Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

PhotonX · 2014-10-28 20:53:19

Hello community,

I stumbled upon a very strange problem with Firefox and Flash. Some flash applets (example: http://www.kenken.com/game) show only a plain white rectangle. For a long time I thought that it is a problem with Flashblock and/or NoScript. Today, however, I tried to get rid of the problem and made following observations:

1. The problem persists in safe mode (with deactivated extensions).
2. The problem persists after disabling hardware acceleration in the Firefox settings.
3. The problem does NOT occur in Chromium&Pepper Flash. But I'd like to stick to Firefox for many reasons.
4. The problem does NOT occur on my laptop running Manjaro (however, the setups are not really comparable).
5. Initially I thought that the flash applets aren't initialized at all, however, now I observed that if I switch to a different tab and then back to the tab with the flash applet, it gets updated. I can also interact with the applet, however, the changes are only visible after I do the tab switching.

Any help or hint how to find the cause of the problem is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
PhotonX

ewaller · 2014-10-28 22:42:02

No help yet -- but I couple questions come to mind.

What is your video system? (Nvidia, Intel, AMD)
What are your window manager and (if applicable) desktop environment?
Are you using any compositor?
Are the browsers using / not using hardware acceleration ?

PhotonX · 2014-10-29 05:54:50

Thanks for the quick reply, here are the answers:

My video system is AMD (HD6770 with the latest Catalyst drivers). On the laptop it's an Intel HD3000.
Both desktop and laptop are running Xfce and Compiz with activated compositing.
In Chromium the hardware acceleration is on, in Firefox I tried both on and off with no success (see point 2.).

ewaller · 2014-10-29 16:58:36

I have tried them both and they work without issue on my Intel graphics machine in i3 and kde. Xfce4 is usually pretty benign; how about turning of compositing and giving it a try.

NoSavvy · 2014-10-29 20:13:37

Had a similar problem with firefox and qupzilla with some regular sites saying that flashplayer was out-of-date. This wasn't the case as it was working OK for other sites. After much head scratching I cleared the cache and reloaded Firefox and the then the sites in question. Did the same with Qupzilla and hey presto! they both now play the flash videos OK.

PhotonX · 2014-10-30 06:54:44

@ewaller, unfortunately, switching to Xfwm with deactivated compositing didn't make any difference.

@NoSavvy: Unfortunately, also the cache clearing didn't help.

arojas · 2014-10-30 07:24:31

I have the same issue on Intel. Reloading the page a few times makes the flash content appear eventually.

Roysten · 2014-10-30 17:30:17

I'm having the same issue, the game you link to doesn't work for me either. I am fully updated as of October 30th, tried safe mode, private browsing, removing flash and reinstalling... doesn't work. It used to work fine on this system. I am using Awesome WM, but I don't think that matters. I really think the flash player or video driver is acting up. I am using the open source AMD drivers.

Last edited by Roysten (2014-10-30 17:32:31)

PhotonX · 2014-10-31 09:23:42

arojas, does reloading the page also work for you in the case of the example linked in the initial post (kenken.com)? For me reloading sometimes help but sometimes (as in the case of kenken.com) doesn't.

Roysten, looks like the issue is neither purely Flash (on my laptop Flash works fine) nor purely the video driver (on my Desktop Chromium's Flash works fine) but either both of them together or something totally different...

PhotonX · 2014-10-31 09:36:46

A new finding: I tried to install an older version of Firefox and downloaded a binary from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org … /releases/. The older binary worked so I tried newer ones and finally arrived at the very same version as the one installed through the package management. The result is: The 33.0.2 binary downloaded from Mozilla works, the 33.0.2 installed through the package management doesn't! All extensions installed on my machine are available in the downloaded binary, so I assume that it knows about ~/.mozilla. What could be the cause of the problem then? Will try to start Firefox with a completely clean home folder (new user) and report back.

edit: Narrowed down the list of problematic files to this:

$ ls -l /home/photon/.mozilla/firefox/sw0n83fl.default/
insgesamt 94852
-rw------- 1 photon users    94222 31. Okt 11:22 prefs.js
-rw------- 1 photon users   141109 31. Okt 11:17 search.json
-rw------- 1 photon users      734 31. Okt 11:06 search-metadata.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 photon users    65536 19. Jun 2012  search.sqlite
-rw------- 1 photon users    16384 30. Apr 2011  secmod.db
-rw------- 1 photon users      288 31. Okt 11:22 sessionCheckpoints.json
-rw------- 1 photon users     2480 31. Okt 11:22 sessionstore.js
-rw-r--r-- 1 photon users   393216  4. Sep 08:49 signons.sqlite
-rw------- 1 photon users       25 15. Mai 2013  times.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 photon users 62914560 21. Nov 2012  urlclassifier3.sqlite
-rw------- 1 photon users      154 31. Okt 10:26 urlclassifierkey3.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 photon users  1622446 21. Nov 2012  urlclassifier.pset
-rw-r--r-- 1 photon users 31850496 31. Okt 11:22 webappsstore.sqlite

edit: The problematic file is prefs.js.

Last edited by PhotonX (2014-10-31 10:29:25)

PhotonX · 2014-11-01 08:12:45

As I figured out now, prefs.js is the place where all the about:config options are saved to. Since I don't want to loose all my configuration, I'd like to figure out which option is responsible for the problem. Unfortunately the list of user defined options is quite long. Anybody of the people who are also seeing the same problem willing to compare the prefs.js content to narrow down the list by intersection? Here is my prefs.js: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1507406/prefs.js

Arch Linux

#1 2014-10-28 20:53:19

Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#2 2014-10-28 22:42:02

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#3 2014-10-29 05:54:50

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#4 2014-10-29 16:58:36

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#5 2014-10-29 20:13:37

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#6 2014-10-30 06:54:44

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#7 2014-10-30 07:24:31

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#8 2014-10-30 17:30:17

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#9 2014-10-31 09:23:42

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#10 2014-10-31 09:36:46

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

#11 2014-11-01 08:12:45

Re: Firefox+Flash: Some flash applets' content doesn't get updated

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