Some More Bytes

Have some problems with flash in Ubuntu 9.10? Are you using the AMD64 release? Here’s the solution:

The flash version in the ubuntu repositories, is the 32 bits version of the famous plugin. In fact, it shouldn’t be working in a 64 bits browser. Here’s where ubuntu makes some of its behind-the-scenes magic, and installs and configures for you a wrapper named nspluginwrapper.

Nspluginwrapper is a software layer which provides an appropiate environment for the plugin to run (i386) in other platforms which it is not supposed to work. So Ubuntu, automatically installs the wrapper, and configures it for you. Unfourtunately, this magic comes with a little bug somewhere casing the flash plugin to fail – sometimes – .

It turns to be quite annoying when it fails, because instead of a crash, or not showing the flash content (and clearly showing that it has crashed) it just blocks the “click” in the flash content, creating confusion about what’s not working, the flash plugin, the flash content, the browser, the mouse, the finger etc…

Here’s a workaround to fix the click problem:

• Edit the file : /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer  (as root, use sudo from console or gksudo from the “run” dialog)
• Add the following line BEFORE the last line of text:

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

• Save, and restart your browser.

This should be enough to solve the problem. It is possible that the npviewer script gets updated losing your changes.

If you realize that it is failing again, maybe this is the case, and you should redo this workaround.

UPDATE: If you feel brave, you can try the really-64bits-flash version of the plugin, that will work with the 64bits browsers. This will bypass all the nspluginwrapper magic mentioned above. Someone created a script, to get rid of the unnecessary packages and install the flash player  for AMD64. There are precise instructions in the Ubuntu Forums.

Keep in mind that Adobe 64 bits  flash player is in alpha stage, so it can be unstable.