Adobe Flash Player Auto Updater

[Geoffrey]

I tried it just now, all seems good, I removed the plugin then run the updater, it showed the latest is available and updated without a hitch.

It seems my connection was slow that's why I had problems, adsl isn't that fast here running through 40 year old copper, I've had the teleco reroute the line twice in the last five years due to breakage a water damage.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, Geoff.

Umm. So, let me get this straight.I can delete the Flash plugin (so there's no libflashplayer.so in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins), yes? And then if I re-run the installer, you think it should work? Only one way to find out....!

BTW, I agree with you about the phone lines. As I told Fossil a few days ago, we've had fibre laid on as far as the street cabinet, 50 yds up the road.....then they go and spoil it all by hooking up to 35-40 yr old copper. We get a pretty good download (35 Mb/sec).....but upload is nothing to write home about, at 1.5-1.8 Mb/sec. Kinda makes you wonder why they bother, when they cripple the works like that, don't it?

I'll try your suggestion, and see if it works that way. I can always replace it quickly if it doesn't; I keep an up-to-date copy of both libflashplayer.so and libpepflashplayer.so where they're handy, in case I need them for new installs.

Off we go..... Will let ya know the outcome.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hey, Geoff.

Well, that works fine, old son; nothing wrong that I can see. I deleted libflashplayer.so from /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins just for a test; ran the Auto-Updater again.....it detected the Update, downloaded and applied it in about 5 secs flat. So it's definitely doing what it's supposed to do.

Have to wait & see what happens on the next re-boot. If it's still detecting an un-needed update, it might be a configuration file somewhere that needs a spot of editing, perhaps. Can't be my hardware, 'cos it does work.

We'll have to see.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, Geoffrey.

I've finally sussed it out.....up to a point, that is. You know you reckoned the only way it wouldn't work was if it wasn't retrieving the version information from the installed flashplayer?

Just booted into 5.7.0 this morning. There it is again; 'Update available'. No update on the Adobe site. But: there's no version number showing.....

So; I've run a few tests. Remember, I've got this on 3 Pups.

Where it comes up with 'Flashplayer is up-to-date', there's a version number showing. All well & good.

Where it comes up with 'Update Available' on a standard re-boot, no version number showing.

If I try (with the other 2 Pups) the same test as yesterday (deleting libflashplayer.so), then re-running the updater ('Update Available'), the version number shows, and the update installation proceeds as it's supposed to....with me so far?

So; if I see 'Update Available' with no number showing....then I ignore it.

If it comes up with 'Up-to-date' (with number showing).....I shall ignore it.

Question is, will it show me the version number (and 'Update Available') together, at the same time, when Adobe DO next release a patch??

As always in these cases, there's one answer to that. Only time will tell. We'll see....!


Mike.

[Geoffrey]

Question is, will it show me the version number (and 'Update Available') together, at the same time, when Adobe DO next release a patch

Yes it will, it should display the latest version that's available, if it's blank then it's not retrieving the version correctly from the adobe web page

It seems to all be working as it should for me on booting, tells me it's up to date, are you using the latest update_flash-1.4.pet?

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, Geoff.

Yes, I am; no point using the older versions when there's been things fixed in later ones....

I got what you did Mike, it said there was a new version though it showed no version number, I think it's at Adobes end, having a hard time connecting to them, it seem to be working now though the download is taking forever @ 2.8KB/sec

Doesn't surprise me. Anything to do with Adobe as a company is a 'bag o' worms' at the best times.....and a mixed blessing at that.

I've added X-Slacko 2.3.2 to the mix; in fact, I replaced Carolina with it, 'cos there were too many things that simply refused to work in Carolina for it to be of use to me. I'm installing 'Flash Auto-Updater' as we speak; I'll see how it fares in this one.

Keep ya posted.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

just installed into X-Slacko; hadn't yet got around to configuring FF. It picked up the older libflashplayer.so straight away, offered the update, and downloaded/installed when asked to.

I think we can say it is working as intended. Nice one!


Mike.

[ASRI éducation]

getflash-1.5-7
...
Thank you in advance for your tests and proposals.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 975#869975
Regards,

[Mike Walsh]

Hiya, Geoff.

