Firefox and libflashplayer.so

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- On Mon, 9/21/09, R Kimber <richardkimber at btinternet.com> wrote:


> Leonard Chatagnier wrote:
> 
>snipped
> > > 
> > > I was referring to the immediately preceding
> reference,
> > > namely 
> > > ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxx.default dir in the
> pluginreg.dat
> > > file
> > > 
> > I didn't say to edit it.  I said that if your
> setup
> > was correct that there should be a reference to
> libflashplayer.so in it.
> > Was there a reference?
> 
> I didn't say anything about editing it.
> 
> I've already indicated that there wasn't a reference
> (a) by saying the file was virtually empty
> (b) by posting the content of the file.
> 

I didn't see your post of the file.  I would have liked to see the contents.
Well OK, You don't have a reference to it indicating 
you have something wrong in your setup.

> > Well, I don't have your original post any more but if
> > you copied the libflashplayer.so to the
> /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins dir and
> 
> That doesn't work.  

Worked for me and many others, I believe.  See
below.

Can you confirm that you are using
> Firefox 3.5.3 and
> the latest 64bit flash player?
> 
Yes, I can.  I'm using Shiretoko(firefox) 3.5.3 and a 64 bit dual core Gateway 5656GT computer and it shows
in about:plugins that this plugin is installed:

Shockwave Flash

    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32

MIME Type 	Description 	Suffixes 	Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash 	Shockwave Flash 	swf 	Yes
application/futuresplash 	FutureSplash Player 	spl 	Yes

Your firefox(Shiretoko) about:plugins will have the same entry if it is installed.  See below:

> I downloaded
> http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.32.18.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
> from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html
> This compressed tar file contains only libflashplayer.so
> and there do not
> seem to be any accompanying documents, nor any on the
> download page. The
> page says that "The following downloads will install Flash
> Player 10
> prerelease" but "install" isn't quite the term I would use
> - untarring it
> just results in a single file in whatever is the current
> directory.  Hence
> my question about where I should copy it.
> 
Ok, I don't remember where but I think that it did say somewhere to download or else copy the .so file to your browser plugin directory.  I could be wrong though as it's been some time since I installed it.
In any case the libflashplayer.so file is the one you
should copy or symlink to your /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins dir.  In my case, I just copied the libflashplayer-10.0.32.18.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz file to that dir and untared it as I recall the instructions said to do.
I'd also suggest that you look real close in ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxx.default/pluginreg.dat file
for any references to swf or flashplugin and remove them(purge) from your OS using aptitude purge <file name>.  Also purge flashplugin-nonfree and/or flashplugin-installer if an aptitude search or show shows that they are installed. Not sure its necessary but have been told so and they are purged on my system.  Then reboot and re-look at the ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxx.default/pluginreg.dat file to verify the entries are gone that you may have found before.
After that either move the tar.gz file to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins dir and untar it there or just copy the libflashplayer.so that you untarred somewhere before to the afore mentioned dir.  Then reboot again and see if firefox has the correct plugin version in about:plugins.  If it does then it is installed correctly and should work.  If you have any other browsers installed You may want to add the plugin to their appropriate /usr/lib/<browser name>/plugins dir.  However all mine seem to key off of the */moxilla/plugin dir and run flash.  If this doesn't work for you, then someone with more expertize than me will need to help.  However, this is what I did and it worked. One caveat though, I dont think you can update flashplugin from the repos using the latest version from Adobe.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

HTH,
Leonard