Can't remove Flash 7 plugin

[Stephen Shellard]

Post Script 8th February: This thread has successfully provided me with solutions to a number of problems, not just the removal of Flash 7.0.

Anyone experiencing problems around the installation of Flash 10, may benefit from following this thread. Related issues include: no sound on u-tube videos, freezing of BBC iPlayer on attempting to stream radio or "listen again", complete failure of BBC iPlayer to deliver on "listen again" television options. At the conclusion to this the absence of Pulse Audio from my system proved to be a critical factor and one which I did not anticipate or have any prior knowledge. Much thanks to Red Road 55 and Gandaran. Read on...


I have read through many threads on the subject of problems with Flash player but none seem to touch on the particular difficulty I have encountered. I am using Hardy 8.04 and following many problems with video and streaming BBC radio have now got things to work. This has been achieved by removing Flash 10 and Flash non free (and indeed everything else flash related that I can see in the package manager - SWFDec gnash etc)and relying on what would appear to be the default - Flash 7.0 re 68 (visible as installed and active in Tools/Add ons/plugins)

I should however like to upgrade to Flash 10 and have attempted to do so with resulting reduced functionality.

Looking at other threads it would appear that I should remove all previous versions of flash. My problem is, I do not know how to remove the Flash 7.0 re 68 plugin. (I can disable it by the way, but this would still appear to interfere with new versions if I install them.) I have tried reinstalling Firefox but Flash 7 reappears like a bad penny.

Help greatly appreciated.

[redroad55]

with this you can remove all others and then reinstall 10 all is included in this code except the flash 7 your talking about so include it after purge :

sudo apt-get purge adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash nspluginwrapper swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

Best to you

[Stephen Shellard]

OK - I've had a go at this, or to exact, a couple of gos: here's the output:

stephen@Zoostorm:~$ sudo apt-get purge adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash nspluginwrapper swfdec-mozilla libflashplayer.so
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package adobe-flashplugin is not installed, so not removed
Package flashplugin-nonfree is not installed, so not removed
Package gnash is not installed, so not removed
Package gnash-common is not installed, so not removed
Package libflashsupport is not installed, so not removed
Package mozilla-plugin-gnash is not installed, so not removed
E: Couldn't find package nspluginwrapper
stephen@Zoostorm:~$ sudo apt-get purge x-shockwave-flash futuresplash
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package x-shockwave-flash
stephen@Zoostorm:~$ sudo apt-get purge libflashplayer.so
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package libflashplayer.so
stephen@Zoostorm:~$ 

The information I've added to the code you provided came from the output for "about plugins" as entered in Firefox. I've copied and pasted the relevant part:

Shockwave Flash

File name: libflashplayer.so
Shockwave Flash 7.0 r68

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash Shockwave Flash swf Yes
application/futuresplash FutureSplash Player spl Yes

This does confirm that Flash 7.0 is present, but obviously I'm not extracting the correct information to remove it. Maybe you can put me right on this.

Many thanks for your attention.

[redroad55]

Hi, Go to Applications > System > Admin. > Synaptic Pkg. manager ..

enter your password : in synaptic scroll down to the libflash entries that have green box..Click on box, in window select unmark and hit apply at top of page do this for every libflash entry...

when you've completed this go to applications > add/remove .. at top middle of page in box next to "show:" make sure "third party is selected (there is a drop down there in order to select it if it is not)..now adobe flash 10 should be present at top of list .. click in box then hit apply .. That should do it ..Post back your results ..Best to you

[Stephen Shellard]

I have checked for libflash entries in synaptic. None are installed. (I looked first by scrolling down as suggested, then did a search on libflash, which did generate a list of five, none installed.)

[gandaran]

post the output of this command
locate libflash
this will tell you where the plugin is installed and possibly you can just delete the libflashplayer.so file.

[Stephen Shellard]

Here's the output:

stephen@Zoostorm:~$ locate libflash
/home/stephen/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/openoffice/program/libflash680li.so
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libflash-mozplugin.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libflash-mozplugin.postrm
stephen@Zoostorm:~$
stephen@Zoostorm:~$ 

I suppose I might usefully delete the files which are clearly related to flash plugins for firefox? (i.e. not the open office plugin) I shall try to restrain myself from doing so in the hope of confirmation that this would not be catastrophic.

I have previously used

whereis

to search for things so I am curious to know why it is ineffective in this case. (I did give it a try, and the output was unhelpful.)

Thanks.

[gandaran]

just delete this one (libflashplayer.so)
/home/stephen/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
check in synaptic if this package libflash-mozplugin is installed, if it is remove it

[Stephen Shellard]

First the good news. Flash 7 is gone. So thanks to Gandaran and Red Road 55. I think I've learnt something useful.

Sadly there's still a lot to learn. I have installed (using synaptic package manager) flash plugin non free and Adobe Flash 10. Result. BBC Radio listen again service freezes. Utube gives me pictures but no sound. Ah well. I still feel there's been progress. Any thoughts on a simple resolution to make this a perfect thread?

Thanks again.

[redroad55]

so currently in firefox browser what is there when you look in add ons..Post back

also just to make sure do you have the mdibuntu repositories present in your software sources?