mozilla-plugin-config and flash plugin

nick623 · #1 15th November 2008, 06:28 AM

I've just installed and updated Fedora 9 and decided to install adobe flash 10. I downloaded flash-plugin and libflashsupport via yum and the Adobe repository.

I quit and restarted firefox and noticed it didn't work. No youtube etc. said I needed the latest version of flash. About

lugins in firefox showed no entry for flash at all. Yet rpm -qa showed that it had been correctly installed. After googling around I came across a post about using the command "mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v. I never knew this command existed yet I tried it and now flash works correctly with sound on youtube etc.

My question is after more googling I found out that the mozilla-plugin-config comes from the nspluginwrapper.i386 package which I guess is installed by default on Fedora 9. Every post I run across seems to indicate that the nspluginwrapper package is primarily for making 32 bit programs work on a 64 bit environment.

I have a 32 bit computer. Did I make a mistake using the mozilla-plugin-config utility on a my machine?
Are there potential consequences because of this? Granted my other plugins mplayer,acroread etc. seem to work with no problems(so far). Also I noticed I have a /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped directory.
I don't know if this is a default directory or a result of the mozilla-plugin-config command. Should these plugins be "wrapped' on a 32 bit computer?

Any ideas, input, or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

nick623 · #2 16th November 2008, 12:54 AM

Well I used the mozilla-plugin-config -r -v command to remove the plugins from the plugins-wrapped directory. I yum removed and reinstalled the flash plugin and as expected I'm back to the same results of firefox not recognizing the installation. It doesn't show up in the about

lugins url. Flash sites youtube etc. say I need to download the latest flash version etc.

I believe when I initially played with the Live CD that I got flash to work with sound no problem. Is my only solution to use the mozilla-plugin-config tool which seems to make it work even though I'm using a 32 bit machine. I'm confused.

Sigh.

#3 16th November 2008, 01:00 AM

I don't think you need libflashsupport with Flash 10. I can't guarantee to be right as in OpenSUSE (which I'm using) there's still only Flash 9

http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html

Wayne

nick623 · #4 16th November 2008, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne

I don't think you need libflashsupport with Flash 10. I can't guarantee to be right as in OpenSUSE (which I'm using) there's still only Flash 9

http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html

Wayne

Thanks Wayne I appreciate the response. Well I tried using yum to just download the flash-plugin not the libflashsupport.so file and I get the same results.

It seems when I quit Firefox-3.04 and restart it remains blank not saving my previous session etc. I think this might be part of the problem. About

lugins shows no flash at all.

Could answer the question if it is alright to us the mozilla-plugin-config program on a 32 bit envirionment. When i used it last youtube worked perfectly.

Strange.

Thanks.

#5 16th November 2008, 01:24 AM

Have you looked through this thread:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...ighlight=flash

Wayne

nick623 · #6 16th November 2008, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne

Have you looked through this thread:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...ighlight=flash

Wayne

Well I downloaded the latest version and still the same results.

In an act of desperation I did the mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v thing again to see if I could get youtube back and that didn't even work.

Do I need to do a reinstall? I didn't have these issues when I had my older Fedora 7.
Oh well. Getting frustrated.

Thanks anyway

Should I try to downgrade to an earlier version of Flash?

#7 16th November 2008, 01:56 AM

To be honest, I'd never heard of mozilla-plugin-config before reading this thread. Just yum installing the flash plugin from the Adobe repo and other plugins (gecko-mediaplayer) has always been enough to get things working.

Wayne

nick623 · #8 16th November 2008, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne

To be honest, I'd never heard of mozilla-plugin-config before reading this thread. Just yum installing the flash plugin from the Adobe repo and other plugins (gecko-mediaplayer) has always been enough to get things working.

Wayne

Apparently it's a program that's part of the nspluginwrapper.i386 package which is installed by default for 64 bit compatibility for plugins etc. I just came across it on a Google search and figured it was something undiscovered for fixing sym links etc.

Something must be wrong with my initial setup?

I don't know?

nick623 · #9 16th November 2008, 02:27 AM

Well I got it working for now(at least on youtube). I did a yum install and made a sym link in my .mozilla/plugin directory to /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so. It works so far.

