I've just made a worrying discovery: it seems that in some instances my preferred method of embedding a SWF file into a web page (I normally use SWFObject) can fail in quite a bad way for some users running IE7 on Windows - that's a lot of potential users that cannot see your SWF content.
I tend to test less and less on IE these days and instead concentrate on Firefox and while that's not such good practice it's usually no problem because of the fact that SWF run consistently across platforms and browsers. However in the last few days I have had several clients email me and reporting that some pages prompt them to upgrade their Flash Player despite them running Player 9 already. Even after installing the latest Player the problem persists. All users were running IE7 on Windows. The problem is described in more detail here.
It affected my machine too and I was unable to even run the SWFObject sample page in IE7 - it worked fine in Firefox. The page would simply display a message stating that I needed to upgrade my Flash Player. This really worried me as I was under the impression that SWFObject was a 100% reliable way to display SWFs, all the way through the Expressinstall process in case users do run an older version of the Player.
I tend to test less and less on IE these days and instead concentrate on Firefox and while that's not such good practice it's usually no problem because of the fact that SWF run consistently across platforms and browsers. However in the last few days I have had several clients email me and reporting that some pages prompt them to upgrade their Flash Player despite them running Player 9 already. Even after installing the latest Player the problem persists. All users were running IE7 on Windows. The problem is described in more detail here.
It affected my machine too and I was unable to even run the SWFObject sample page in IE7 - it worked fine in Firefox. The page would simply display a message stating that I needed to upgrade my Flash Player. This really worried me as I was under the impression that SWFObject was a 100% reliable way to display SWFs, all the way through the Expressinstall process in case users do run an older version of the Player.
The way I managed to fix the issue (I don't know what or how it was caused) was to download this Flash Player installer and run it. After installation, the same page worked fine in IE7... And apparently the 'old' (but EOLAS prone) way of embedding SWFs also works which could mean that SWFObject is in some way less reliable than the old fashioned way of embed.
Of course I cannot ask users to download and run an executable just in case they have this Flash Player problem. I'm stumped now - should I ditch SWFObject? Is there a reliable workaround?
Please could you check this page in IE7 on Windows and report what you see by posting a comment. Thanks.
IE7 + windows vista
IE7 on XP pro + Flash 9.0.45
IE7 + Windows XP Pro SP2 + Flash Player 0.0.45
"You need to upgrade your Flash Player."
IE7 on XP Pro SP2 + Flash player WIN 9,0,45,0
I am having the same problem with a lot of websites, after using the MSI installer of the player testing a new project.
IE7 on XP
"Sorry
There are no blog entries available that match your criteria."
on winxp pro ie7 /FP 9060120
error at bottom of page
line 23
char:2
error'document.getElementbyld(..)'is null or not an object
code:0
URL:www.flashcomguru.com/index...../swfobject.html
i see the flash movie with the sun
swfObject 1.5
winxp home ie7/fp v.90450
no errors at bottom
"Sorry
There are no blog entries available that match your criteria."
In both IE and Seamonkey I get the same message. My firefox browser is set to force the update and not to hold cache.
as soon as i went in to flash settings
and put a tick in "use software render"
the page displayed correctly
on winxp pro ie7 /FP 9060120
thanks
This Flash movie was embedded using the SWFObject embed method by Geoff Stearns.[etc.][etc.]
Isn't that oke?
but here is something interesting
in IE7 use "alt + enter" on the full page example http://www.flashcomguru.com/includes/swfobject1-5/...
"alt + enter" to return
this did not work in the mozilla browser
but very nice for full screen
David, you seem to be affected by the problem if you are running the latest Player already
I see the movie, but have the "click to activate and use this control" marching ants around it.
I believe has to do with the flash players that accompany the new Adobe products (ie dreamweaver and such) when they are installed. They probably make it difficult to install the new versions of the Flash Ocx. Also, I found it rather difficult to install the active_x control until I had shutdown all possible programmes and restart the machine like twice. This could mean that on downloading the flash player it never really gets installed and the problem would still persist.
And I'm running IE7 on Vista Home Premium
ICE
Disable the IE7 phishing filter.
or,
refresh the browser.
You need to upgrade your Flash Player
but works on Firefox 2.0.0.4 and on Opera 9.21 build 8776:
showing yellow sun rotating orange rays, green mountains
view your installed Flash version shows:
You have Flash player 9.0.45 installed.
Note that the IE came bundled from HP,
and I only just started using it a couple of hours ago - so I suspect it's bundled with bloatware - it has had problems from the very start with not all images showing, attempting to connect to runonce.msn.com,
I am trying to diagnose using
iexplore.exe -extoff
from http://enhanceie.com/ie/troubleshoot.asp
--
Robert
- note that firefox would not let me post here so I am using Opera
- also note that my IE7 is showing Italian as the PC was bought in Italy
but Firefox and Opera were downloaded as English versions.
Anyway I now disabled IE anti-phising and retried
http://www.flashcomguru.com/includes/swfobject1-5/...
this time I get (translated from the Italian dialog):
Problem visualizing the page. The page may not display
or function correctly. ... etc
Line: 9
Character: 4978
Error: Library not registered
Code: 0
URL: as above
When I click on view your installed Flash version I get the usual:
You do not have the Flash plugin installed, ... etc
Then I tried the fullpage example:
http://www.flashcomguru.com/includes/swfobject1-5/...
this gave the same error dialog, but this time showed the "You need to.."
in an orange background.
