getflash11.tcz and Chromium

[Mike7]

Hi, all.

I recently installed the Chromium.tcz in my CorePlue-5.1 pendrive installation. As it doesn't include Flash Player, I also downloaded getflash11.tcz from the repo. This performed some sleight-of-hand and not only put flash11.tcz into the optional/ folder and into onboot.lst, but made it automatically available to Chromium (apparently)  whenever I go to a website that requires it. (It does seem to be eating up an awful lot of the CPU, though.)

However, there are two problems I'm having. The first and most important is that when I try to watch a Youtube video, it starts up okay (proving that flash player is there), but after around five seconds shuts off, giving me the "An error has occurred" Youtube screen. This happens consistently regardless of what video I'm trying to watch. And it doesn't happen when I go to the same Youtube videos using Chrome in Puppy Linux or Firefox in Windows, all on the same wi-fi signal.

I should mention here that other websites that use Flash Player but don't show videos seem to work okay in Chromium in CorePlus..

The second problem, rather a minor one, is that the getflash11.tcz put a "getflash11" entry in my desktop Apllications menu, and I can't figure out what this is for, except maybe to download an update. But if that's its only function, why is it in the Applications menu?

A little help here will be gratefully received, as I am trying rather desperately to make TCL my main OS since its the only one I've got that connects so well to all my available wi-fi signals (and for other reasons, too).

Cheers!

Mike

[keithterrill]

Mike7, I have followed suit and also installed the getflash11.tcz. In looking at the Info tab I noticed it says:

 NOTE:  Upon first time loading of this extension, the getflash11.sh
      script is automatically run.  Later, if you want to update your flash11.tcz,
      then select getFlash11 from the Apps menu and run it, following the directions
      given about rebooting.

This may not answer the why, but it does answer what it is there for.

Thank-you

Keith L Terrill

[keithterrill]

Mike7, I just tried the Flash in Chrome as well as Facebook. Both displayed video. However, the youtube also failed after a few moments for me. I am not sure why.

Thank-you

Keith L Terrill

[Mike7]

Hi, Keith.

I read the info tab, too. Makes sense, as there are relatively frequent updates to flashplayer.

However, the wiki says something different:
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:flash_player
"If you install a different browser after installing Flash Player, and want Flash Player on it, delete the flash extension in the tce directory, and install Flash Player again."

Maybe this is no longer necessary, since the wiki was written at the time of getFlash10.tcz. In that case, the wiki needs to be edited so that newbies like me who read it don't get confused. As to Corebook, I can find nothing in it about flashplayer, nor about browsers.

Mike

[Mike7]

Keith-

the youtube also failed after a few moments for me.

Sorry you had this problem, but I'm glad I'm not alone <wink>.

M.

[Juanito]

"If you install a different browser after installing Flash Player, and want Flash Player on it, delete the flash extension in the tce directory, and install Flash Player again."

As I recall - I never use flash - different browsers expect the flash library to be in different locations, so if you changed browser, you might need to create a new symlink to the flash library.

[Misalf]

flash11.tcz contains a start script which creates symlinks to the flash library for Minefield, Opera, SeaMonkey, FireFox and IceCat. Even if those are not installed/loaded. So there is no need to run getFlash11.tcz again for one of those browsers.
Does Chromium come with it's own version of flash?

[coreplayer2]

Lately I've been running Chromium-Browser with a getFlash created Flash11 extension without issue.  I believe some time back I also briefly experienced the issue described  earlier in this thread, but I feel that when flash movies stop playing the network is a likely suspect.

However have been playing multiple simultaneous instances of Flash11.2 in Chromium  watching various YouTube video feeds all morning via a weak wifi connection and can not duplicate the issue

Might not be representative of others wifi because even my weak connection is still quite fast.  I still suspect the connection as a likely cause


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike7]

Hi, Juanito.

I never use flash

Really? Don't you need it to watch videos, on Youtube and elsewhere? Am I missing something here?

different browsers expect the flash library to be in different locations, so if you changed browser, you might need to create a new symlink to the flash library.

I have no idea how to do that, nor where to put it. For that matter, how does getFlash11.tcz know where to put flashplayer for each browser? Do the browsers have a config file that tells getFlashxx.tcz where to put the flashplayer files?

In any case, are you saying that I should do what the wiki says or not? I'm getting pretty confused here.

