla-desktop-geoloc-api.key
Thanks for the report, unfortunately I don't have Google play account. I'll see how many people reports that but the flash is a closed source software so we have very limited options to fix that. I see you report that Fedora does not have enabled mozilla crash reporter. We're going to enable it. In meantime you can get the backtrace by ABRT tool provided by Fedora, the backtrace will be uploaded to public server at https://retrace.fedoraproject.org/faf/summary/ and can be reported to Adobe.
I'd love to do so but "abrt-cli list" doesn't show any event related to that issue. I don't know what exactly triggers abrtd to collect data. The Firefox user-interface reports it as "crash" but maybe the Firefox plugin-container (running the flashplayer object) fails/aborts in a way which doesn't trigger abrtd. Hopefully the re-enabled crash reporter in future builds of Fedora's firefox is able to provide more details about the failing flashplayer plug-in. I'm looking forward to it.
This build: https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=828583 has the Mozilla crash reported enabled.
Very good, thanks a lot for that build. Now I could successfully create a crash report which can be found here: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-7ddcde92-ec2d-4120-a075-bbdd52161225 There's also a thread on the Adobe support forum and a (very short) discussion on Google Groups where one other Fedora user acknowledged to have the same problem. Maybe it helps: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2251159 https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/d/topic/play/THkBN9w5Hxs/ I'll try to keep this ticket up-to-date as soon as there is new information. Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I'm also experiencing this issue, also seemingly only on the Fedora build of Firefox and not on the mozilla.org build of Firefox. I'm on Fedora 25 x64; Flash player 24.0.0.186. This affected me on many uses of Flash beyond Google Play, including a bug report I filed on ZeroClipboard: https://github.com/zeroclipboard/zeroclipboard/issues/676
I'm having the same issue visiting cnn.com. 1. Go to cnn.com 2. select a story with a video Instead of the video starting to play automatically, the flash plugin (version 24) crashes. I also notice if close a tab where a flash plugin is being used, any other tab with flash content will crash. The plugin does not crash when using a firefox build from mozilla.com I'm using fedora 24
<Sigh> Thought I'd give FF a try again and having the same issue. Kind of ironic that Google is suppose to be getting rid of Flash dependencies, yet they require it on Google Music of all things. Add that to the fact that Adobe finally gets around to updating their Flash plugin and what does it do... crash of course.
I can also confirm that it works when you don't use the Fedora build and instead install from mozilla.com. I'm on F25.
Adobe engineers have confirmed those crashes but the total number of affected users is too small to investigate any further. (The number of Linux users already is pretty small compared to Windows users, and it gets even smaller for those Linux users running Fedora and also using Fedora's recompiled Firefox.) Unfortunately, it's still unknown if the bug is in Flashplayer plug-in or in Fedora's Firefox. Mozilla's vanilla Firefox uses slightly different compile-time options and comes with some included libraries which might behave differently than Fedora system libraries. Funny thing is that I haven't had Flashplayer crashes for years. Now that the big days of Flashplayer are over anyway (still required only by very few sites), it starts to crash more often (it's not just on Google Play Music, but for me that's the easiest to reproduce). Don't know if other popular distributions (eg, Debian or Ubuntu) are affected as well. As far as I know they also recompile Firefox with some custom options. Regarding to comment #8 the Flash videos on cnn.com run fine here (Fedora 25). Maybe some of Fedora 24 Firefox's build options or system libraries confuse the libflashplayer.so binary even more.
Yes, I read the Adobe response... it was lame. First of all, most people don't take the time and effort to file a bug report. They would just use something that works -- Chrome. In this instance however, there is a very strong indication that this is limited to the Fedora build - so from that point of view I can understand their attitude (although, the response should be that they'll render any assistance they can rather than you're on your own). So the workaround until Fedora can figure out what is different is to install directly from Mozilla - or, probably the best solution - just use Chrome. Unfortunately, breakage such as this and the subsequent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ response just accelerates the exodus from Firefox to Chrome. As more people leave, less people will be using different applications on Firefox and there will be more instances of "the total number of affected users is too small".
