Adobe Suggests Disabled Hardware Acceleration for Flash Player in OS X Lion

[Nostromo]

I would like to know who is at fault here.

Hardware acceleration has to be on for Flash.

How long will it take to fix this?

Edit: is this just one of these little problems that occur when an OS changes? Or is there intent?

 

[AppleFan1984]

Edit: is this just one of these little problems that occur when an OS changes? Or is there intent?

Intent on Adobe's side, or Apple's?

 

[BC2009]

You must be Jobs' shoeshiner.
Keep it up. One day, he'll send you a lollipop.

You should probably re-read my post and then try to imagine what it would be like to be demonized so often by your competitors and the media. The guy is handling it with a bit more class than most of the folks in his position would.

I stick to what I stated about his little dissertation on Adobe Flash. When I read it at first, I thought he was being a bit of a jerk, but in retrospect I think he has been proven right on many counts. If Flash was truly running great on iOS within Adobe (as Adobe had claimed years ago) then why have they not yet produced a version that works well on Android? It has been over 15 months since this mess was stirred up. But I am sure they have an update "coming soon" to improve Flash.

Sure Jobs can be a jerk to some, but it seems more and more like he called the Adobe Flash on mobile the right way even if he was a bit unprofessional about it. If that opinion makes me a "shoe shiner" then please tell Steve to send me that lollipop (or a free iPhone) -- I'll take either.

 

[AidenShaw]

How much $$

I bet you can find similar exceptions in Flash's history that affect Windows.

Nice attempt to BS an Apple mistake onto Windows - but since Flash hardware acceleration was released after Windows 7 you won't find any possible suitable data points.

 

[Nostromo]

Intent on Adobe's side, or Apple's?

I hope there isn't any on either side, that it's an early OS version glitch, and that this issue will be fixed.

 

[munkery]

Do the Lion release notes mention QTKit being removed/modified?

Apple's documentation states that AVFoundation is the primary service for Audio/Video tasks and is recommending developers transition to using this service.

I may be wrong on the issue with QTKit as it was only considered problematic when it was still 32-bit and much more reliant on IPC to work with 64 bit QuickTime. Now it is 64-bit and, beyond that, Lion has improved security mitigations for 32 bit processes.

It appears that the promotion of AVFoundation is for better compatibility in relation to development across iOS and OS X.

And, in any event, the appropriate thing for Apple to do is to ensure that there's a clear error message (at least clear to the developers) when any attempt is made to use the modified API.

CrashWrangler, Crash Reporter, & Console don't tell devs when something doesn't work!? <- sarcasm

Nice attempt to BS an Apple mistake onto Windows - but since Flash hardware acceleration was released after Windows 7 you won't find any possible suitable data points.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Adob...dware-Acceleration-Issues-in-IE9-203629.shtml

Oh no, it is the end of the world!

 

[AidenShaw]

CrashWrangler, Crash Reporter, & Console don't tell devs when something doesn't work!? <- sarcasm

How does the developer get the end-user to run those?

In other words, sometimes the error can't be easily reproduced by the devo - so it's important for the original error to show enough info to help the devo. Of course, a certain operating system from Washington state will automatically collect telemetry on application errors and send them to the developer.

 

[Nostromo]

Could it be that the emotions on this whole issue are overblown and the missing hardware acceleration will be fixed shortly?

As far as I can remember, there have always been issues with complex software after a new OS X release.

 

[munkery]

How does the developer get the end-user to run those?

Why would the end user be debugging development issues unless the developer (of Flash) hasn't done it themselves.

Adobe obviously found out about this issue somehow?

 

[AidenShaw]

Why would the end user be debugging development issues unless the developer (of Flash) hasn't done it themselves.

Adobe obviously found out about this issue somehow?

Huh? Have you ever written code used by millions of people?

I have - and no matter how good your SQA testing is, some people will have systems set up in perfectly legitimate ways that can mess things up. (For example, my Windows drive is S:, not C: - and my system root is S:\Win7. My user root isn't C:\Users\AidenShaw, or even S:\Users\AidenShaw - it's W:\as. All perfectly legit - but stupid software that assumes things like C:\Windows for %SystemRoot% fails.)

