Addessing Wmode Crashes
Firefox 3 is the first Firefox release for Linux that includes windowless mode (wmode) support. Unfortunately, there was a crashing issue related to wmode that a lot of people testing Flash Player 10 beta 2 have encountered, and on fairly major sites.
Great news: Thanks to the Firefox team, this issue has been solved. The fix has made its way into the Firefox nightly builds. You can download them at http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/.
The first build I know of that contains the fix is for 2008-07-08. So start with that one or later, until the next formal Firefox release. Ideally, wmode-related crashes should now be entirely Flash's fault. But please, before reporting such crashes, be sure (using the About Firefox dialog) that you actually are using one of the very recent builds. And it wouldn't hurt to be certain that you're using the latest beta of the Flash Player by checking the "about:plugins" URL in the browser.
Comments
Great, thanks for the commitment!
There is still something very irritating about Flash in Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78414. Is there any chance that you can collaborate on it too?
Posted by: Rostislav | July 10, 2008 10:57 AM
What about 64 bit ? ...
Posted by: Laurent Raufaste | July 10, 2008 10:59 AM
For me, there are no longer two menus, using latest trunk and Beta 2:
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3083/snapshot20pt7.png
Using KWin 3.5.9 .
Posted by: Zak | July 10, 2008 01:12 PM
I can confirm that it works without crashing sites in the latest firefox trunk. However, when there are wmode objects in the page, CPU usage spikes to 100% and the pages become slow and unresponsive. My setup is:
Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1
ATI radeon 9600pro (RV350)
using open source radeon driver version 6.9.0
Pentium M 2.0GHz
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2008 01:52 PM
Great post Laurent. I now have a better understanding of why asiego closed his blog.
@Rotislav
SWFAddress rules. Thanks for all your hard work.
Posted by: George | July 10, 2008 04:09 PM
Is there anywhere to download the old beta? Beta 2 is crashing all the time and uses up an entire CPU core any time any flash content is on screen, and I stupidly don't have a copy of the old one any longer.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 11, 2008 12:08 PM
In case anyone hasn't reported this before, Firefox 3 with Flash Player 10 Beta 2 crashes on lykkeli.com. I've tried with FP9 as well and it loads correctly.
I'm using Ubuntu Hardy on a fairly recent machine (Core2Duo 2.1 Ghz with 2GB Ram). Please let me know if more details are needed.
Posted by: Tiago Rodrigues | July 12, 2008 01:17 PM
After a fp10 reinstall, lykkeli.com started working again. However, i had tried a lot of times before uninstalling it without any success. so something might been going on.
Posted by: Tiago Rodrigues | July 12, 2008 02:24 PM
--> Posted by: Zak | July 10, 2008 01:12 PM
I can confirm that it works without crashing sites in the latest firefox trunk. However, when there are wmode objects in the page, CPU usage spikes to 100% and the pages become slow and unresponsive. My setup is:
Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1
ATI radeon 9600pro (RV350)
using open source radeon driver version 6.9.0
Pentium M 2.0GHz
I didn't post that.... Mines the one above it.
Posted by: Zak | July 13, 2008 12:02 PM
The "next formal Firefox release", version 3.0.1, has arrived. However, it was built on July 3, so it doesn't contain the fix from the 2008-07-08 build.
[ True. Maybe the next formal release. -Mike M. ]
Posted by: Robert | July 16, 2008 08:14 PM
Just in case anyone is looking for prebuilt xulrunner packages with the patches from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435764, you can find them here:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/sniperbeamer/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xulrunner-1.9/
I've installed xulrunner-1.9 and xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support over the top of a fresh Ubuntu 8.04, and the problems with FP10Beta2 have gone. :-)
Posted by: Jaime | August 11, 2008 09:53 AM