Mint 7: Flash in full screen with Firefox 3.5.x

Description of the problem:

As we’re upgrading the repositories with Firefox 3.5.2, Exploder suggested we fix an upstream bug in Firefox 3.5 which makes the application crash when Adobe Flash is used in full screen mode. To be precise, the problem occurs when going back from full screen to normal view.

The fix suggested consists in pre-loading Flash with Firefox and it apparently works with any hardware spec. It doesn’t work in 64 bit though, and so for x64 users, the solution is different. For this reason, we decided not to fix this bug in Linux Mint 7 Gloria, but to let you know about the problem and how to fix it manually.

Solution for Main, Universal, and Community editions:

As root, edit /usr/bin/firefox-3.5 and add the following as the second line (below  “#!/bin/sh”):

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

Solution for x64 edition:

Right click on the Flash content, go to Settings and disable the “Hardware acceleration”.

Note:

Firefox 3.5 is not installed by default in Linux Mint 7. Read this post for more information.

18 comments

  1. I am now posting from Galeon 2.0.4 but I normally use Firefox 3.0.12 and find I cannot post to this blog with that version, although I regularly post many places on the net. Perhaps this is not flash related but I am wondering if this is browser specific and if I should change to Firefox 3.5.x or other compatible software?

  2. question on sis video? does it get support in gloria? seems when x-org gt updated I lost support and video looks like crap had t goback to mandriva 2009.0.
    has this been fixed so i can run gloria??
    thanks
    dan

  3. Thanks guys. I was a little ticked when I tried to watch Burn Notice on Hulu and it crashed. I’ll update when I get home this evening.

    On a side note, you guys are swell. 🙂

  4. As a new user of Linux Gloria Mint, your solution to the problem is the reason I get so frustrated with this operating system. You assume that everyone knows what you are talking about or how to implement the fix. The fact of the matter is that I haven’t a clue what this means “As root, edit /usr/bin/firefox-3.5” or how to get into the “root”. I have been on other sites that try to explain how to do things, but once again people are expected to have a level of knowldege about Linux that goes way beyond the new user. No one seems to be willing to take the time and do a “step-by-step” run through of these commands.

  5. Allan I’m green too, but I think the following command in the terminal will open up the editor to that file:

    sudoedit /usr/bin/firefox-3.5

    (please someone correct me if I’m wrong!)
    It should prompt for a password, then open up that file in a text editor. You then add the line in where it says too up above.
    Linux Mint ain’t a perfect replacement for windows, for windows users, but it’s the closest one I’ve found yet.

  6. “No one seems to be willing to take the time and do a “step-by-step” run through of these commands.”

    1) Open a terminal window. (Menu->System->Terminal)
    2) Type ‘sudo nautilus’ (enter)
    3) Type your root password (enter)
    4) Navigate to File System->usr->bin (/usr/bin)
    5) Right-click ‘firefox-3.5’ (/usr/bin/firefox-3.5) and choose Open->Display
    6) Edit this file and add ‘export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1’ (e.g. to the second line)
    7) Save & Exit

    That’s it! 🙂

  7. how do I get to the “flash content” and access the settings? I am a bit of a noob and don’t understand how to access the flash menu to make the changes.

    Thanks all.

  8. Thank you VinDSL. I posted my question at the same time yours showed up. When I choose Open however, I get this message in terminal:

    ** (nautilus:26564): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Operation not supported
    wine: ‘/home/myname’ is not owned by you, refusing to create a configuration directory there

    Could you help me? Thank you.

  9. Thanks, Would be nice there are alot of us kinda new and trying to learn. Appreciate showing the steps to do this would be nice for most if done for most things.

  10. @Allan “You assume that everyone knows what you are talking about or how to implement the fix”

    Allan, I think that to some extend new Linux users take their Windows knowledge for granted. So they just expect Linux to work the same way.
    So when people start explaining things in Linux terms, they get scared or switch off completely.

    Explaining how to do something as “root” in each forum post would be overly verbose- In the same way that telling someone to click Start>All Programs>Accessories>Notepad would be overly verbose as a direction to a windows users – you would instead say “open notepad”.

    If you want to use a new operating system then you need to understand that there will be some basic differences and that until you grasp the basics you will have trouble.

  11. Doing this killed java. No runsescape, armor games, ect. When loading java it locks up. Removing this line fixes java…

    KL

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