You're probably aware of this, but I'll re-post this link, mentioned yesterday in 'Announcements' by bark_bark_bark:-

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/12/02/adobe- ... y-22-2016/

Do we know what's happening, vis-a-vis Flash, over the course of the next few weeks? Will your auto-updater still continue to function? The push seems to be to move to HTML5, although Adobe are saying that Flash (well, SWF; I think this is FlashPlayer, AFAIK) will continue to be supported. The article is a wee bit confusing; mentions about enterprise customers, and non-enterprise customers having to do separate things during January...

Just thought you ought to know. Perhaps you can make more sense out of it than I can..!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT (23:35): Reading further down this same web-page reveals this link:-

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/flash-professi ... -cc-657790

It appears that what's being re-branded is the Flash Professional software authoring tool; it's being re-named Edge Animate, as part of Adobe's corporate re-branding exercise.

The Flash browser plug-in, it appears, is being supported for at least another FIVE years.

I don't for one moment suppose young bark intended to be alarmist.....but sometimes ya gotta dig a bit deeper to get to the meat of the matter!

Seems we'll be OK for a while yet.


Mike.

[Geoffrey]

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/12/02/[b]ado ... load-links[/b]-on-january-22-2016/

Auto Updater should be ok, it doesn't download from a direct link, like these:

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashpla ... tion3.html

https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/f ... 386.tar.gz

As an example, it downloads from fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/pdc/11.2.202.548/install_flash_player_11_linux.i386.tar.gz

Hopefully they will leave the Linux version alone, though if there is a problem I'm sure I'll be able to get around it some how.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, Geoff.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking (and hoping!) Time will tell; though, as I said, it looks like we'll be OK for a while yet.

Cheers.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hiya, Geoffrey.

Your wonderful app has begun showing the symptoms of a problem.....although I suspect it's probably at Adobe's end again.

This morning, it offered me an update. Fair enough, they have just changed them again.....but it was offering me PepperFlash, rather than FlashPlayer.

I guess they've been swapping URL's around, again. Just thought I'd let ya know!


Mike.

[sfs]

After update https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ , in script update_flash need wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" change wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux"

[Belham]

Hi Mike W (and sfs),

Mike, you getting of any of the script adobe flash player updates to work in any puppies? I just posted in Tahr64 (then found your post here). I can't get any of them (Tahr64, Slacko64, Quirky8.0 or Fatdog64) to update. And what's weirder, when I just manually download the latest Linux flash update (the .632 vs .626) in a tar.gz format, unarchive it and open it, then copy the respective LGPL & .so files over into the appropriate mozilla/plugin location (usually /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/), the flash plugin disappears from Firefox, not even opening. I could swear I use to update whichever Puppy-distro flashplayer before in this way....unless I am getting old and can't remember clearly (which is a distinct possibility, haha). Same thing happens in both Palemoon and Seamonkey.....flashplayer is now gone with the .632 files copied over. Found anything that works??? This latest update from Adobe fixes some super scary holes, unlike the last update when we went to .626

SFS, what do you mean

"After update https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ , in script update_flash need wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" change wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux"

.....I'm a little braindead today, can you be a bit clearer? You mean in the adobe flashplayer updating script change the wget line entry? Where are these adobe flashplayer update scripts in any of the Puppies? In /usr/local/bin?? I looked there but didn't see it/any. Or maybe in /usr/local/quickpet_precise? Or in /opt ??? [EDIT: ok, found it, in /usr/sbin/getflash.....keep forgetting puppies have the great "pfind" to search system files ...but I'll be dam#ed if i can find an entry that says "--user-agent....ugh, back to searching. I FLIPPING HATE ADOBE FLASH---WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP SOFTWARE PACKAGE!!]

[LATEST: EDIT 2: ok, the above method still works when you're updating adobe flash. For some reason, when I downloaded 11.2.202.632 for Linux, when it un-archived, it named the .so file as "libpepflashplayer.so". I still don't quite know how and/or why this happened, but the flashplayer.so you want is "libflashplayer.so". So, i went to another linux-distro I like to use (Peppermint 7), grabbed the libflashplayer.so from it (aas it has the new .632 .so), copied it over to the various Puppies /mozilla/plugins/ folder, and voila', all of the four puppies I use have the latest 11.2.202.632 flash player. hope this helps someone out there if they run into what I did.]

