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Janghou
Asked: 2016-09-23 05:15:09 +0800 CST

Why is flash for Chromium (pepperflashplugin) not automatically updated?

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To update flash in Chromium-based browsers (Ubuntu 16.04) I have to run manually :

sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install

This will update the flash plugin for Chromium and Opera.

BTW there is also a bug in update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree:

update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --status
Flash Player version installed on this system  : 22.0.0.209
Flash Player version available on upstream site: 22.0.0.209

While the latest version is 23.0.0.162, the only way to install that version is to remove it first, and reinstall it later:

sudo apt-get --purge remove pepperflashplugin-nonfree
sudo apt install pepperflashplugin-nonfree

sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --status
Flash Player version installed on this system  : 23.0.0.162
Flash Player version available on upstream site: 22.0.0.209

So it's buggy, but more importantly, why isn't the update of this important internet plugin and (major weakness) not done (or hooked into) the general update process sudo apt update; sudo apt upgrade ?

apt

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    It seems that both pepperflashplugin-nonfree and flashplugin-installer are deprecated.

    There is a new package adobe-flashplugin in the Canonical Partners software section that will update both the Chromium and Firefox plugins.

    You have to enable Canonical Partners source. It will mark the flashplugin-installer as deprecated / to be removed, but unfortunately not the pepperflashplugin-nonfree, you have to remove that yourself.

    Solution

    Enable Canonical Partners in System settings -> Software and Updates -> tab Other software, then:

    sudo apt remove pepperflashplugin-nonfree flashplugin-installer
sudo apt update
sudo apt install adobe-flashplugin

    First row will delete the old plugin:

    /usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so

    and last row will install the plugin in:

    /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libpepflashplayer.so

    Note

    You have to check that for Canonical Partners the distribution is set to xenial, this is not always done automatically for upgraded systems.

    Otherwise it will install older versions of the adobe-flashplugin package: It should install adobe-flashplugin version:

     1:20160913.1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1

    On upgrade installations 14.04 -> 16.04 it installs 1:20160913.1-0ubuntu0.14.04.1, which offers an updated flash but on upgraded older installations (from 13.10->...->16.04) it offers an outdated package, that does not install the pepperplugin. Hence Opera uses the Chrome location, Chromium does not.

    So don't forget to set the distribution to xenial for Canonical Partners, then it will offer the 16.04 package.

    At last check this Adobe page to verify your version.

    (Apparently this doesn't work for the Yandex browser.)

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