Cheers.

Mike

[Mike7]

Hi, Misalf.

flash11.tcz contains a start script which creates symlinks to the flash library for Minefield, Opera, SeaMonkey, FireFox and IceCat. Even if those are not installed/loaded. So there is no need to run getFlash11.tcz again for one of those browsers.

Okay, that answers my question to Juanito, at least partially.

Does Chromium come with it's own version of flash?

No, it doesn't. I had to download and run getFlash11.tcz for Chromium after I installed it. But since it won't play videos, It was suggested to me to try another browser, like Firefox. So the question was if I should delete flash11.tcz and its dependencies and reinstall it (by running getFlash11.tcz again) after downloading and installing Firefox.

It sounds from what you say like the answer is no, because the symlinks that flash11.tcz created for Firefox should still be in place, right?

But I don't feel on safe ground here, and I want to do things right (re flash) so that the Firefox vs. Chromium test makes sense (that is, that it isn't influenced by an error in the flash installation). I don't want more than one variable in this experiment <grin>.

Mike

[Mike7]

coreplayer2-

Lately I've been running Chromium-Browser with a getFlash created Flash11 extension without issue.  I believe some time back I also briefly experienced the issue described  earlier in this thread, but I feel that when flash movies stop playing the network is a likely suspect.

Sounds pretty reasonable. Switching over to Firefox (if I can get that figured out <grin>) should shed some light.

However have been playing multiple simultaneous instances of Flash11.2 in Chromium  watching various YouTube video feeds all morning via a weak wifi connection and can not duplicate the issue

Might not be representative of others wifi because even my weak connection is still quite fast.  I still suspect the connection as a likely cause

I'm in range of two wifi networks I can connect to, both have over 50% efficiency (35/70 in the Wifi app), yet Youtube videos in Chromium fail regardless of which network I'm connected to. Also, they fail in a strange way, like keithterrill describes: they start up okay, run for a few moments, and then fail (with an error message).

Plus I can watch the very same Youtube videos using Firefox in WinXP and Chrome in Puppy Linux, using the same two wifi connections, and, while there may be an occasional cutout for a few seconds, I don't have this problem of them completely failing right away.

So, while it's always possible that neither of my two wifi connections has the proper speed for Youtube videos, I think there's something else going on.

Mike

[gerald_clark]

It sounds like you are running out of RAM.
Remember, Core has its root filesystem in RAM, so anything downloading ( like a flash viseo ) must download to RAM.

[Mike7]

Gerald-

It sounds like you are running out of RAM.

That' s what it feels like. But I figured it couldn't be that because it doesn' t happen when I'm running Puppy Linux, which I believe uses even more RAM than TCL (127MB Puppy OS plus who knows what else).

Remember, Core has its root filesystem in RAM, so anything downloading ( like a flash video ) must download to RAM.

How would I test for it? I can' t add RAM to this computer, at least not easily (maybe when I'm in New York next month I can find the right SDRAM card to add). But suppose I created a big swap file on my second pendrive partition (3.7GB), would it be fast enough?

M.

[keithterrill]

I have been installing and playing on my old PC's. Mostly with less than a gig of ram. Until I was reasonably sure that my main system(s) would not be damaged, I stuck to the old boxes.

Now with a little more understanding, and a lot of hours spent in learning over these past few weeks I booting up on my desktop. It has 3 gig of ram.

With that I installed a sound driver (alsa.tcz, alsaconf.tcz), a mixer (alsamixergui.tcz), chromium (chromium-browser.tcz), and firefox (firefox.tcz, firefox-get.tcz), as well as ntfs-3g.tcz. Then I installed flash (getflash11.tcz).

I started chromimum, logged into my account, jumped into youtube and played a couple of videos.

I am glad to report: no problems.

Therefore, I will now (maybe tomorrow) readdress this on my old boxes and see what I discover. But, I am leaning towards the explanation of limited ram. The net connection is hardwired coaxial, the speed is the same on each of my nodes. So, I doubt it is the net connection.

[keithterrill]

I tried killing most of what was in memory on the old box. Then tried chromium, youtube.... still won't play the youtube videos on this older box. Perhaps, the nic card in this box is the problem, but the free memory has dropped to 70804. So, back to considering the small RAM as the source of my problems.

Keith L Terrill