1271398 - [Regression] Problems with Adobe Flash Player 22 Stage3D and Firefox x64 >=v48

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect, P2)

Description

[MrX1980]

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2151503
https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=4150372

Hi, I found a regression with Stage3D and Firefox x64 >=v47.

Examples:
https://airtightinteractive.com/demos/flash/stage3d/cubes/
http://www.flare3d.com/demos/AncientChina/

Firefox x64 v46.x = Both examples are working as expected
Firefox x64 v47.x Beta & v49.x Nightly = Cubes are not visible and the China demo is loading until 100% and then nothing happens.
(clean Firefox profiles)

Tested on two different devices with Flash Player:
- v18 ESR
- v19
- v20
- v21.0.0.213
- v22.0.0.144

Please check it together with Adobe.
Thanks

Test Configuration
My Hardware and Environment details:
ASRock X99M Extreme4; i7-5820K; 4x4GB DDR4-2400; Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC; 950 Pro 512 GB
Windows 10 x64 Build 14332 de-de

ASUS K53SV; i5-2410m [HD3000]; GeForce 540M 2GB; 2x4GB DDR3-1866: 850 EVO 500 GB
Windows 10 x64 Build 14332 de-de / Windows 7 SP1 x64 / Windows 8.1 x64

Comment 1

[MrX1980]

https://forums.adobe.com/message/8738755#8738755
m_vargas:
"Speaking with the Engineer, this is an issue with Firefox not supporting Windowed Plug-ins in 64-bit Firefox.  wmode=direct content is forced to wmode=opaque content, which doesn't support Stage3d.  Our Engineer emailed Firefox about this last week. Please also file a bug with Firefox."

Was something changed with the wmode handling between v46 and v47 ?

Comment 2

[Alice0775 White]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]:

Comment 3

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This was an intentional change. In order to support proper sandboxing, we are forcing Flash to windowless mode on x64. For the Flash beta releases that support the new accelerated drawing model, we will probably re-allow the direct wmode because it will be handled in windowless mode.

Comment 4

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Not tracking based on Comment 3.

Comment 5

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

clear ni.  gpu mode on windows is a kind of window mode...

Comment 6

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

As we're now into RC builds, this is wontfix for 47.

Comment 7

[schindel4711]

This is a CRITICAL bug - according to the developers of Forge of Empires (see https://forum.de.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/firefox-47-0-64bit.23768/#post-167393 ) this bug makes it impossible to load the game Forge of empires (links: beta.forgeofempires.com, de.forgeofempires.com, en.forgeofempires.co), and maybe other Flash applications. This is still the case with Firefox 1.48 beta, see https://forum.de.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/firefox-47-0-64bit.23768/#post-167402

Comment 8

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Posted the site compatibility doc: https://www.fxsitecompat.com/en-CA/docs/2016/flash-is-forced-windowless-mode-on-firefox-for-64-bit-windows-affecting-stage-3d/

Comment 9

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Brad, why are we forcing windowless mode on Win64? I thought we were waiting for Adobe to default to windowless mode themselves in FP 21?

Comment 10

[Joris Debonnet]

I would agree with Comment 7 that this is a critical bug. Innogames (FoE's creator) may in fact lose revenue due to this bug, as some people may decide to stop playing because the game hasn't been working in their favorite browser for almost a week now. 

Anyway, I'm glad the issue is now getting attention :)

Comment 11

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

5 mentions on Firefox Input so far.
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/?product=Firefox&version=47.0&q=Context3D

Comment 12

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

(This might be a better result)
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/?product=Firefox&version=47.0&q=wmode

Comment 13

[Benjamin Smedberg]

We are forcing windowless mode because that is required for Flash IME to work correctly with the sandbox.

We are not going to change this behavior in the short term: we believe that the tradeoff represented here of IME working properly and having a strong sandbox is worth breaking Stage3D. And Firefox for win64 is not the default download. We encourage authors currently using Stage3D to move away from Flash and to WebGL as soon as possible.

When Adobe finishes the async-rendering work that we've been partnering and is available in Flash betas, this will become a non-issue. In the meantime, I'm going to resolve this WONTFIX.

Comment 14

[schindel4711]

So no more playing Forge of Empires with Firefox?? As stated above, the game won't load since 1.47, and as Joris Debonnet stated, Innogames (FoE's creator) may lose revenue due to this bug because it is no longer playable with Firefox.

