On occasion, installing the Adobe Flash plugin and/or watching online Flash streams successfully isn't as simple as it might ordinarily be. If you have tried installing it already and are having issues, read on. First of all, please disable any ad-blocking Firefox extensions you have installed, such as Adblock Plus, as they can sometimes interfere with the Flash content you actually want to see. If you are still having issues after disabling the extension(s), you should now completely purge Adobe Flash from your system, along with any other packages which may be interfering with it, reinstall only Adobe Flash, restart your web browser and then test Flash performance again. Will both 32-bit and 64-bit users copy and paste this command into the terminal:
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common libflash-mozplugin libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash nspluginwrapper swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Still no joy? I would suggest following the instructions below for your particular Ubuntu version and architecture. I would also suggest that Hardy Heron users install version 10 of Flash, despite the fact it's beta, as it has full support for PulseAudio and performance improvements.
UBUNTU FAMILY 8.04 HARDY HERON USERS ONLY
Note: You can safely install the Ubuntu package (flashplugin-nonfree) over the top of this manual installation method at a later date, I've tested it several times. The method used below will install the plugin into the same directory the Ubuntu package does, with the same symlinks and can be overwritten cleanly.
Install the Flash plugin manually by downloading the Tar archive of the latest
Adobe Flash v10 beta (currently beta 2), or if you prefer, download the
beta 1. Simply open the Tar archive, then find the file named "libflashplayer.so and place it on your desktop. Next, execute the following command in the terminal:
32-Bit Ubuntu Family Users Only:
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree && sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree && sudo cp -f ~/Desktop/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ && sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin && sudo ln -sf /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/flashplayer-alternative.so
You may now restart your web browser and use the plugin.
64-Bit Ubuntu Family Users Only:
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree && sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree && sudo cp -f ~/Desktop/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ && sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so && sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin && sudo ln -sf /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/flashplayer-alternative.so && sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
You may now restart your web browser and use the plugin.
PRE-UBUNTU FAMILY 8.04 HARDY HERON USERS ONLY
Install the Flash plugin manually by downloading the Tar archive of either
Adobe Flash v9 or
Adobe Flash v10 beta (currently beta 2), or if you prefer, download the
beta 1. Simply open the Tar archive, then find the file named "libflashplayer.so and place it on your desktop. Next, execute the following command in the terminal:
32-Bit Ubuntu Family Users Only:
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree && sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree && sudo cp -f ~/Desktop/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ && sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
You may now restart your web browser and use the plugin.
64-Bit Ubuntu Family Users Only:
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree && sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree && sudo cp -f ~/Desktop/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ && sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so && ln -sf /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so && sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
You may now restart your web browser and use the plugin.
No Sound: If you're running an earlier version of Ubuntu and Firefox (pre-Hardy and Firefox 2x) and you don't have any sound in Flash videos, or you notice strange random behaviour by Firefox, you should try this next solution. Make sure you have the package "alsa-oss" from Part 1 and then paste this command into the terminal:
gksudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc
Edit the line "FIREFOX_DSP=”none”" and change "none" to "aoss". Then close and save the file. Restart Firefox.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