APPDATA=W:\as\AppData\Roaming
HOMEDRIVE=W:
HOMEPATH=\as
LOCALAPPDATA=W:\as\AppData\Local
ProgramData=S:\ProgramData
ProgramFiles=S:\Program Files
ProgramFiles(x86)=S:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramW6432=S:\Program Files
SystemDrive=S:
SystemRoot=S:\Win7
TEMP=P:\as\Temp
TMP=P:\as\Temp
USERNAME=as
USERPROFILE=W:\as
VS90COMNTOOLS=S:\Tools\VStudio9\Common7\Tools\
windir=S:\Win7

And the "somehow" was addressed a few pages back with the Adobe bug tracking system reports from Lion users.

 

[andrewh]

The hardware acceleration is working for video at least on my one year old Macbook Pro with Safari on Lion and Flash Player 11 from labs.adobe.com. It's 64 bit as well.

If you go to this page you can toggle between StageVideo (hw) and the old video object. CPU usage is about 10% for StageVideo (same as quicktime) and 70% without it. Perhaps it's certain configurations where it stopped working. Or perhaps vector graphics acceleration stopped working when in full screen but it doesn't look like it. Adobe can do wonderful things when they get a little cooperation from Apple.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/live-player/

 

[divinox]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Adob...dware-Acceleration-Issues-in-IE9-203629.shtml

Oh no, it is the end of the world!

Never knew that Windows was a GFX, i always thought it was an OS. You live and you learn.
Jokes aside, MSFT (or Windows) is hardly at fault for users running old drivers for their hardware.

"In this case, some Intel graphic adapters, when using older drivers, caused the issues in IE9."

Better luck next time, Mr Doom!

 

[mac9000]

Good, get rid of this poopy format. Who needs Flash for videos?!

 

[AidenShaw]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Adob...dware-Acceleration-Issues-in-IE9-203629.shtml

Oh no, it is the end of the world!

Never knew that Windows was a GFX, i always thought it was an OS. You live and you learn!

I missed this edit on my first reply, I might have been interrupted by a phone call or visitor between the time I clicked "edit" and when I clicked "submit".

I looked at the Adobe website and change logs, and it seems like the problem was introduced by Adobe in the 10.3 upgrade.

It wasn't an OS issue in Windows 7, or even a Microsoft issue with IE9. The problem occurred on a limited set of configurations after the Adobe 10.3 upgrade.

I don't see how it compares to Apple breaking things in the OSX 10.7 upgrade.

 

[dmsmith]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

TUAW reports that Adobe has posted a list of known issues for its products running on OS X Lion. The list is unfortunately extensive, but the company's discussion of Flash Player issues stands out for the revelation that OS X Lion may have disabled hardware acceleration.

Flash Player may cause higher CPU activity when playing a YouTube video. Possibly related to disabled hardware acceleration.

Other issues with Flash Player include a loss of response to mouse clicks in the setting dialog and problems with animation of custom native mouse cursors.

In addition to the Flash Player issues, Adobe's support document lists a number of other issues with its products under OS X Lion, as well as a few general notes for users to be aware of:

- With OS X Lion now hiding the user Library folder by default, users may need to use Finder's "Go to Folder" command to access preferences and other user settings for Adobe applications. Alternatively, users can use the command line to make the Library folder permanently visible.

- OS X Lion's new reverse scrolling may throw off some users, not just in Adobe's applications but across the entire experience. Reverse scrolling can be disabled in System Preferences.

- A lack of Rosetta support in OS X Lion means that some older Adobe software such as CS2 or earlier will not run on the new operating system.

- Adobe is considering how it may adopt some of OS X Lion's new features such as Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and new multi-touch gestures, but they haven't been implemented yet. Adobe specifically notes that the Restore feature which reopens all windows and files to their previous state when an application is relaunched does not function on Adobe applications.

Article Link: Adobe Suggests Disabled Hardware Acceleration for Flash Player in OS X Lion

Adobe has retracted their statement, saying:
UPDATE: The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6).  The previous “Known Issue” suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration.  We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.

 

[Tarzanman]

Good, get rid of this poopy format. Who needs Flash for videos?!

A lot of people. Flash is bloated because of everything it can do. Scripted vector animation with CGI calls is a far cry from streaming H.264 multimedia. Flash does both and makes it easy enough for your Grandma to figure out.

