Snap Chromium can't see flash plugin in /usr/lib

Currently running Ubuntu 18.04, and have Chromium installed as a snap. Absolutely no problems with the base Chromium install, however…

The snap-installed Chromium does not recognize the independently-installed Adobe Flash plugin.

I tried both installing the adobe-flashpugin using apt (after adding 3rd party capability), and manually downloading the tar.gz from Adobe. Both methods end up with a .so in /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin but chrome does not seem to recognize it as being installed.

I’m by no means an expert, but I believe the snap version of Chromium is not currently configured to map the system’s native /usr/lib. Alternatively, I don’t know where to add/create the flashplugin in the chromium snap folder structure.

Anyone have any ideas? Bug, or my inability to configure?

Chrome://flash gives the following:

About Flash
Chromium 65.0.3325.181 ()
OS Linux
Flash plugin Not installed
— Crash data —
Crash Reporting Enable crash reporting to see crash IDs
For more details https://support.google.com/chrome/?p=ui_usagestat
— GPU information —
— GPU driver, more information —
Vendor Id 0x0000
Device Id 0x0000
Driver vendor Mesa
Driver version 17.2.8
Driver date
Pixel shader version 1.30
Vertex shader version 1.30
GL_VENDOR Google Inc. (VMware, Inc.)
GL_RENDERER Google SwiftShader (llvmpipe (LLVM 5.0, 256 bits))
GL_VERSION OpenGL ES 2.0 SwiftShader (3.0 Mesa 17.2.8)
GL_EXTENSIONS GL_AMD_conservative_depth GL_AMD_draw_buffers_blend GL_AMD_seamless_cubemap_per_texture GL_AMD_shader_stencil_export GL_AMD_shader_trinary_minmax GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt3 GL_ANGLE_texture_compression_dxt5 GL_APPLE_packed_pixels GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility GL_ARB_ES3_compatibility GL_ARB_arrays_of_arrays GL_ARB_base_instance GL_ARB_blend_func_extended GL_ARB_buffer_storage GL_ARB_clear_buffer_object GL_ARB_clear_texture GL_ARB_clip_control GL_ARB_color_buffer_float GL_ARB_compressed_texture_pixel_storage GL_ARB_conditional_render_inverted GL_ARB_conservative_depth GL_ARB_copy_buffer GL_ARB_copy_image GL_ARB_cull_distance GL_ARB_debug_output GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float GL_ARB_depth_clamp GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_draw_buffers_blend GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex GL_ARB_draw_instanced GL_ARB_explicit_attrib_location GL_ARB_explicit_uniform_location GL_ARB_fragment_coord_conventions GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_fragment_shader GL_ARB_framebuffer_object GL_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB GL_ARB_get_program_binary GL_ARB_get_texture_sub_image GL_ARB_half_float_pixel GL_ARB_half_float_vertex GL_ARB_instanced_arrays GL_ARB_internalformat_query GL_ARB_internalformat_query2 GL_ARB_invalidate_subdata GL_ARB_map_buffer_alignment GL_ARB_map_buffer_range GL_ARB_multi_bind GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_occlusion_query2 GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_program_interface_query GL_ARB_provoking_vertex GL_ARB_robustness GL_ARB_sampler_objects GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map GL_ARB_seamless_cubemap_per_texture GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects GL_ARB_shader_bit_encoding GL_ARB_shader_objects GL_ARB_shader_stencil_export GL_ARB_shader_texture_lod GL_ARB_shading_language_100 GL_ARB_shading_language_420pack GL_ARB_shading_language_packing GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_stencil_texturing GL_ARB_sync GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_compression_rgtc GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_cube_map_array GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_float GL_ARB_texture_gather GL_ARB_texture_mirror_clamp_to_edge GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_multisample GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_query_levels GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_texture_rg GL_ARB_texture_rgb10_a2ui GL_ARB_texture_stencil8 GL_ARB_texture_storage GL_ARB_texture_storage_multisample GL_ARB_texture_swizzle GL_ARB_texture_view GL_ARB_timer_query GL_ARB_transform_feedback2 GL_ARB_transform_feedback3 GL_ARB_transform_feedback_instanced GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_uniform_buffer_object GL_ARB_vertex_array_bgra GL_ARB_vertex_array_object GL_ARB_vertex_attrib_binding GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_vertex_shader GL_ARB_vertex_type_10f_11f_11f_rev GL_ARB_vertex_type_2_10_10_10_rev GL_ARB_window_pos GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_ATI_fragment_shader GL_ATI_separate_stencil GL_ATI_texture_compression_3dc GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATI_texture_float GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array GL_EXT_copy_texture GL_EXT_draw_buffers2 GL_EXT_draw_instanced GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample_blit_scaled GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil GL_EXT_packed_float GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_polygon_offset GL_EXT_polygon_offset_clamp GL_EXT_provoking_vertex GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shader_integer_mix GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_subtexture GL_EXT_texture GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_array GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_compression_latc GL_EXT_texture_compression_rgtc GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_cube_map GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_integer GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_texture_sRGB GL_EXT_texture_sRGB_decode GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent GL_EXT_texture_snorm GL_EXT_texture_swizzle GL_EXT_timer_query GL_EXT_transform_feedback GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_EXT_vertex_array_bgra GL_IBM_multimode_draw_arrays GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_INGR_blend_func_separate GL_KHR_context_flush_control GL_KHR_debug GL_KHR_no_error GL_MESA_pack_invert GL_MESA_shader_integer_functions GL_MESA_texture_signed_rgba GL_MESA_window_pos GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_conditional_render GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_fog_distance GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil GL_NV_primitive_restart GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_OES_EGL_image GL_OES_read_format GL_S3_s3tc GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays

Indeed the chromium snap doesn’t know where to look for the flash plugin (it can’t see the one installed on the host system because of confinement).

I got it to work with the following:

sudo apt install adobe-flashplugin
mkdir -p ~/snap/chromium/common
cp /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libpepflashplayer.so ~/snap/chromium/common/
chromium --ppapi-flash-path=$HOME/snap/chromium/common/libpepflashplayer.so

Some of this logic could be embedded in the wrapper script that runs chromium, but I don’t think we can bundle the plugin itself in the snap.

you could bundle a script … chromium.get-flash :wink: (that simply does all the same flashplugin-installer does but extracts the tarball to the right place inside the snap)

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I provided a fetch script here, but didn’t pursue it: Call for testing: chromium 64.0.3282.119

Yes, that script was for the widevine CDM, but that’s the same logic.

IANAL, but even bundling such a script might not be legally acceptable.

I filed bug #1771162 to track this issue.

And this commit will allow the snap to look for the flash plugin inside its confinement. That doesn’t solve the “getting and extracting the flash plugin” bit though.

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oops, I remembered incorrectly :smiley:

How does Firefox manage to download its DRM libraries? :thinking:

As far as I know, mozilla has some sort of agreement with google, and firefox downloads the widevine CDM when needed and unpacks it somewhere in a writeable location (the user’s profile directory?).