Please try to creant and attach a backtrace, how-to is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Debugging_guidelines_for_Mozilla_products#Application_crash
BTW. the crash stats at mozilla does not contain debug symbols - please try to reproduce with 51.0 and report again at mozilla - the debug symbols should be uploaded.
The updated Firefox package seems to fix this. Adobe's attitude towards Linux and Firefox users is a good reason to put pressure on sites to drop the use of Flash.
Just installed the brandnew firefox-debuginfo 51.0.1 from koji (comment #13), then I read comment #15, and now it turns out that Google (without any announcements I know of) seems to have rolled out a new Music web-player that no longer requires Flashplayer plug-in. Must have happened during last weekend. Don't know if the new web-player is enabled for all customers or just a few (as Google sometimes does). On 20st January 2017 a Fedora user still reported the crash: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=313028 Next day, another user could no longer verify the problem. Checked with Firefox 50.1 (Fedora's official) and 51.0.1 (Koji), and I can verify that Google Play Music no longer requires Flashplayer plug-in (for both versions of Firefox, 50.x and 51.x) Good news is, Flashplayer has just become even more meaningless. Bad news is, the Flashplayer crashes still happen on some other sites. However, they happen randomly and not very often which makes it difficult to reproduce. If anybody knows of another site with a 100% chance of crash, I volunteer to do the debug stuff, provide crash stats etc.
Haha, no luck. :-( Google Play Music is randomly switching between old and new web-player. Right now, just a couple of hours after my previous comment, it strictly requires Flashplayer plug-in again and crashes as usual.
Another option until this can be resolved for those who don't want to install and use Chrome would be to install the Google Play Music Desktop Player: https://www.googleplaymusicdesktopplayer.com/ There is a rpm for Fedora 64 bit. There is a review of it here: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/google-play-music-desktop-radiant-player-gpmdp/ I wasn't able to test if it uses less resources than running Google Play Music in Firefox, but it definitely uses less resources than running it in a Chrome tab. I'm not at all saying that this shouldn't be fixed - but just as an option for people who want to use Firefox and still have access to their Google Play Music in the meantime.
(In reply to Martin Stransky from comment #13) > Please try to creant and attach a backtrace, how-to is here: > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ > Debugging_guidelines_for_Mozilla_products#Application_crash I installed the "firefox-debuginfo" package, started "firefox -g -d gdb" and then reported the crash report after the Flashplayer plug-in crashed. Hopefully that's better for debugging. The URL for the most recent crash report is: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-f7a2bdaf-bf9c-4686-9497-6158a2170126 I'll also attach a gdb backtrace, but I don't know if that makes much sense because not Firefox itself is crashing but only the Flashplayer plug-in (or the plugin-container... who knows). To get the backtrace I have to Ctrl-C in gdb, but at this time Firefox has continued to run and is far beyond the point of the Flashplayer crash. Let me know if this helps or what else is required. Thanks in advance!
Created attachment 1244795 [details] gdb backtrace after flashplayer crash Please note, not Firefox itself crashes but the Flashplayer plug-in (container).