A lot of people have tried to take on Macromedia (now Adobe) in this arena including Microsoft and no one has been able to make a dent in Flash's market share.

Apple won't either, and I think you'll find that action script with a user-friendly GUI (Flash) is preferable to hashing out HTML 5 code.

Flash isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Say what you want... but Adobe owns flash now and they have been making the professional-level multimedia suites for something like 20+ years. Ever heard of Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere or Illustrator? Lol. Apple's claim to fame in this area is quicktime... which nowadays is just a wrapper for h.264 video.

 

[munkery]

And the "somehow" was addressed a few pages back with the Adobe bug tracking system reports from Lion users.

So, what was your point in the first place?

I don't see how it compares to Apple breaking things in the OSX 10.7 upgrade.

Sometimes software has compatibility issues. Get over it.

 

[LastZion]

Webforms is busted too

Thursday July 21, 2011
WEBFormsTM and Mac OS X Lion not compatible Attention: WEBFormsTM users
____________________________________________________________________________ The WEBFormsTM team has identified a problem with the recent release of Mac OS X Lion.
We do not recommend for WEBFormsTM users to upgrade to the new Mac OS X Lion at this time.
The following link from Adobe will explain the issue: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/908/cpsid_90885.html
Excerpt from this article:
Adobe Reader plug-in and Acrobat plug-in are not compatible with the Safari 5.1
browser, which will ship with Mac OS X 10.7 and for 10.6 in July 2011.

 

[AidenShaw]

So, what was your point in the first place?

The point is that random user reports like "I opened a file, and the window disappeared" are almost useless to help the developer find the problem. Clear error messages are a lot better, and automatic telemetry like Windows Error Reporting are fantastic.

Sometimes software has compatibility issues. Get over it.

Yes, but what's different in this case (which actually seems to have disappeared, but that doesn't affect the point) is that party "Ap" was said to have introduced a new OS that crippled party "Ad"'s product.

Immediately, legions of fans of party "Ap" started to post insults and diatribes that party "Ad" was "lazy", incompetent, diabolical and more.

The truth of the matter is that if an OS change breaks userland software, it is the fault of the OS vendor, not the software supplier. Sometimes incompatible change is necessary (for example for kernel code or security issues), in which case it's up to the OS vendor to communicate clearly and early what is changing, and to help software suppliers be ready on the day of the OS release.

Some of the replies on this thread show the worst side of Apple fans. (This specifically excludes you, munkery - we've have a civil disagreement here.)

However, I think that vendors should be held to a higher standard than "get over it". Windows would not have 95% of the desktop and a big majority of the server market if they had the attitude "get over it". The real UNIX systems wouldn't be around with that attitude, and people pay buckets of money to Red Hat and Suse to get Linux support without that attitude.

Would Apple sit back and say "OK" if the North Carolina data center crashed and went offline for a week and the Solaris support team said "software has problems, get over it"?

But mostly, it's just wrong for people to bad mouth Adobe for problems introduced by Apple.

 

[munkery]

Sometimes incompatible change is necessary (for example for kernel code or security issues), in which case it's up to the OS vendor to communicate clearly and early what is changing, and to help software suppliers be ready on the day of the OS release.

I believe this is the case in this instance. Apple facilitated vendors via the DPs and documentation. Turns out that there isn't even an issue with Flash.

Other compatibility issues do exist with other Adobe products that include browser plugins. But, this is to be expected given that Safari has been completely overhauled in relation to security.

The issue in this instance is nowhere the scope of the examples you provided. If this turned out to be true, Flash still would work without hardware acceleration.

Looks like it happens to everybody.

http://www.cio.com/article/186901/Windows_Vista_SP1_Breaks_Some_Third_Party_Apps?taxonomyId=3195

 

[batchtaster]

UPDATE: The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.

Apparently.

 

[lwhobbs]

- Adobe is considering how it may adopt some of OS X Lion's new features such as Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and new multi-touch gestures, but they haven't been implemented yet. Adobe specifically notes that the Restore feature which reopens all windows and files to their previous state when an application is relaunched does not function on Adobe applications.

Article Link: Adobe Suggests Disabled Hardware Acceleration for Flash Player in OS X Lion

Of course, if Adobe does ever adopt any new features, they'll package it as 5.6, and want at least 3X what Apple charged for the OS, for their incremental update.

