494104 - Setting wmode to transparent causes Flash not to render in a background tab

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Greg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 2.0.50727)

When you specify the wmode to be transparent to overlay html content, as is frequently needed on sites that use Flash, the Flash element does not render when opened in a background tab. Please see the demonstration URL for an example. When no wmode is specified, the element renders 100% in the background, and is immediately available to view upon navigating to the new tab. When the wmode is set to transparent, the Flash element does not render in the background tab until you click on it to make it visible. You will notice a VERY brief loading screen before the chart is rendered. If the data you wanted to chart in this example takes a long time to generate, you could imagine the need for a user to want to open this in a background tab to continue whatever they were doing. It appears to work fine in IE7.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set wmode to transparent on embedded flash element
2. Open link to said flash content in a background tab via middle click, right click, etc
Actual Results:  
The content does not render until you click on the tab and make is visible

Expected Results:  
The content should render in the background, regardless of the wmode setting.

Comment 1

[Avindra Goolcharan]

I can confirm this behavior. Setting any type of "wmode" forces the flash player to not render until the window is focused in.

Please fix it, so that I can make my script beautiful again! :'(

http://code.google.com/p/youtubehd/issues/detail?id=26

Comment 2

[Avindra Goolcharan]

Okay, here's exactly what happens for me:

A) "transparent" :
Background tabs are loaded just fine. However, when you scroll down the page, mouse events sent to the Flash object are offset by a factor of the amount you scroll. Z-Index based rendering works as expected.

B) "opaque" :
Almost exactly the same as transparent, except the mouse behavior is worse here.

C) "gpu" :
*(This is a brand new wmode). Mouse events work superbly, but Z-Indexed based ordering is not honored at all in this mode.

During all of this, nothing shows in the Error Console (don't expect it to, as Flash is third party).

As for glitchy mouse events, this seems to be confirmed @Adobe:

https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-865
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-2488

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode or a fresh profile? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 4

[Greg]

I am still able to reproduce this issue using Firefox 3.6.13.

Comment 5

[anthonydam]

Happens with firefox 3.6.
Not happening with firefox 4.
(Windows, 32bits)

Comment 6

[Greg]

Confirming that I am no longer able to reproduce this issue with Firefox 4.