Comment 15

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

This issue only affects the Windows 64-bit version of Firefox that has a very small user base. As explained in the blog post, the plug-in support is limited, and the users should not expect that everything works as expected.

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/12/15/firefox-64-bit-for-windows-available/

Comment 16

[Joris Debonnet]

I understand your reasoning, and I respect your decision, but I certainly do not agree. I never read that blog post, and I did not even know the 64-bit version of Firefox was a new thing. 

All I personally did was reinstall Windows 10 a few months ago, go to the Firefox download page, and click on "more download options" because it wasn't presenting me the language I wanted. A 64bit version was presented as a perfectly valid option, and as I was on a 64-bit system, I thought it would make sense to download that one. This was a "first install", not a calculated decision to try out something new.

I respect that this will only affect a small percentage of users, but you can't make the assumption that they are all consious "early adopters", aware of related risks. A good portion of them may have, like me, downloaded Firefox 64-bit version while being oblivious to the fact that it may not fully guarantee a complete browsing experience (which of course includes the hugely popular Flash plugin).

(by the way, strangely enough I was able to succesfully load Forge of Empires in FF47 a single time after updating Flash Player to 21.0 - but only a single time: after that, it started failing again)

Comment 17

[schindel4711]

Talking about Forge of Empires: Many players, whose favorite browser is Firefox, have changed to 64-bit version because with the 32 bit version FoE experiences performance issues. (still present with 64 bit, but it's better than with 32 bit).
So changing back to 32 bit is hardly an option for FoE players - they have to either change to a different browser (like Chrome or Opera) or stop playing.

Therefore I disagree with the status "Resolved WONTFIX" - I still think that this is a CRITICAL and URGENT issue.

Comment 19

[schindel4711]

According to the link (duplicate) posted by Benjamin Smedberg, there are quite a few browser games (and not just from InnoGames like Elvenar and Forge of Empires), which are no longer playable with Firefox 64 bit.

Look at the User numbers of these games - it's not just about two or three players!

Still "Wontfix" and dirxuraging thousands of browser game players of using Firefox or making them stop playing the respective browser games??

Comment 20

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Personally I think Mozilla could still be blamed, not for this issue at all but for the way it offers the Windows 64-bit version. As Joris said, there's not info on https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ about the current "technology preview" status of the 64-bit version. Users should be warned before they download it. I'll file a separate bug for that.

Comment 21

[silverspike]

I am sorry to break it, but I can not take this "please move to a new tech" illusion by vendors anymore. If there was any half-decent game developer in your team, you would realize that HTML5 for games is a lie. Open source is a problem, browser specific differences and bugs are a problem, performance is a problem, toolchain is a problem.

What the hell are you people thinking? So lets tell developers that they should move to a new platform by breaking their stuff? We are working on a codebase that is years in the making, how the heck should we move to a new technology within a few days?

Really, this is ridiculous. Get your stuff together.

Comment 22

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Fixed by Flash Player 22 release.

Comment 23

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Fixed on 47.0, but still broken on 48.0b1 and 50.0a1.
Now this is our fault because FP 22 should have supported windowless accelerated rendering.

Comment 24

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

pushlog_url: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/pushloghtml?fromchange=b575775f423b0750b2a4c15b28b89d122e5da6d9&tochange=7f64a3a95af69637ae6948b5ec340d7f1b2d0520

Looks like bug 1248821 was doing something wrong.

Comment 25

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Apparently windowless forcing does not work somehow on Firefox 47. Spy++ has shown that FP 22 on Firefox 47 created a GeckoPluginWindow. Nightly creates no window even if I revert the patch for bug 1248821.

Comment 26

[Joris Debonnet]

I'm afraid I still have the issue on FF47 x64 with FP 22.

The whole story: after reading your messages, I checked my addons and saw both FP 21 and 22 were installed. I uninstalled Flash Player, and manually installed FP 22, and indeed, I was able to succesfully load Forge of Empires in FF47 x64! Hurray! But on the next run, the original issue was back: it gets stuck around "loading 85%". 

This is EXACTLY the same behavior as when I updated FP to 21: then I was also able to load the game once, and not after that (see the end of Comment 16). So just now, I tested it a few times, and indeed,  after every uninstall + reinstall, the game succesfully loads on the first Firefox run. It will happily run after a refresh, too. But the next time Firefox is started, it gets stuck around "85% loading" (restoring previous session does not cure this). 