[OverDrive]

Hey sfs,

I edited line 94 from:

wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

to:

wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

rebooted and it still is trying to download peperflash 22.0.0.209

Any ideas?

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, OverDrive. Long time no see!

I think what's happened is that Adobe have been swapping URLs around again. Peebee and I were chewing the fat over this yesterday, and the conclusion we came to is that with Google dropping support for 32-bit Chrome, with which 32-bit Pepper was tied so closely to, some contract or another between Google and Adobe has now come to an end.....which has allowed Adobe to offer 32-bit Pepper (currently 22.0.0.209) as a freely available download on the normal download page. Unless this is just a temporary 'cock-up' at their end.....

This is only supposition, of course. 32-bit Chromium development is still going strong.....and of course, that's where the Pepper API originated.

I downloaded the Linux Flashplayer from Adobe yesterday, as the normal tar.gz, using FF ESR 38.....and when I extracted it, it was indeed the current 11.2.202.632. But I think this is the only way it'll work at the moment; the 'usual' automated channels for install seem to be 'nixed at the moment. We'll just have to wait and see what happens with that.

Anybody who wants the current 'libflashplayer.so' module, you can get it from this link for now:-

https://www.datafilehost.com/d/b2dfb8e1

You'll need to place it in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins manually, I'm afraid. Rename the existing one to libflashplayer.so.bak; this will allow you to revert to it if necessary, by simply removing the '.bak' at the end.

Use this simplified 'checker' to make sure it's the correct version:-

https://www.adobe.com/swf/software/flas ... _small.swf

Edit:- I see Oscar's run up a new .pet for it, available from the usual location:-

http://www.smokey01.com/OscarTalks/

It looks like it will be a case of manual update, one way or the other, until the URLs get straightened out again.

Hope that helps.


Mike.

[sfs]

I edited line 94 from:
wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
to:
wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

It works. You have not forgotten before starting
rm -r ~/.flash_update ?

[Geoffrey]

I edited line 94 from:
wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
to:
wget --no-check-certificate --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux" -q -N -P ~/.flash_update get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

It works. You have not forgotten before starting
rm -r ~/.flash_update ?

Thanks sfs that fixed it, I'll upload a new pet and code in the first post with the linux detection fix.

[Mike Walsh]

Afternoon, all.

I can confirm sfs's modification; as long as you remember to

Code: Select all

 rm -r ~/.flash_update

...first, it works a treat.

@Geoffrey:-

A thought, Geoff. I guess you've heard by now that 32-bit PepperFlash is now under development again, and this time, publicly available through the 'Player Download Center'? 64-bit is publicly available, too, apparently. How much modifying would your script need to make it work with the PepperFlash version, d'you think?

I'm guessing this would be rather easier to accomplish than what I asked you about a while back..!

What d'you reckon? I'm quite happy to have a crack at this, if you don't mind giving me a few pointers as to which bits to modify..... For instance, where are you actually obtaining your update from? I'm guessing, from the look of things, that it's not the 'Player Download Center'.....or is it?


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

SFS, what do you mean

"After update https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ , in script update_flash need wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla Linux" change wget ... --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 Linux"

.....I'm a little braindead today, can you be a bit clearer? You mean in the adobe flashplayer updating script change the wget line entry? Where are these adobe flashplayer update scripts in any of the Puppies? In /usr/local/bin?? I looked there but didn't see it/any. Or maybe in /usr/local/quickpet_precise? Or in /opt ???

@Belham:-

You'll find update-flash in /usr/bin. Whe you first run it from Menu>Internet>Update Flash, you'll see a checkbox for 'Run Flash Updater at Startup'. If this is checked, you'll then get a sym-linked entry in /root/Startup.

I've just carried out the simple mod myself. Very easy to do.....and it returns the script to full functionality again. It will, of course, need repeating in every Pup you're running the updater on.

If I can do it, anybody can...!!


Mike.