How do I fix Flash issues?

Question

I am having problems with Adobe Flash in Ubuntu, what are my options?

Answer 1

As you have identified - the best solution is usually to follow this Q&A to install flash. It does work for the vast majority of users.

As an alternative, one of the best tools I have found that allows you to configure Flash correctly during installation is the Flash-Aid addon - use the author's site or search on the Firefox addon-manager for Flash-Aid

This will remove any remnants of of Flash installation and install flash directly from the Adobe Website. During the wizard installation you have a few configuration options that you can try to resolve flash-player issues.

Close & Restart Firefox / reboot for the change to take effect.

See also:

• Why are Flash applications so sluggish?

Answer 2

There are 2 options.

Enable the HTML5 player

For Youtube this can be done by loggin in, going to http://www.youtube.com/html5 and enabling it there. You can also just add &html5=True behind each video URL.

• There is a trick for the cases when there appears to be no HTML5 option available on YouTube: use the "embedded" variant.

  For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SacL219sic&html5=True appears to be not watchable in HTML5, but https://www.youtube.com/embed/3SacL219sic plays in HTML5!

Whether your browser and the version you are using will support the HTML5 playback of a video on a site that provides such an option (like YouTube or VKontakte) will depend on the codec chosen by the site owners. For example, YouTube and VKontakte (a Facebook clone popuar in Russia) use different codecs for their HTML5 videos, which means that in Ubuntu 12.04 HTML5 video playback at VK.com works in Chromium, but not in Firefox (and in future, these browsers might swap their roles).

Install the Flash Aid Firefox plugin

I don't know for sure if this will work for you as well, but it worked for me.
Install Flash Aid, restart Firefox, and click the Flash button at the upper right corner of Firefox's window. Just follow the instructions in the wizard and you should be fine.

For some more detailed guide on installing Flash using Flash Aid, check out fossfreedom's answer: http://askubuntu.com/a/86260/18953

Answer 3

Try installing Flash by entering the following command in the Terminal

sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

Answer 4

I am running Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit with an Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS.

I have been having the same issue ever since I corrected another Flash issue on my system related to Nvidia GPUs -- see Flash video appears blue on this forum. Following the workaround posted at the previous link stopped the unwanted behavior of all Flash video being tinted blue, but ended up causing the Flash plugin to crash nearly every time I attempted to watch a video online.

The solution for me was to look back at /etc/adobe/mms.cfg and remove everything but one line, which should read:

OverrideGPUValidation=true

This idea and others are discussed on ubuntuforums, and many other places. Please try changing your mms.cfg (or creating it, if it does not already exist) and post back with your results. Good luck!

Answer 5

Here is what you need to do: (Im assuming you have flash 11 and firefox 14.0.1):

1. Download this file : http://www.ziddu.com/download/20225702/libflashplayer.zip.html

2. Create a folder "plugins" under "/home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.mozilla/firefox/"

   Like this:  /home/leopard/.mozilla/firefox/plugins
   

3. Extract the zip and copy the downloaded "libflashplayer.so" to "/home/leopard/.mozilla/firefox/plugins"

4. Open nautilus as Admin. Go to "/usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin". Delete the "libflashplayer.so" there.

5. Copy the extracted "libflashplayer.so" there.

6. Restart firefox.

Answer 6

As for the HTML5 video playback option available at some sites:

First, not all sites provide HTML5 videos as an alternative to Flash (hopefully, there will be more).

And second, whether your browser and the version you are using will support the HTML5 playback of a video on a site that provides such an option (like YouTube or VKontakte) will depend on the codec chosen by the site owners. For example, YouTube and VKontakte (a Facebook clone popuar in Russia) use different codecs for their HTML5 videos, which means that in Ubuntu 12.04 HTML5 video playback at VK.com works in Chromium, but not in Firefox (and in future, these browsers might swap their roles).

And third, some videos might appear to not have the HTML5 option on YouTube. (For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SacL219sic&html5=True.) But thanks to the answer by Klementine, there is a trick useful for getting at HTML5 playback in these cases -- use the "emdedded" variant. (For my sample video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/3SacL219sic.) And it works!