Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

alexandrite · 2009-11-22 06:59:28

When I just click the object once, I can use its elements normally after that. It's like you have to "select" the window before you can click the buttons.

I'm using:
flash 10.0.32.18-1.1
wmii 3.6-3
uzbl 20091107-2

Musca 0.9.23-1 also has this problem, but with awesome 3.4.1, flash seems to work fine.

Edit: Well it's certainly not working anymore. Comment withdrawn.

Last edited by alexandrite (2009-11-22 07:59:52)

frefyx · 2009-11-22 11:54:42

About the mouseclick problems there's solution for flash-nonfree. You need to set up GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS option.

edit: Sorry, it was already posted before

Last edited by frefyx (2009-11-22 11:58:29)

heretic · 2009-11-22 18:00:38

This just happened to me right after a -Syu. i just logged out of openbox and back in and it fixed it.

Err · 2009-12-03 14:03:46

for i686 users which apparently don't have any sort of pluginwrappers
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
cound be added also into:
/etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh (file comes with package mozilla-common)
It is working, so far for me (context menu still got no focus->using Tab&Enter in settings, but webpages are responding properly to click!)

MrBlueSky · 2009-12-04 00:12:04

I had this same problem last weekend after installing Ubuntu&Gnome on my laptop. I ended up just uninstalling adobe's flash and using gnash.

Err · 2009-12-04 09:43:38

Sorry, I have to argue with you, gnash is nice - but some of animations are simply not supported by it...specially those with AS3.0

Last edited by Err (2009-12-04 09:44:26)

burafino · 2009-12-27 20:24:53

Same problem with x86-64 and flash 10.0.42.34 in Firefox and Opera. Chromium (Google Chrome) not affected and works perfectly well.
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 did not help at all...

Last edited by burafino (2009-12-27 20:25:09)

Laplace_ · 2009-12-28 05:32:01

I have just migrated from gentoo to arch.
It was suprisingly easy to get the same setup I had on gentoo, working on this new system.
The only problem I had was this left click flash issue.
I spent a few hours searching for answers and trying many things.
Nothing worked until I stumbled across this thread.

What worked for me:
- Right clicking on flash app and then double left clicking.
This was very annoying and I am was not about to do that.

-Thank god for google chrome.
I have swicthed to using that.
No flash ploblems on there.

The funny thing is I had the same setup on gentoo, and it all worked!
Firefox + fluxbox + flashplugin

Last edited by Laplace_ (2009-12-28 05:33:44)

ruario · 2010-01-18 17:45:16

burafino wrote:

Same problem with x86-64 and flash 10.0.42.34 in Firefox and Opera. Chromium (Google Chrome) not affected and works perfectly well.
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 did not help at all...

For Opera read this.

pw_f100_220 · 2010-01-19 17:38:52

FLUXBOX USERS!! DO NOT CHANGE JUST BECAUSE OF THIS. IT'S NOT WORTH IT

I had this problem...now i don't...haven't Syu'd or changed drivers or anything. I read this thread, went to hulu with the intention of trying some of the mouse click work-arounds, and found it working normally and beautifully. audio is slightly out-of-sync, but i'm patient.

Lucky me, I guess...but don't give up! When it comes to computers I care about two things: linux (mostly arch now) and the Box

Fluxbox is like the motorcycle of WM's. Lighter, faster, better gas mileage, squeezes devotion from it's master, dare I say more visceral?...i'm sure there are more simile's out there...i use a lot of ellipses...

I also liken Fluxbox to Arch as well (start from nothing, build configs to make it yours, enjoy the speed and uniqueness of your system)

voidux · 2010-02-06 18:51:44

jarryson wrote:

This caused by the updating of GTK2.18.
we have to wait next flash release to fix this problem.

So, is there a way to roll back to gtk2.16?

harryNID · 2010-02-09 12:04:28

Just got mine working again (in Youtube at least) with the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 trick. To see if this will help you first find a Youtube video that gives you a problem, bookmark it so you can get back to it easy. Then close firefox and open a terminal then type:

GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 firefox

Go back to the offending flash object and see if that worked. If so then you need to make it permanent by sourcing it from /etc/bash.bashrc.

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

I tried sourcing it in ~/.bashrc but that didn't work for me. I didn't try /etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh as Err suggested. The downside by sourcing it in /etc/bash.bashrc is now it 's set globally. I run a light Desktop with few GTK apps so I don't see much of a difference. To be on the safe side however you might want to make an alias for GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 firefox and use that instead.

I need to do some testing as I just did this but the offending video I used to test with is working perfectly now so let's hope.

Convergence · 2010-05-05 07:32:22

harryNID: has this solution caused you any problems? are you still using it?

