763765 - Consider offering 11.2 flash via plugin check until Bug 763237 is resolved

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Websites :: plugins.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

I mentioned this to Alex in passing, but on Friday during testing plugin check was taking me to 11.3 version from an older 11.2 version.

Until Bug 763237 gets out of explosive crash mode we should consider not recommending that version and keeping people on 11.2.

Comment 1

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

(In reply to Marcia Knous [:marcia] from comment #0)
> I mentioned this to Alex in passing, but on Friday during testing plugin
> check was taking me to 11.3 version from an older 11.2 version.
> 
> Until Bug 763237 gets out of explosive crash mode we should consider not
> recommending that version and keeping people on 11.2.

This makes a lot of sense to me, given the many 11.3 issues we're currently tracking:

bug 763237 – Firefox crash in npswf32_11_3_300_257.dll@0x2ff5eb
bug 763444 – crash in npswf32_11_3_300_257.dll@0x2ff5e7
bug 763444 – Flash crash F1398665248_____________________________
bug 759689 – Flash content is not loaded using Flash 11.3 Beta
bug 763459 – RealPlayer Browser record plugin breaks Youtube since Fx13
bug 763387 – IME doesn't work with Flash Player 11.3 with Protected Mode enabled
bug 762948 – Repainting issue of Flash content when scrolling with Flash Player 11.3.300.257

Comment 2

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

(In reply to Alex Keybl [:akeybl] from comment #1)
> This makes a lot of sense to me, given the many 11.3 issues we're currently
> tracking:
> 

only that 11.3 is also a security update and so offering a old vulnerable version has downsides too.

Comment 3

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

The older version 10.3 is still supported and patched.
http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/downloads.html
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3854689

We are encouraging Japanese users to downgrade to 10.3 in the meantime.
http://mozilla.jp/blog/entry/9509/

Comment 4

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Oh I mean http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html#fp10.3

Comment 5

[Jeromie Clark]

Adobe is committed to actively investigating and patching crashers discovered in the field in a timely manner.  We'd prefer that you not downgrade users to older versions of Flash Player. 

Protected Mode offers significant security enhancements that bring Firefox to or past parity with Chrome in terms of sandbox security.  We feel this level of protection is crucial in today's threat landscape, and a valuable enhancement to end-users.

As a follow-up to Alex's list above, I think we're down to three distinct issues at this point.

Bugs 763459 and 759689 appear to be duplicates related to the RealPlayer Browser Record Plug-in based on the information we see from the field.

762948 is not a crash.  It's a performance issue that appears to affect a limited subset of GPUs.  We've provided a troubleshooting guide and will be more than happy to follow up on additional feedback.  These may be showing up as we continue to widen the pool of cards on which we support GPU acceleration.  We have the ability to blacklist problematic cards where problematic hardware/drivers are in play.  We're interested in fixing this, but don't feel that it justifies reverting users.  Users always have the ability to manually disable GPU support in Flash Player as a workaround.

For 763237, we have a candidate fix and a reproducible test case.  We should have more information about it's effectiveness by EOD tomorrow.  If someone at Mozilla is interested in a test build, please email me directly.

763387 is a known design limitation, whereby Flash Player running as a low-privilege process (a natural side-effect of the Protected Mode enhancements) does not have access to invoke many of the helper DLLs that power the popular Microsoft IMEs, and for third-party IMEs that would otherwise be invoked by a high-privilege Flash Player dll.  We are exploring options for re-enabling IME in future sandboxing release, but this will most likely require changes from Microsoft and/or Mozilla.  We're actively investigating options for providing full IME support while extending the full benefits of Protected Mode to those users.  

In this instance, Flash Player 10.3 isn't a bad workaround.  We are committed to supporting one major version of Flash Player back (10, in this case) until that version is 18 months old, or we release a new Major version of Flash Player.  

Users affected by these new IME limitations can revert to Flash Player 10.3 to get the latest critical security updates while continuing to use their preferred IME.

Comment 6

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

With the release of 11.3.0.262, I'll be marking this wontfix. If anyone objects, please re-open with a rationale. Thx!