So I thought I'd mention this, since you are currently assuming the issue is no longer present in FF47 with FP22.

Comment 27

[Ron from Canada]

I have downloaded FP 22.0.0.192 and FF 47.0 in Windows 7x64. Cleaned out histories, cookies, caches, etc. then, once again tried to play Bubble Mouse from MSN Games On-Line. I still received the dialogue box warning "Context3D not available! Possible reasons: wrong wmode or missing device support." and could proceed no further. So my situation has not changed since I first reported it. BTW it started when I upgraded from FF46.

Comment 28

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

(In reply to Masatoshi Kimura [:emk] from comment #23)
> Fixed on 47.0, but still broken on 48.0b1 and 50.0a1.
> Now this is our fault because FP 22 should have supported windowless
> accelerated rendering.

Not bug on 48+ and this is bug of 47.  Firefox 47 doesn't work force windowless mode correctly.

Comment 29

[schindel4711]

Forge of Empires still does not load for me on FF 47.0.1 (just updated a moment ago) with FP22; it still gets stuck with showing a black screen.

Comment 30

[Gerry Chang [:gchang]]

Track this as this is a regression issue.

Comment 31

[schindel4711]

This bug makes it impossible to use Flash applications, for example playing certain browser games. 

According to wikipedia, Forge of Empires has approx. 14 Mio. players, so we are not just talking about a Nerd or two, who might be affected by the bug (in contrary, the few Nerds mitht be able to work out a workaround, but the average user is not able or willing to do sophisticated things to make their favourite browser work with their favourite game). I did not look up the numbers for other browser games, but there might also be other browser games which have millions of players, and are now impossible to play on FF since several weeks.

So, here we have a bug, which forces MILLIONS of users either to stop playing their favourite browser game (would be a great revenue loss for the game companies) or to change the browser. Think about Firefox losing a few million users due to this bug. So WHY is this bug not (yet) marked as CRITICAL and URGENT?

Comment 32

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

see comment #13 for reason.  This isn't regression on Firefox 48 because force windowless mode doesn't work correctly on 47.

Mark as wontfix again due to comment #13.  Adobe can fix this using DirectX surface.

Comment 33

[Makoto Kato [:m_kato]]

Also, if user wants GPU mode on Flash 21/22, user can use 32-bit firefox for workaround.

Comment 34

[schindel4711]

And why now Wontfix?!? If I understand comment #23 correctly, this is a bug on Firefox side.

BTW: If you think this is a Flash bug: Has this been reported/urged to Adobe?

Comment 35

[Liz Henry (:lizzard)]

Yes, we are talking with Adobe and working with them on this; sounds like a fix is coming from their side, but I don't have an exact timeline.

Comment 36

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to schindel4711 from comment #34)
> BTW: If you think this is a Flash bug: Has this been reported/urged to Adobe?

Yes, we are working with Adobe's Flash team to fix this 64-bit issue in the next version of Flash (version 23, scheduled for end of Q3, I believe).

Comment 37

[schindel4711]

Fix from Adobe sheduled for end of Q3 (= mid/end of september)? So Flash content (like browser games made by InnoGames) are useless with FF64 for another two or three MONTHS? Doesn't really look like high priority for a CRITICAL bug... :-( (and yes, I still think, that any bug, which makes some content unusable, is a critical one. And yes, the games of InnoGames are played by several MILLION players, so we are not talking about just 1 or 2 nerds who experience the bug)

Comment 38

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Reopening and morphing to a Tech Evang. bug to block bug 1274659.

Comment 39

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Masatoshi, 

Does the Web compat team need to proceed on this?

* What is the issue summary? (I mean in the current state, I read everything)
* What is the course of action to fix it?
* Which company/dev is in a position to fix it?

Then when we have these details, it becomes indeed a lot easier to go discuss with the company.

OR

Should I understand that Liz Henry and Chris Peterson are currently discussing with Adobe about this issue and it's why it has been moved to Tech Evangelism?

Comment 40

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

(In reply to Karl Dubost :karlcow from comment #39)
> * What is the issue summary? (I mean in the current state, I read everything)

Stage3D does not work with Firefox Win64 because Firefox Win64 force windowless mode to Flash.

