hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

Gregosky · 2015-04-17 23:37:11

Hi guys,

I'm facing a weird problem that I cannot find solution for.
I have followed wiki and installed hal-flash + udisks2 on my desktop PC since I wanted to watch some DRM-protected content on internet (person of interest to be precise). All worked great.

But then my wife, who also is running Arch on her laptop (samsung 900x series) wanted to watch the same content on it.
So I quickly ssh-ed to her laptop, installed exactly the same hal-flash and udisks2 + I also removed all the firefox cache - but no success, flash video that is playing nicely on my PC does not play on her laptop.
I checked all relevant software version (that is firefox, hal-flash, udisks2) - the same on both PC and laptop. To my simple understanding it should work on both computers...

I'm feeling a bit dumb because I told my wife using linux will be as easy as using windws and now it seems I cannot figure out something that seems to be a 'simple thing' from her point of view (obviously after reading wiki I know it's a bit more complex and in the same time interesting issue)...
So I humbly ask somebody to direct me what may be wrong here?

Last edited by Gregosky (2015-05-05 22:46:57)

mojangsta · 2015-04-18 02:13:03

If by "linux is as easy as Windows" you meant "Ubuntu is as easy as Windows" you'd be making a pretty good comparison, but _Arch_ linux is nottt even close to windows. It seems like an easier distro like Ubuntu would be more appropriate for the laptop.

When you run firefox on the laptop, run it in a terminal, or ssh session (may require DISPLAY=...), _then_ attempt to play the video. Look for errors that look relevant. Check dmesg for video driver errors (dmesg | tail) after trying to play the video. If it still doesn't work, determine your hardware and driver(s):

lspci | fgrep -eVGA -e3D
pacman -Q | fgrep -exf86- -e-libgl -e-dri

Post output here.

I suspect the difference is in the gpu, the laptop probably has a different setup for different hardware. Somewhere along the line, either firefox, hal-flash, flashplayer, or the video driver is not functional.

Last edited by mojangsta (2015-04-18 02:16:26)

progandy · 2015-04-18 02:48:55

Adobe Flash DRM is a bit strange. Sometimes you'll have to close your browser and then delete the contents of ~/.adobe/Flash_Player/

Gregosky · 2015-05-04 19:25:29

Hi mojangsta, many thanks for hints.

I have tried running firefox from console and then navigating to drm content - nothing was logged.
Also when trying to play drm content I have tried

dmesg | tail

- no warnings/errors

lspci | fgrep -eVGA -e3D

returned

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

pacman -Q | fgrep -exf86- -e-libgl -e-dri

returned

lib32-mesa-libgl 10.5.4-1
mesa-libgl 10.5.4-1
xf86-input-evdev 2.9.2-1
xf86-input-synaptics 1.8.2-2
xf86-video-intel 2.99.917-5

Maybe there is a way to turn on verbose logging... I could not find such option when running firefox from console, hal is just stub so there is most likely no such possibility to turn on verbose logging...

Progandy - I have followed your suggestion but to no avail, after removing the folder you pointed and starting firefox video is not loading.

Last edited by Gregosky (2015-05-09 14:54:43)

Gregosky · 2015-05-09 14:54:26

I have modified /usr/lib/systemd/system/udisks2.service in order to remove --no-debug flag however nothing is being logged by udisks when trying to play drm-protected content.
From what I can see there is no way to make firefox log more verbose...

berbae · 2015-05-10 09:01:02

I tested the Adobe Flash test link for DRM content: it works on my machine.

But I don't use this hal-flash thing.

I run Firefox in PlayOnLinux: it is the Windows Firefox from Mozilla with the Windows Flash player plugin from Adobe.
These packages are installed inside PlayOnLinux, using the .exe files downloaded directly from Mozilla and Adobe.

This way requires installing many lib32 library packages from the multilib repository.
But to me it seems better than this hal-flash hack.

Trilby · 2015-05-10 10:25:18

I'd suggest pipelight. It is very easy to install and configure, and if you activate the pipelight flash plugin it will play DRM flash just as in windows: http://pipelight.net/cms/plugin-flash.html

(edit: it's very easy to install from the unofficial pipelight repo - or somewhat easy from the AUR).

Last edited by Trilby (2015-05-10 10:26:07)

Gregosky · 2015-05-10 18:46:49

Hi Trilby, many thanks for suggesting pipelight - I will have to dig how to install it (found it on AUR however it requires 32 bit versions of libgl and libsm, I'm on 64 bit system and already have them installed in 64 bit version). This seems to be somehow lighter version of possible solution.

Hi berbae, thanks for suggesting PlayOnLinux - this is one way I was thinking to try (it seems PlayOnLinux requires Wine so in fact it would mean using - as you mentioned - binaries made for windows rather than checking out linux versions).

Last edited by Gregosky (2015-05-10 18:55:14)

Trilby · 2015-05-10 19:43:15

pipelight page of wiki wrote:

If you are running a 64-bit system, you will need to enable the Multilib repository first.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pipelight
which points to here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multilib

Gregosky · 2015-05-11 01:19:21

I'm building pipelight via yaourt and must say it takes third time to restart the process (tmp size is too small when compiling wine component)
In a meantime on another machine I tested google-chrome (from aur) - no joy.
On a side note I must say it's a pitty that I cannot debug firefox/hal-flash in order to find the root cause of the problem... Will edit this post once I get Pipelight built.

