flashplugin-nonfree wont install

Thanks for your question.

Adobe has updated their flash player for linux. As the package "flashplugin-nonfree" is a kind of "wrapper" package, it tries to download the archive from the adobe website during install. As the package changed, it fails validating the download.

Just wait one or two days until flashplugin-nonfree is updated. It will then install without a problem.

Thanks Markus, I will try again in a few days. I had wondered if it is related to a similar problem of their directory nesting being too deep for 7.04.

There has been an update to the feisty flashplugin-nonfree. You might want to update your repositories and try again.

If it works, please don't forget to close the question.

I reloaded the Synaptic Package manager repositories but got the same checksum error as before.

I had the same problem, and it helped removing the flashplugin-nonfree package and install it freshly.
Likely this could help you as well, it's at least worth a try.
<-

Hi,
I used the Synaptic Package manager to do the most complete removal and then installation but still got the same error message!

That's very odd indeed. Can you please try downloading the flashplugin-nonfree deb manually and installing it with dpkg? You can download if from the official Ubuntu repositories by using this link: http://tinyurl.com/2woblc (check towards the bottom of the page for the md5sum checksum of the DEB file, please make sure that it matches up after the download finishes. Thus for example:

1. wget http://lug.mtu.edu/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/f/flashplugin-nonfree/flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
2. md5sum flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
(make sure you get f6f2cd976c5667590fc7f9adda3b87c8 in the MD5 sum command output)
3. sudo dpkg -i flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb

If you encounter errors, please copy paste them here and good luck!

Thanks Rouben ,
Here is what happened.

peter@peter-desktop:~$ wget http://lug.mtu.edu/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/f/flashplugin-nonfree/flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
--11:06:49-- http://lug.mtu.edu/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/f/flashplugin-nonfree/flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
           => `flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb'
Resolving lug.mtu.edu... 141.219.155.230
Connecting to lug.mtu.edu|141.219.155.230|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 15,366 (15K) [application/x-debian-package]

100%[====================================>] 15,366 5.45K/s

11:06:54 (5.44 KB/s) - `flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb' saved [15366/15366]

peter@peter-desktop:~$ md5sum flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
f6f2cd976c5667590fc7f9adda3b87c8 flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
peter@peter-desktop:~$ sudo dpkg -i flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb
Password:
Selecting previously deselected package flashplugin-nonfree.
(Reading database ... 114754 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking flashplugin-nonfree (from flashplugin-nonfree_9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up flashplugin-nonfree (9.0.31.0.2ubuntu1) ...
Downloading...
--11:08:14-- http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
           => `./install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz'
Resolving fpdownload.macromedia.com... 72.246.46.70
Connecting to fpdownload.macromedia.com|72.246.46.70|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2,608,602 (2.5M) [application/x-gzip]

    0K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 1% 5.86 KB/s
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11:17:13 (4.73 KB/s) - `./install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz' saved [2608602/2608602]

Download done.
md5sum mismatch install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
The Flash plugin is NOT installed.

peter@peter-desktop:~$

Same Problem here.
Can't install the flashplugin-nonfree, Md5sum mismatch occurs.
Please help.
Is there any way to manually install the flash plugin?
Thanks

Looks like this is a known issue with the flashplugin-nonfree package. It should have been fixed in bug # 125986. I suggest either installing an older version of this package (you can do it in aptitude) or try to grab flashplugin-nonfree from feisty-proposed where a fixed DEB should have been uploaded already.

Please let me know if this helps!

Oh, as a last resort, you can also download the flash plugin from http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz and do the following to install it manually. I strongly suggest trying to get a DEB package installed before you try this (see my previous comment about using aptitude to install an older version of the package or adding the feisty-proposed repository where this issue is fixed).

1. wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
2. tar xvfz install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz
3. cd install_flash_player_9_linux
4. rm flashplayer-installer
5. sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree
6. sudo cp * /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree
7. sudo chown -R root:root /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree
8. Make sure that /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins, /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins all have symbolic links to the two files you copied to /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree (libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt). For each one of these 3 plugins directories, do the following:
8.1. cd into the directory
8.2. ls -la and make sure that you see entries for libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt. They should look something like this and if you have colours enabled, they should be shown in cyan (very light blue colour):
flashplayer.xpt -> ../../flashplugin-nonfree/flashplayer.xpt
libflashplayer.so -> ../../flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
8.3 If these are present, move to the next plugins directory. If they are not present, issue the following commands to create the symbolic links:
sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-nonfree/flashplayer.xpt
sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
9. Finally, restart Firefox and try loading a Flash website!

That's it! I hope this is helpful! Please let me know how it goes!