Convergence · 2010-05-05 07:37:20

Hah. Somehow I missed that this was a fluxbox specific problem. I might have to change to openbox or something. I'm just so attached to flux. Maybe someone on the flux team will fix this (even though it probably isn't caused by a bug in flux)

harryNID · 2010-05-06 19:35:57

harryNID: has this solution caused you any problems? are you still using it?

I haven't had any issues so far except for the normal flash issues (unresponsive, slow scrolling etc.). Have you noticed anything to ask this question?

Hah. Somehow I missed that this was a fluxbox specific problem. I might have to change to openbox or something. I'm just so attached to flux. Maybe someone on the flux team will fix this (even though it probably isn't caused by a bug in flux)

Don't quote me but I don't think it's Flux only. According to others in this post and abroad it's an issue between Flash and GTK2 not Fluxbox exclusivley. I've tried Flash-beta with Fluxbox-git loaded and the issue is still there. With the above tweak I am currently not having any more issues (besides those listed above, all well known and somewhat tolerated) so I wouldn't leave Flux because of that.

Edit:
I forgot to mention I am now using "export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1" in "/etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh". My other method of sourcing it in /etc/bash.bashrc will work but mozilla-common is where it should be correctly added.

Last edited by harryNID (2010-05-07 18:43:40)

N30N · 2010-05-07 13:59:06

harryNID wrote:

Hah. Somehow I missed that this was a fluxbox specific problem. I might have to change to openbox or something. I'm just so attached to flux. Maybe someone on the flux team will fix this (even though it probably isn't caused by a bug in flux)
Don't quote me but I don't think it's Flux only. According to others in this post and abroad it's an issue between Flash and GTK2 not Fluxbox exclusivley.

Yeah I had this problem and I'm using wmii. Thanks for the fix it works great!

harryNID · 2010-05-07 21:06:21

I believe this explains our problem. Although this is about Eclipse I'm pretty sure it explains the problem as to why only certain Window Managers have this issue.

In a nutshell GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 is our fix, albeit a quick dirty one. A patch was added to GTK because it uses a new client-side windows support system that some older applications aren't fully compatiable with now. The real fix involves patching to use the new scheme (as Eclipse has done). Don't know if this is our issue for sure but it seems a logical cause. Perhaps since Arch uses the "latest an greatest" the Fluxbox dev might still be using a version of GTK before they changed things and don't know it's an issue (sans no bugfix).

Quote taken from patch: ( to use GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1)

Add support for enabling only native windows
Some applications make weird assumtions on Gtk+ that do not work anymore with the new client-side windows support. For instance SWT/Eclipse reorders the stacking order of the X windows directly without telling gdk this, which breaks gdk drawing as gdk now relies on knowing the stacking order for window clipping. This introduces a GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS environment variable, which if set causes Gtk+ to always use native windows. Its more compatible with pre-csw Gtk+ behaviour if you do weird X-specific hacks, although it does limit the size of GdkWindows to 65535x65535.

You can check it out here: (includes link to the patch submitted to GTK from Eclipse devs as quoted above)
http://jee-tagebuch.de/article/mouse-cl … gtk-gnome/

Thought I would throw this up for some more F.Y.I. about this.

What's eveybody else think? Could this be the culprit?

geniuz · 2010-05-07 21:49:26

I've had this issue with firefox in Musca and used Chromium because of this, since it didn't experience this problem. However GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS fixed it for me in firefox now. I just added an alias to me .bashrc

alias firefox = GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 firefox

Thanks for the input !

HBSC · 2010-05-27 09:40:52

Fluxbox is my WM and I just started experiencing this issue (I think since my last Syu) in firefox 3.6.3 with flash 10,0,45,2 and the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 solution didn't work.

I know this thread is a bit old.. Anyone else having this issue recently?

toasty_ghosty · 2010-05-29 10:51:05

I have this same problem..

current KDE4 + Firefox 3.6.3 and none of the "tricks" helped..:(

Arch Linux

#26 2009-11-22 06:59:28

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#27 2009-11-22 11:54:42

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#28 2009-11-22 18:00:38

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#29 2009-12-03 14:03:46

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#30 2009-12-04 00:12:04

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#31 2009-12-04 09:43:38

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#32 2009-12-27 20:24:53

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#33 2009-12-28 05:32:01

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#34 2010-01-18 17:45:16

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#35 2010-01-19 17:38:52

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#36 2010-02-06 18:51:44

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#37 2010-02-09 12:04:28

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#38 2010-05-05 07:32:22

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#39 2010-05-05 07:37:20

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#40 2010-05-06 19:35:57

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#41 2010-05-07 13:59:06

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#42 2010-05-07 21:06:21

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#43 2010-05-07 21:49:26

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#44 2010-05-27 09:40:52

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

#45 2010-05-29 10:51:05

Re: Flash objects unresponsive to mouse clicks in firefox

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