Gregosky · 2015-05-11 01:58:05

Ok, so I installed pipelight and also I enabled flash - however flash is not appearing on the list of plugins. So I removed my flashplugin (the standard one I installed when setting up firefox) - it seems firefox does not recognise that there is a plugin installed... Trilby, should flash appear on about:plugins page?

--edit--
It seems browser should be closed when installing wine-silverlight. I uninstalled pipelight, closed the browser and installed again - now plugin appears however it's showing error:

[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] attached to process.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] checking environment variable PIPELIGHT_SILVERLIGHT5_1_CONFIG.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] searching for config file pipelight-silverlight5.1.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/home/izulka/.config/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/etc/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] trying to load config file from '/usr/share/pipelight/configs/pipelight-silverlight5.1'.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:unknown] sandbox not found or not installed!
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] using wine prefix directory /home/izulka/.wine-pipelight.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] checking plugin installation - this might take some time.
[install-dependency] wine-silverlight5.1-installer is already installed in '/home/izulka/.wine-pipelight'.
[install-dependency] wine-mpg2splt-installer is already installed in '/home/izulka/.wine-pipelight'.
fixme:winediag:start_process Wine Staging is a testing version containing experimental patches.
fixme:winediag:start_process Please report bugs at http://bugs.wine-staging.com (instead of winehq.org).
wine: cannot find L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe"
err:wineboot:ProcessRunKeys Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -a -r" (2)
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] embedded mode         is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] windowless mode       is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] linux windowless mode is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] force SetWindow       is off.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] window class hook     is on.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] strict draw ordering  is off.
fixme:ole:RemUnknown_QueryInterface No interface for iid {00000019-0000-0000-c000-000000000046}
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExA.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function CreateWindowExW.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenuEx.
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] replaced API function TrackPopupMenu.
err:virtual:map_file_into_view failed to set 00000007 protection on file map, noexec filesystem?
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] pluginloader.c:371:initDLL(): could not load library 'npctrl.dll' (last error = 193).
[PIPELIGHT:WIN:silverlight5.1] pluginloader.c:786:main(): failed to initialize DLL.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] common.c:168:receiveCommand(): unable to receive data.
[PIPELIGHT:LIN:silverlight5.1] basicplugin.c:128:attach(): error during the initialization of the wine process - aborting.

Last edited by Gregosky (2015-05-11 07:25:06)

Trilby · 2015-05-11 18:21:52

Sorry, I've not actually used the pipelight flash myself. I have been impressed with the pipelight project overall: the silverlight plugin works perfectly and the onofficial repo is well maintained - it has been very easy for me for getting netflix running in firefox on linux.

I noted that it has a flash plugin as well, and did some fact checking: the available information says it should play DRM flash content. But I have no first hand knowledge of that component.

PhotonX · 2015-10-20 15:44:30

Hi, sorry to dig this out, what is the newest state of this issue? Could it be solved? I'm facing exactly the same issue: On one machine hal-flash works on another it doesn't. I didn't try pipelight yet, is it worth trying?

Gregosky · 2015-10-26 20:02:38

Hi PhotonX,

I could not solve it and in the end gave up and installed wine on my wife's laptop. So I won't be able to help you here (although please post here if you find the reason on your machine).

PhotonX · 2015-10-26 20:59:50

Thanks for the feedback, I have nothing new to report, too, unfortunately.

PeterBB · 2015-10-29 15:21:56

I've spent many hours wrestling with this problem, since Channel 4's 4oD switched to DRM content. I'm now using udisks2 with hal-flash-git from the AUR.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/hal-flash-git/

There is a thread with some hints here.
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/927590

To test DRM, point the browser to
http://drmtest2.adobe.com:8080/SVP/Samp … er_FP.html

and enter the following on the video URL line.
http://drmtest2.adobe.com:8080/Content/anonymous.f4v

Hopefully, after loading the CP module, you then see the steam train.

For me this always fails. The system completes the "downloading the flash access library" phase then hangs.
Eventually I discovered that running by the browser as root, it works, though I realise this is a very poor solution from security point of view.
If I then copy the contents of the Flash_Player subdirectory from root to my user directory (and change ownership/protections) it continues to work from the user account without then needing root.

Hope this helps. What do folks who are still stuck, seeing when they try the above Adobe tests?

P.

PhotonX · 2015-11-07 18:06:15

You should probably have deleted the contents of ~/.adobe/Flash_Player/ before running the test page. Here is how I was able to make it work: https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?top … #msg235518

Last edited by PhotonX (2015-11-07 18:06:25)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-04-17 23:37:11

hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#2 2015-04-18 02:13:03

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#3 2015-04-18 02:48:55

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#4 2015-05-04 19:25:29

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#5 2015-05-09 14:54:26

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#6 2015-05-10 09:01:02

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#7 2015-05-10 10:25:18

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#8 2015-05-10 18:46:49

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#9 2015-05-10 19:43:15

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#10 2015-05-11 01:19:21

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#11 2015-05-11 01:58:05

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#12 2015-05-11 18:21:52

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#13 2015-10-20 15:44:30

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#14 2015-10-26 20:02:38

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#15 2015-10-26 20:59:50

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#16 2015-10-29 15:21:56

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

#17 2015-11-07 18:06:15

Re: hal-flash to watch DRM-protected content in firefox

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