Thanks Rouben, adding the feisty-proposed repository solved the problem.
Installed the latest version of flashplugin with that, and running perfectly on firefox.
Thanks

Thanks Rouben,
You said "I suggest either installing an older version of this package (you can do it in aptitude) or try to grab flashplugin-nonfree from feisty-proposed where a fixed DEB should have been uploaded already."
How do I do that?

Hi Peter,

According to Tarun, adding the "feisty-proposed" repository fixed the issue, so I will explain how to enable the feisty-proposed package repository.

1. Click on System → Administration → Software Sources.
2. Enter your password if prompted.
3. When "Software Sources" window pops up, click on the "Updates" tab.
4. Make sure that the option "Pre-released updates (feisty-proposed)" is turned on.
5. Click "Close". If prompted to reload the software list, click "Reload".
6. Attempt installing the flashplugin-nonfree package again.

I hope this helps!

Thanks Rouben,
This time it said it was installed with no checksum errors but firefox isn't using it.

A further not
about:plugins in firefox shows

Shockwave Flash

    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 9.0 r48

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

and at the bottom

Shockwave Flash

    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 9.0 r31

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

Peter--

I am having a similar problem. I get an md5sum error when attempting to install the flashplugin-nonfree package. It says in the Details section that it is not installed, but Synaptic believes that it is. Firefox about:plugins says it is intalled for some users but says it isn't installed for some others.

When we install flashplugin-nonfree, it says that md5sum mismatch occurred and flashplugin-nonfree not installed. But I think in spite of this message it installs older version of flashplugin(9.0.31.0).

What I have done is selected feisty-proposed in synaptic, and then search for flashplugin-nonfree in synaptic.
And the flashplugin-nonfree's old version(9.0.31.0) was installed. I marked it and it prompts message that you want to upgrade it to 9.0.48.0? and I upgraded that older version with newer.

My about:plugins in firefox shows only one plugin
    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 9.0 r48

Not the older one as with Peter's case. I think because my older version is replaced by newer one. But in Peter's case I think both are installed, the older and the newer. Removing older flashplugin first and then installing it again may solve the problem.

Don't know much about it. Experts comment required.
Thanks

I just upgraded mine (the upgrade was pushed to updates recently) and everything worked fine, my about:plugins shows r48 like it's supposed to.

If anyone is having issues with the plugin, I suggest these steps:

1. sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-nonfree
2. Check /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins, /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins directories for libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt files. If these are present, delete them.
3. sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

Let me know if that helps...

Hi everyone,
Before doing what Rouben had suggested on 29/7/07 I used Synaptic to completely remove flashplugin-nonfree , but I still seem to have 2 versions installed. When I find time I will try Rouben's latest suggestion and see what happens. Thanks for all the advice.

Hi Rouben,
I did :-
1. sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-nonfree
2. Check /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins, /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins directories for libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt files. If these are present, delete them.

Neither of those files were present.

I checked about:plugins and still got
Shockwave Flash

    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 9.0 r31

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

So I did a whole disk search for libflashplayer.so and got no file found although mozilla reckons it exists.
I then did
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
but of course still have apparently 2 versions of flash r48 and r31 as before.
Very strange.

Although I apparently have 2 versions of flash it seems that noscript was blocking flash from working.

hi,

I seem to be having the same problem that Peter is having. I am using Edgy Kubuntu 32 bit on a 64 bit machine with a whopping 4 GB of RAM and an Athlon dual core 3800+ motherboard. It's really a nice machine. Edgy thinks that I still have some vestiges of flash installed on my machine, despite the fact that I checked the directories indicated above by Ruben. Here is the error message that I got:

cje@renderbeast:~$ sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
flashplugin-nonfree is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 161 not upgraded.
cje@renderbeast:~$

I am able to watch YouTube videos and see just about any videos anywhere on the web using openSUSE 10.2, so IMHO, there is no hardware problem with this machine.

Thanks in advance.

Christian Einfeldt

Rouben--

I followed the instructions:

1. sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-nonfree
2. Check /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins, /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins directories for libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt files. If these are present, delete them.
3. sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

In step 2, neither of the files you mentioned were in /usr/lib/*, although there were some seemingly-disused copies in /usr/local, which I removed.

In step 3, again I got the message about the md5sum error and a report that the package was not installed.

about:plugins does not mention anything about flashplayer. youtube still says that I need to install the plugin or enable Javascript. My Firefox preferences show that Javascript is enabled.

I am using Firefox 2.0.0.5 and updated Ubuntu 7.04 on an Athlon 2500+.

Thanks for your help in trying to work around the problem, but would it be better for somebody to put the work into fixing the problem at the source(s)?