 

[wescravn]

Who cares

Flash sucks period. Wish it could be removed from the Internet, now that'd would be a feature enhancement

 

[cmaier]

Adobe has recanted and now says that hardware acceleration is not disabled.

The point is that random user reports like "I opened a file, and the window disappeared" are almost useless to help the developer find the problem. Clear error messages are a lot better, and automatic telemetry like Windows Error Reporting are fantastic.




Yes, but what's different in this case (which actually seems to have disappeared, but that doesn't affect the point) is that party "Ap" was said to have introduced a new OS that crippled party "Ad"'s product.

Immediately, legions of fans of party "Ap" started to post insults and diatribes that party "Ad" was "lazy", incompetent, diabolical and more.

The truth of the matter is that if an OS change breaks userland software, it is the fault of the OS vendor, not the software supplier. Sometimes incompatible change is necessary (for example for kernel code or security issues), in which case it's up to the OS vendor to communicate clearly and early what is changing, and to help software suppliers be ready on the day of the OS release.

Some of the replies on this thread show the worst side of Apple fans. (This specifically excludes you, munkery - we've have a civil disagreement here.)

However, I think that vendors should be held to a higher standard than "get over it". Windows would not have 95% of the desktop and a big majority of the server market if they had the attitude "get over it". The real UNIX systems wouldn't be around with that attitude, and people pay buckets of money to Red Hat and Suse to get Linux support without that attitude.

Would Apple sit back and say "OK" if the North Carolina data center crashed and went offline for a week and the Solaris support team said "software has problems, get over it"?

But mostly, it's just wrong for people to bad mouth Adobe for problems introduced by Apple.

 

[miografico]

However, I think that vendors should be held to a higher standard than "get over it". Windows would not have 95% of the desktop and a big majority of the server market if they had the attitude "get over it". The real UNIX systems wouldn't be around with that attitude, and people pay buckets of money to Red Hat and Suse to get Linux support without that attitude.

As some who runs redhat, CentOS and Windows Server boxes I would have to say you are correct, but Microsoft wins hands down in every way in terms of backward compatibility over Linux as well. Unless web related I would choose Windows Server time and time again for most enterprise situations. I can confidently say no flavor of OS X will ever account for more than one half of one percent of the total for the enterprise server operating system market.

In terms of Adobe while it is true that many companies and their design departments run Creative Suite on their Mac hardware this total would obviously be substantially less than the overall number of single application license(s) running on Windows. There are many more Windows boxes running Photoshop, Illustrator etc than Macs. This is pure marketshare math.

The above is the overall key point of contention with Adobe and Steve Jobs. Jobs never forgot what he saw as the abandonment of the Mac platform in favor of Windows, and the sub par releases Adobe put out for the Mac time and time again in the past. Is that Adobe's fault? Hardly. Apple was one pen-stroke stroke away from bankruptcy before Steve Jobs return. So, while it may suit you to take a side in favor of your, "team" please be aware that a very big reason Adobe has been punished by Apple is not so much their technology, but Mr. Jobs perpetual spite.

Now, Adobe should have equal blame. They are a much bigger company than they were a decade ago, but they are extremely poorly run. As someone who has had the pleasure to deal with Adobe developers throughout the years (on a friendly basis) the ones whom I have had direct conversations are themselves extremely unhappy about the company's management structure, and the general attitude profits over innovation has had on the company as a whole. It is a somewhat known fact that Adobe's marketing arm has more control than the development teams themselves and has forced subpar releases against those teams wishes to meet their shipping dates.

It is also a somewhat known fact from ex Adobe developers that there was a major point of contention with Adobe getting on board with the iPhone and iOS from the beginning. Adobe's spin on the issue is that they tried, but Apple said piss off and while that may be the case upon the 3rd generation release of the iPhone - iPod Touch - they had ample opportunity to work with Apple from the beginning and ignored the platform.

So, while it is very possible that Apple changed the framework that the Flash Player relies on for hardware acceleration, on purpose and for the reason of spite this would be nothing more than another poke from two companies that have been shoving each other back and forth for years now.

They are basically both incompetent and childish in regards to one another, and the net benefit they could have for both companies (revenues) getting along is overshadowed by their little childish war.