(In reply to Andreas M. Kirchwitz from comment #11) ==A==== > Adobe engineers have confirmed those crashes but the total number of > affected users is too small to investigate any further. (The number of Linux > users already is pretty small compared to Windows users, and it gets even > smaller for those Linux users running Fedora and also using Fedora's > recompiled Firefox.) > ++++++++++++++++++++ Comment for A) As other reporter here says. Few people , outside of IT geeks or professional take time to make bug report. They just search an immediate solution to their problem BUT , NO , NO, NO, the problem is NOT a linux, and more restrictedly a Fedora problem. Look at carefully this link: ================== http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3023962&start=30 This forum, started in sept 2016. It is ilustrated with many links report, and concern mainly people in windows environment!!!!! SO NO LINUX, NEITHER FEDORA ONLY (Adobe engineer did'nt said the TRUTH !!!!) The problem started with Firefox 49 ! you will see detailed technical information here, about migration from : => the plugin API: NPAPI (Netscape Plugin API: Netscape !! in the early 1990 years !!!) => To the PPAPI, for security reason on this link if you want: http://www.systutorials.com/136793/using-the-latest-version-of-flash-on-firefox-for-fedora-linux-by-the-fresh-player-plugin/ And Chrome started the migration to support only PPAPI since more than 2 year I beleive (something to check) THAT THE REASON WHY, Chrome is working fine now with the last version of Flash Plugin: 20, 21 , ...24, While Firefox users still today with Firefox 51 and Flash plugin 24, continue to get trouble since more than one year. In fact you probably discover the problem, as soon as you lefts the Adobe fash-plugin 11.X serie, and suddenly you get flash plugin 23 or 24 AFTER an UPDATE!!! Because now Adobe do not maintain anymore the NPAPI compatibility AND Of Course , Flash plugin is NOT the only plugin concerned by this migration NPAPI --> PPAPI Go to the Java Oracle official site to have a look !! Them too, are concerned by the security hole offered by NPAPI, and now at end 2016, beginning 2017 , they are talking about a java plugin developped with PPAPI !!!! ==B==== > Unfortunately, it's still unknown if the bug is in Flashplayer plug-in or in > Fedora's Firefox. Mozilla's vanilla Firefox uses slightly different > compile-time options and comes with some included libraries which might > behave differently than Fedora system libraries. ++++++++++++++ comment for B. yes its a problem with Firefox, because they started lately the migration NPAPI, PPAPI, and the result is we are in debugging period. But because people here says that , compiled from the source URL of Mozilla foundation, all is working fine ==> the Fedora 25 firefox-51.0.1-2.fc25 neads patch in its SPEC file !!!
For info In the same Fedora 25, with the same Flash plugin 24 Seamonkey-2.46-3.fc25 is also working perfectly ============= Yeah game sites are not the only ones impacted! ALL THE CISCO NETWORK ACADEMY, e-LEARNING TRAINING COURSE are full of flash animation !!! PASSING THEM from Flash to HTML5 is not as easy as provinding VIDEO on youtube with HTML5 engine !!!! Flash still remains a powerful engine, for Intelligent Animated Site
the original link , on forum orums.mozillazine.org, in comment 21 is: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3023962&sid=199a711556ada1d251f1b7a098fe7801 (the link in comment 21 go directly to the end of pages, and we dont see the original post !)
This appears to have been fixed by the latest flash plugin: flash-plugin-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64 At least it is working for me. Can others please validate? Thanks!
On another related topic about flash and firefox... as I understand it, flash will be an exception to the rule about npapi plugins - however, I noticed in Firefox Nightly (now at 54) that the flash plugin is disabled. I submitted a ticket to mozilla on this, but so far crickets. Does anyone else understand how this is suppose to work going forward? I don't have an issue if they aren't going to allow it, but that appears to go against what I have read. So obviously I'm misunderstanding something. Thanks!
(In reply to Gerald Cox from comment #24) > This appears to have been fixed by the latest flash plugin: > flash-plugin-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64 Yes, although it was primarily declared as just a security update, Google Play Music no longer crashes with Flashplayer plug-in. Music plays fine. (I've also verified that it's not HTML5 Audio but really Flash.) Unsure if that's just coincidence or if the bug was fixed intentionally. Let's hope it keeps working also with upcoming updates. However, for the moment, I'm very happy! Now I can enjoy music again without a second browser or extra software. Life is good. Maybe other web pages with Flash now work more stable as well. I'll keep an eye on that and give feedback here.
YES ! I confirm, with =========================== # dnf update flash-plugin ... Upgrade 1 Package Total download size: 9.2 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: flash-player-npapi-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64.rp 77 kB/s | 9.2 MB 02:03 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 77 kB/s | 9.2 MB 02:03 Running transaction check Transaction check succeeded. .... ================= NOW I can open the CISCO CCNA Cursus in Firefox, without flash crash on some page with flash animation !! We notice that during dnf download we see : flash-player-npapi-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64.rpm !!! But once installed the extension npapi is not in the package name registered in RPM database !!!! # rpm -qa | grep flash-plugin flash-plugin-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64 Why hide the extension like that !!! So nobody knows what exactly is installed : npapi or ppapi version ? And # rpm -qi flash-plugin-24.0.0.221-release.x86_64 does not provide anymore information !! BUT IT's WORKS !!!!!!
Thanks for the info.