[vox-tech] flash video does not work on selected websites

[Shwaine]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Thomas Johnston wrote:

> I have two notebook computers, one of which cannot play flash video on
> selected websites, e.g. thedailyshow, but has no trouble on sites such
> as youtube. When I click on a video to play, I can see an icon
> spinning as it usually does while the video is buffering, but after a
> few seconds the portion of the screen containing the video goes black
> and nothing else happens.
>
> (1) notebook that works:
> Dell Studio 1535 running kubuntu 10.10 64 bit, 2.6.35-28-generic
> browsers: Chromium 12.0.742.91 (87961)  &
>               Firefox version 3.6.17
>
> aptitude search flash yields:
> pi     flashplugin-nonfree
> iB    flashplugin64-installer
>
> from the browser's search bar, I type: about:plugins and I see:
> Flash - Version: 10.3.162
> Shockwave Flash 10.3 d162
> Name:Shockwave Flash
> Version:10.3 d162
> Location:/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so
>  MIME types:                         Description           File extensions
> application/x-shockwave-flash    Shockwave Flash    .swf
> application/futuresplashFuture   Splash Player         .spl
>
> (2) notebook that has trouble with flash:
> Dell Inspiron 6400 running Kubuntu 10.10 64 bit, 2.6.35-30-generic
> browsers:  Chromium 14.0.794.0 (Developer Build 89286 Linux)  &
>               Firefox version 3.6.17
>
> aptitude search flash yields:
> i    flashplugin64-installer
>
> from the browser's search bar, I type: about:plugins and I see same as above.
>
> other plugins installed:
> VLC multimedia plugin
> Iced tea NPR web browser plugin
> silverlight plugin
>
> I followed the instructions from the following post:
> nickj.org/Ubuntu_desktop_setup_steps#Install_Flash_on_AMD64
>
> with no change in behavior of flash video performance.
>
> Any ideas?
>

I've come across this on a few websites. Very rarely does the solution end 
up having anything to do with Flash. In one case, it was linked to having 
the AdBlock Plus add-on installed on Firefox. Another was fixed when I 
noticed the MTU was 576 instead of 1500 and changed it (this one I caught 
by doing a Wireshark capture). Basically, the issue was related to other 
checks the sites were doing and not so much the Flash installation.

One Flash specific thing to check: the settings for Flash, particularly 
Flash LSOs ("Flash cookies"). You can look at the settings with the 
following website:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html

Make sure to click through to each panel and compare the settings. If they 
differ between machines, it might explain why one machine works and the 
other machine does not.

Otherwise, start looking into other configuration differences between the 
machines. Perhaps there's a conflict with another plugin or a browser 
setting or a browser add-on. There's a multitude of places where things 
can go wrong given the complexity of the modern browser. You might have to 
try the old (but tried and true) method of disabling everything but Flash, 
see if it works, then one-by-one re-enable plugins and add-ons until it 
stops working to find the issue.