> * What is the course of action to fix it?

Add windowless mode support to Stage3D.

> * Which company/dev is in a position to fix it?

Adobe is responsible to fix Flash plug-in.

> Should I understand that Liz Henry and Chris Peterson are currently
> discussing with Adobe about this issue and it's why it has been moved to
> Tech Evangelism?

I don't know. I'm just an external contributor.

Comment 41

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Masatoshi Kimura [:emk] from comment #40)
> (In reply to Karl Dubost :karlcow from comment #39)
> > * What is the issue summary? (I mean in the current state, I read everything)
> 
> Stage3D does not work with Firefox Win64 because Firefox Win64 force
> windowless mode to Flash.
> 
> > * What is the course of action to fix it?
> 
> Add windowless mode support to Stage3D.

Flash version 23 should address this, along the change in bug 1283274.

Comment 42

[MrX1980]

It is working again for me.
I have tested it with Flash Player x64 23.0.0.111 and Firefox Nightly x64 20160727030230
Thanks

Comment 43

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

\o/ Thanks for testing, MrX1980!

We expected Adobe's latest Flash 23 beta would work with Firefox 50 (Nightly) with Jim's bug 1283274 fix.

Comment 44

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Updating the flag as per Bug 1283274.

Comment 45

[slickr12345]

I've stopped using FF and have transferred to Chrome 64bit due to this bug. Being unable to play FOE for two straight versions in this garbage browser was the last straw. Its slower in every benchmark than Chrome, the only advantage was a bit better privacy, but with FF using Chrome's system for scam and malware websites and basically giving them all my info anyways, what is the point of using FF, especially when it doesn't even work anymore on a fourth of the flash websites?

Comment 46

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

FYI: Flash 23 is out of beta today. Firefox 49 is coming next Tuesday.

http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
http://release.mozilla.org/firefox/49/2016/09/13/49-delayed.html

Comment 48

[Edo Karabas]

Does it work for anyone now ?
I have tried examples mentioned in comment #0 in Firefox 52 x64 stable and Firefox 53 x64 beta build 1 with Flash 24 and 25 beta but it doesn't work in clean profile.
Forge of Empires is also affected.
I do not have tech knowledge why exactly it's not working now, but it is a major issue if there is no workaround available.

Comment 49

[Ron from Canada]

I have just loaded Version 52 64bit and Bubble Mouse still does not load. Same dialogue box which reads : "Context 3D not available.Possible reasons: wrong wmode or missing device support."

Comment 50

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Stage3D currently does not work in Firefox x64 and will not until we can re-enable direct drawing (bug 1340934).

Comment 51

[Edo Karabas]

Thanks for update. In the meantime I have tried to switch a magic toggle dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled to true and it's working fine for me in x64 53 beta, at least for now.

Comment 52

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

This is fixed in latest nightly with the latest version of flash and having async drawing enabled.

Comment 54

[Edo Karabas]

At the moment I don't think that calling it fixed is completely right. It is fixed indeed but only for Nightly and Developer branch and this "fix" has not been promoted to the beta or release channel yet. I have tested 53 Developer and works fine on default, but not for 53 Beta.
If it qualifies as fixed despite that then fine.

Comment 55

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Do we have a bug that tracks beta/release enabling? We need a bug that blocks bug 1274659 to prevent bug 1274659 from shipping without fixing this bug on release channels. But bug 1323750 has been duped to this bug.

Comment 56

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Masatoshi Kimura [:emk] from comment #55)
> Do we have a bug that tracks beta/release enabling? We need a bug that
> blocks bug 1274659 to prevent bug 1274659 from shipping without fixing this
> bug on release channels. But bug 1323750 has been duped to this bug.

I've filed bug 1345649 for turning async drawing on for release channels and hooked it up to bug 1274659.

Comment 57

[eddie]

Hi, I work for Y8.com and we are going to hide stage3d games from FF users. This bug is still a problem. Even 32 bit seems to have problems since version 47 to 52. It's terrible user experience overriding wmode, so not sure what else we can do but over FF more simple games to play.

Comment 58

[Gustavo Homem]

Still a problem in Firefox 63 with adobe-flashplugin 32.0.0.101ubuntu0.16.04.1 on Ubuntu 16.04 x64.

Example URL:

http://www.royalgames.com/games/card-games/boom-solitaire/?language=en_US&action=play