It's odd that so many people have an issue with this package, particularly with upgrades... Here are some revised instructions, they contain more aggressive means to make sure that you find remnants of the old Flash plugins that may still be lurking on your system. I hope this helps...

1. sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-nonfree
2. sudo apt-get update (make sure you have reasonably up to date mirrors; if in doubt, use archive.ubuntu.com, i.e. the official Ubuntu mirrors).
3. Check /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins, /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins directories for libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt files. If these are present, delete them. Close Firefox/Mozilla completely and then start it up again. Check about:plugins and make sure Flash is *not* listed. If it *is* still listed, you can use the find command to locate the leftover plugin files:
sudo find /usr -iname '*flashplayer*'
This second command below will search your *entire* system (including places where the Flash plugin has no business being) and will take much longer. If you closed Firefox, restarted it and checked about:plugins to make sure that Flash is *not* listed, you don't need to run this second command. Otherwise, if Flash is still listed in about:plugins, use this command to be absolutely sure that you have no copies of the Flash plugin on your system anywhere. When you clean up the remaining files, restart Firefox and check the about:plugins page to be sure.
sudo find / -iname '*flashplayer*'
4. sudo apt-get clean
5. sudo apt-get autoclean
6. sudo apt-get update (again, just in case, make sure you have the latest package lists)
7. sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

If after all this you still get an MD5 sum error, it most likely means either one of these two things:
a) Whatever mirrors you're using to download your packages are outdated. Please switch to official Ubuntu mirrors (archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com). You can use the "Software Sources" control panel to do that.
b) When the flashplugin-nonfree package install script tries to download the Flash player from Macromedia.com, somehow the download gets corrupted. In this case it's best to just try again later. Note that this should not apply to most people with high speed (i.e. non-dialup) Internet.

Hi Rouben and others,

It is working for me now. I checked with youtube after my bank stopped using flash! about:plugins shows 2 versions as mentioned earlier but firefox is using r48 as the other doesnt exist.
Thanks for your help.

Rouben,

Thanks for your reply. I am able to use flashplayer at youtube now. I will try to recall the details.

I read your most recent instructions. I am new to Ubuntu after using RH and Fedora (also Slackware with kernel 0.99r13!). I don't understand much about apt-get and repositories, so my attention went to those when reading your instructions.

I went into Software Sources and on the Ubuntu-Software tab found that all the boxes were checked except the Source code box, which was marked with a dash. I made a backup of /etc/apt/sources.list, and I believe then I unchecked the 'universe', 'restricted', and 'multiverse' boxes without changing the others, then clicked 'close'. Soon I got a message saying that a new software list would have to be downloaded. After the download, the program closed, and I got a balloon on the desktop saying that updates were available. I opened Synaptic, which mentioned exactly one available update (flashplugin-nonfree). I chose to install it, and the 'details' box reported success (no md5sum error). I closed Synaptic and viewed about:plugins, which displayed:

    File name: libflashplayer.so
    Shockwave Flash 9.0 r48

Then I tested it successfully at youtube.

I opened Software Sources again and found that the 'main', 'multiverse', and 'Source code' boxes were checked, and that the other two boxes were unchecked. That puzzled me because it didn't seem to match what I clicked (note again my description above), but maybe I didn't click what I thought I clicked.

Now I am not sure what boxes I should leave checked. Could you mention something about that?

Thanks again for your help.

Peter: Try the find commands I mentioned if you want, however, if everything is working, maybe it's best to leave things the way they are? :)

MIPShog: Don't worry about the repositories, it's OK to have all those enabled. For more info on what repositories are and how they are categorized, please check this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

I found the extra flashplayer.xpt libflashplayer.so in my .mozilla plugins directory and have deleted them. about plugins now only shows r48 version.

Phew! So that's where it was hiding! :) I should have guessed... Chances are you stumbled upon a page with a flash applet, then clicked through the built-in Firefox flash installer, which explains why the plugin was installed under your Firefox profile.

Either way, I'm glad your Firefox is squeaky clean now, Peter. Cheers!

Thanks for your help Rouben.
Us newcomers to Ubuntu will perhaps have learned no to get plugins through firefox, only through Ubuntu repositories. Is that correct?

It's up to you how you get them, I suppose, as long as you're aware of what's really happening to your system. :) Technically the same could happen in Windows or any other OS, except that in those OSs, the Flash plugin is always installed centrally (i.e. under the equivalent of /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins).

I'm not quite sure what would be the best way to solve this problem. At the very least Firefox should probably tell you where exactly it's loading the plugin from, so you wouldn't have to resort to the find command to track things down.