Ubuntu
flashplugin-nonfree package

nothing works, 10.10 software and videos wont play

Asked by Jase Short

After a recent upgrade, no videos will play on my computer. I have a netbook. When embedded videos appear, they have all these strange symbols on the space where video should play and they won't play. I've searched on here for multiple commands to implement, nothing works. Please help. i've only had a computer for a very short amount of time and it is very troubling that I cannot use it for anything but text.

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For:
Ubuntu flashplugin-nonfree Edit question
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Solved by:
Eliah Kagan
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Revision history for this message
Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#1

Are you talking about Flash videos, embedded in web pages?

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Jase Short (jase1917) said : 		#2

Those have the weird symbols but also youtube won't play

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Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#3

YouTube videos are Flash as well, so it seems that your problem is with Flash. Please open a Terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and run this command (by pasting it in and pressing enter):

dpkg -l | grep flash; dpkg -l | grep gnash; dpkg -l | grep swf

Then copy all the text from the Terminal (Edit > Select All; Edit > Copy) and paste it here. That will produce useful diagnostic information for solving your problem.

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Jase Short (jase1917) said : 		#4

OK, I did so, this is what I've got. Thank you for helping. :) Please don't stop!

~$ dpkg -l | grep flash; dpkg -l | grep gnash; dpkg -l | grep swf
ii flashplugin-installer 10.2.152.27ubuntu0.10.10.1 Adobe Flash Player plugin installer
ii flashplugin-nonfree 10.2.152.27ubuntu0.10.10.1 Adobe Flash Player plugin installer (transitional package)
ii browser-plugin-gnash 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 GNU Shockwave Flash (SWF) player - Plugin for Mozilla and derivatives
ii gnash 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 GNU Shockwave Flash (SWF) player
ii gnash-common 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 GNU Shockwave Flash (SWF) player - Common files/libraries
ii mozilla-plugin-gnash 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 dummy package for renaming to browser-plugin-gnash
ii swfdec-mozilla 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 dummy package for transition to browser-plugin-gnash
ii swfdec-mozilla 0.8.8-5ubuntu1 dummy package for transition to browser-plugin-gnash
jase@The-Source:~$

Revision history for this message
Best Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#5

You have two different Flash plugins installed, and they are interfering with each other. One is Adobe's official non-free Flash plugin, which is proprietary, takes up a lot of CPU, crashes frequently, and has a lot of security bugs (which we hear about from the regular releases of security updates for it). The other is Gnash (GNU Flash, a free open-source software Flash plugin). Gnash is still experimental, doesn't work with a lot of Flash content, doesn't work correctly with a lot of Flash content it does work with, takes a lot of effort to get working with a lot of Flash content it does work with (including YouTube), and probably will crash from time to time as well. Most people prefer Adobe Flash. (At least so far. Gnash is improving in quality over time, and Adobe Flash seems not to be, so Gnash may compete better in the future.)

I recommend you completely remove *all* the Flash plugins, and then reinstall just the one you want. So, to remove all of them, quit all package managers (e.g. Update Manager, Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager) and all web browsers (you'll want to copy this answer to a text or word processing document so you can still see it), and then run this command in the Terminal:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer flashplugin-nonfree \
  browser-plugin-gnash gnash gnash-common \
  mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla

That command spans three lines, but it's still a single command, so copy it to the clipboard, and paste it into the Terminal window all at once, then press enter. When you run it, you may be prompted for your password. As you enter your password, you won't see any placeholder characters (like *). That's OK. Just type in your password and press enter.

Then, if you want to install the Adobe Flash plugin, run:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

Alternatively, if you want to install Gnash, run:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install browser-plugin-gnash

Then go back into your web browser and see if it works. If it does, great! (Then you can mark this question as Solved.) If it doesn't, then please copy all the text from the Terminal and paste it here (and if the way it fails to work is any different from before, please describe that too).

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Jase Short (jase1917) said : 		#6

I tried. It says it cannot find gnash. I then tried to add the programs, it said it found them, nothing could be updated because it already had the most updated version. So how can it find it in one circumstance but not in another? Here is what pulled up when I entered what you told me to:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer flashplugin-nonfree \ browser-plugin-gnash gnash gnash-common \ mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package browser-plugin-gnash
E: Unable to locate package mozilla-plugin-gnash

Revision history for this message
Jase Short (jase1917) said : 		#7

Thanks Eliah Kagan, that solved my question.

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Jase Short (jase1917) said : 		#8

Don't know what happened before but I must have messed something up. Got it working. Thanks so much! I really really really appreciate this more than you know.

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Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#9

As I tried to explain, the multi-line command I gave you to run is *really* a multi-line command. You joined the lines, which was not correct. I don't know how you solved your problem, but perhaps that information will clear things up.