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[swartz]

Flash Player often crashes on Chrome 21 on Windows 7 and Windows XP. This is because the Chrome 21 uses the experimental "pepper" plugin version of Flash Player. The following workaround fixes the issue:

1. Open Chrome and type

Code: Select all

chrome://plugins

in the address bar.
2. Click "Details" in the top right-hand corner of the page.
3. Under "Flash", click the "disable" link that points to "pepflashplayer.dll".
4. Restart Chrome.

[giladani]

FYI - I tried 'rounds' which is a Facebook app, using flash with video cam. It doesn't crash the flash on the new chrome when the plugin is enabled.
I guess that there is some workaround for this issue, without telling customers that they just need to disable the plugin (the plugin is not easy to disable for the common user).

Gil.

[ian]

The problems with Pepper in Chrome 21 are widespread - in some cases, they even impact YouTube. We agree that disabling the plugin is not a practical end-user friendly approach for the general case.

At the same time as we are working with Google to try to get a fix on their end, we are actively trying to isolate what particular codepath triggers the instability, and then see if we can identify another work around that doesn't trigger a crash in Pepper.

[assafm]

Hi All,

Any news on the solution to this? very urgent.

[ian]

We have identified the code path which triggers the instability in Chrome and are working on a fix and/or a more end-user friendly workaround (we thought we had fixed it overnight, but the fix did not get through our QA pass this morning, so we are trying again). The Chromium team has also reproduced the crash and is working on a patch that prevents the crash.

We will post again when we have an updated build available or a more concrete timeline to the fix.

[ian]

We have quick-pushed a workaround that reduces the frequency of - but does not eliminate - the crashing problem. Starting some time this evening, depending on local caching behavior, end users on Chrome on Windows with Pepper enabled will see Flash's more complex allow/deny/remember permission dialog.

Using this dialog rather than the allow/deny dialog appears to reduce the frequency of the crashing problem, but we do not believe it eliminates the crashing behavior completely. Note that if users select allow/remember, it appears that subsequent invocations of OpenTok will no longer suffer the crashing behavior.

Our continuing course of action is as follows:
- we will monitor the crashing incidence overnight to understand over the next 12-18 hours how effective this workaround is
- we are continuing to work overnight on isolating the problem with the goal of delivering a 100% effective workaround that uses Flash's simpler allow/deny dialog
- we are monitoring the Chromium bug fix and build process. You can follow the bug here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue ... ?id=140831

We will post again to this thread when we know more.

[ian]

Based on early testing, we do not believe that today's Chrome build (Chrome 21.0.1180.75) for Windows mitigates this issue.

[assafm]

Hi Ian,
It doesn't solve it. It crashed for us first and second time we tried to run a chat this morning for testing, and I had to re-disable the pep plugin.....
I also read this plugin is causing major delays in flash-based activities......

Keep us posted - very critical to solve ASAP
thanks

[song]

August 24, 2012 - Crash Update:

Last friday, we updated our Javascript Library. This release virtually eliminated the one regularly-reproducible crash we had (device picker).
The sporadic crashes weren't fixed and we have seen them continue past Friday. We have not observed a test case which regularly/consistently crashes.

For the remaining sporadic crashes, disabling the Pepper plugin (Read First Post) brings Flash crashes down to historic norms.

Here's where we are now:
1) With Friday's release we fixed one set of crashes (device picker).
2) There are still sporadic crashes on Chrome. We have filed bugs with Google and continue to work in parallel on work-arounds for these remaining crashes.

Song