555297 - SWF goes black or flickers after tab switch (Core Animation backend)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Stephen Augenstein]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a4pre) Gecko/20100325 Minefield/3.7a4pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a4pre) Gecko/20100325 Minefield/3.7a4pre

Playing a video in a foreground tab, if I switch to another tab and back, the video sometimes goes into a state of flickering to black or turns totally black. Hovering over the movie sometimes fixes the issue. This is with Flash Player 10.1b3 and Mac OS 10.6.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run a SWF in the background
2. Wait a while
3. Bring to foreground
Actual Results:  
SWF is flickering rapidly between black and the actual content. Audio continues to play perfectly.

Expected Results:  
SWF is not flickering.

Comment 1

[aravindm]

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2

Reporter, can you please test in Safe Mode 
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
and check if an extension is the cause of the mentioned issue. Also specify the url of the video you are viewing?

Comment 2

[Stephen Augenstein]

I tried it in safe mode and was able to replicate the issue almost instantly. In terms of a video URL, I've been able to replicate the issue with a whole bunch of embedded YouTube, Vimeo, and gawker videos across a bunch of sites. I don't think I've seen any problems with advertisements, but I don't really pay attention to those.

This is almost certainly a regression between the 22nd and the 25th on mozilla-central, as the build I got on the 22nd did not have this issue. I could try to see if Flash Player 10.1b2 does not have the issue if you think it's important, as I'm pretty sure Core Animation support isn't activated in that build of Flash Player.

Comment 3

[Benoit Girard (:BenWa)]

I can reproduce the problem to a lesser extent. When I switch back I see some black areas such as the playback bar but they quickly disappear. I have noticed some flash games going totally black under some conditions. I have also noticed that black lines mentioned in bug 555227 which I believe is the same problem.

Since the bug is dealing with the interaction with a Beta version of Flash and a new extension to the plugin API it is hard to confirm which part is responsible. We currently have discussions underway to find the cause of these problems.

Comment 4

[Stephen Augenstein]

If I downloaded a nightly of Safari with Core Animation and tried to replicate it, would that help?

Comment 5

[Benoit Girard (:BenWa)]

I would first start with looking at reproducing the problem with Chrome nightly since they are using a similar code path:

Run http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/
with the '--enable-flash-core-animation' flag and you can compare the behavior. This bug might not be consistent across browser but bug 555227 might be easier to reproduce.

Comment 6

[Benoit Girard (:BenWa)]

I have been able to reproduce this issue with the chrome nightly. It must be related to the similar code path we are using.

Comment 7

[Benoit Girard (:BenWa)]

I can no longer reproduce this issue. My guess is that it was either resolved from the latest Flash RC4 or by bug 528146. If no one can reproduce this we should mark this as fixed.

Comment 8

[Stephen Augenstein]

I haven't had it happen to me in a really long time, so I'm assuming that it's either RC4 or the latest nightlies that fixed it.