I don't like doing patches like this to get things working but I will see what happens.

If I want to remove flash do I remove the sym link and yum remove. Or will yum remove take care of that.
Oh I'm thinking too much. See how long this works.

PabloTwo · #10 16th November 2008, 02:42 AM

It's not all that hard. If you have installed: flash-plugin-10.0.12.36-release (the official Adobe mozilla flashplayer plugin) it installs the actual plugin binary in /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so

Firefox doesn't know to look for it there. FF will look in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

You can one of two things to put a symlink to the actual plugin into the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory.

1) Not so hard, as root in a terminal, manually create the symlink yourself:

Code:

ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

2) Really not so hard, as root in a terminal, issue this command:

Code:

/usr/lib/flash-plugin/setup

The "setup" script basically does #1, but with a lot of searches and checks of your system and current configuration. Seems that the little setup script to install the 32 bit flash-player plugin is a well kept secret.

edit: I see you already got my 1) method going while I was composing my post. When you update the flash-player plugin with yum, you won't have to do anything, as the exisiting symlink will still be valid. Since you manually created that symlink, yum will not remove it. You'll have to manually remove it.

#11 16th November 2008, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne

I don't think you need libflashsupport with Flash 10. I can't guarantee to be right as in OpenSUSE (which I'm using) there's still only Flash 9

http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html

Wayne

an i thought OpenSuse was More up to date?.. hmmm

you no longer need libflashsupport when you have flashplayer10 installed

#12 16th November 2008, 02:57 AM

I can install it, I just haven't been bothered as I have Flashblock on anyway

Wayne

#13 16th November 2008, 03:01 AM

well i dont think your missing out on much by not having it.

nick623 · #14 16th November 2008, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PabloTwo

It's not all that hard. If you have installed: flash-plugin-10.0.12.36-release (the official Adobe mozilla flashplayer plugin) it installs the actual plugin binary in /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so

Firefox doesn't know to look for it there. FF will look in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

You can one of two things to put a symlink to the actual plugin into the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory.

1) Not so hard, as root in a terminal, manually create the symlink yourself:

Code:

ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

2) Really not so hard, as root in a terminal, issue this command:

Code:

/usr/lib/flash-plugin/setup

The "setup" script basically does #1, but with a lot of searches and checks of your system and current configuration. Seems that the little setup script to install the 32 bit flash-player plugin is a well kept secret.

edit: I see you already got my 1) method going while I was composing my post. When you update the flash-player plugin with yum, you won't have to do anything, as the exisiting symlink will still be valid. Since you manually created that symlink, yum will not remove it. You'll have to manually remove it.

Thank you Pablo when I do a 'ls-l' command in the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
directory it seems I alreadey have a sym link libflashplayer.so -> /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so in this directory.

I tried the /usr/lib/flash-plugin/setup script with no error messages. I guess a good thing. Yet all of these tasks did not seem to resolve the problem.
It seems only when I did a sym link in my .mozilla/plugins folder that things have begun to work.

But thanks.

I'm sure there is something simple that I am missing.

Actually, I don't remember if I issued the setup command as root.
Something, I must think about.

Thanks.

PabloTwo · #15 16th November 2008, 03:19 AM

Perhaps you're already aware of this, but when you install a new FF plugin, you must restart FF, if it was running when you did the install, before the new plugin is recognized. I run F8 and use the latest FF directly from Mozilla. I checked out that little script before posting, to make sure it did what I thought it did. I first deleted the flash-player plugin symlink in my /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins directory, then ran the script. A new symlink was there.

I also put symlinks to all my FF plugins directly in /opt/firefox/plugins/, and checking there, a fresh copy of the flash-player plugin symlink was written there also by that install script (timestamp of the file said so). The only plugin symlinks I have in ~/.mozilla/plugins/ is for acrobat reader. My flash stuff works fine in FF 3.0.4. I have been told that the Fedora issued FF3.x.x in F9/10 does not have a "plugins" directory. I'm glad and happy to be using the Mozilla issued release, for as far as I'm concerned the Fedora devs that handle FF tinker a bit too much, to the point of breaking things.

Anyway, glad it's working for you now.