FWIW the same Library not registered dialog pops up on
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
Of course I am reluctant to download Flash and install it when it is working fine
on two alternate browsers!
I will now create a System Restore point, reboot and risk it though.
I may be some time...
When viewing this page in IE, in place of the logo I receive a message of Please upgrade to the latest version of Flash Player. Click here if you already have Flash Player installed. I click Click Here as I have Flash and the logo will show, but the moment I navigate away to another page, the logo area defaults to that message.
Usually you can fix your computer by doing an uninstall/reinstall of the player.
It seems like this is a big issue from all the posts here, but in testing on a large website, we found that only 0.04% of people suffer from the problem.
I posted information about how to fix this a while back here:
http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/12/08/corrupt-flash...
For me it started with a user reporting that though the site worked, they had to click explicitly on the link to pass through the detection script.
The scary thing was how easy it was for me to get my copy of IE7 to replicate the problem. Though it had been working fine and I wasn't smart enough to write down the steps that got me there, I was easily able to get IE7 (windows xp) in a state where the problem would show up.
To anybody who encounters this and is trying to isolate the cause, I'd recommend navigating your test system or having the user navigate to browserhawk's demo page. In my case it showed that IE7 was reporting that the flash plugin was either not installed or disabled, when in fact it was both installed and enabled and could run content just fine.
What makes this an even more serious problem is that in at least my test system's case it wont let me reinstall or upgrade the flash player. It is always difficult to uninstall and reinstall explorer, rounding out the mess. Nor will it let you go back to ie6.
But, to reiterate, I believe that IE is incorrectly reporting the plugin as disabled when it is not. I also believe that it's not a flash only issue and that both java and silverlight can be put in the same problem state.
I have IE7 and Windows XP SP2.
FYI - I ran into this problem while making some video clips using Camtasia Studio 4.0.
I'm not using ie7 much but i just realized today that all my pages using swf object methods were not working in ie7 on 3 of my machines, all vistas.
I'm not sure when it started, i'm pretty sure it was working at some point.
If they have the right version it could send them back to my main page but let them skip detection.
If they have a lower version player I can do express install.
If they have no player (or less than 6), which I think wont happen too oftenly,they'll get a browser prompt to download the plugin.
If they have js disabled, then they'll stop at the first page and immidiately see alternate content.
My only problem is that I have no idea how to go about setting up SWFObject to redirect only IE7 users and only when their player version cannot be detected.
They try and run the flash file with SWFobject and if it fails a variable is set to false. If this happens they run SWFobject again with flash detection off (version set to 0) and load a hidden o pixel flash file. If this flash file runs (which it does with the broken ie7 installs because flash detection has been turned off) it calls a javascript function which then runs SWFobject on the original flash file that failed with version set to 0.
FYI: www.netgear.com also uses swfobject and they don't seem to have implemented a fix, so there are some pretty big sites out there who obviously don't regard it as a serious issue.
I have just added a bug report to the SWFObject 2.0 google code project. The ticket is as follows:
On IE7 Vista 32bit I am seeing alternative content instead of my flash
content. This only happens on IE7 Vista, I have no problems in any other
browser on any other OS, including IE7 on XP. The flash content is
displayed fine with the standard Adobe flash embed scripts and when I
click on "bypass detection", but using SWFObject (1.5 - 2.0 beta6) I see
my alternative content. The Adobe Flash install webpage says I need to
install flash every time I go back to it, no matter how many times I
install, so the install process has been corrupted somewhere along the way
for IE. However, Flash is installed regardless and it is playing flash
content that is embedded using the standard Adobe methods. The problem
here is that most non-developers will think they have flash installed
correctly because most sites that dont use SWFObject will show that flash
is installed fine...
There is a discussion regarding this problem active here:
http://www.flashcomguru.com/index.cfm/2007/6/21/sw...
What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Unknown, some people have this problems others dont. I'm using a stock
install of Vista Ultimate 32bit. No modifications, all windows updates
applied. Flash was originally installed via the Adobe Flash install web
site and has not been touched.
What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Expected output is the flash file, I see the alternative content.
What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Flash Player 9,0,47,0
SWFObject 1.5 - Beta6 (all versions fail)
IE 7.6000.16546
Please provide any additional information below.
That is all.
Both machines run Flash Player 9.0.115.0
The problem only occurs on sites in Explorer 6 and 7 running this version of the flash player where I used the SWF object 1.5
In Firefox and in sites where I used the invalid, default Flash HTML output or sites together with the fix_eolas javascript everything still runs fine.
Other known sites (eg. www.2advanced.com which uses the swf object as well) I have the same problem. Only the alternative content is shown (The initial content in the flash wrapper before it gets replaced bij the swf object's script)
My guess there's a problem with swf object script not getting something right with this new flash player.
Maybe needless to mention. All sites worked before upgrading and there were no code changes.
Message @ Andrew Speakman: NetGear also fails. On You tube I didn't see them implementing the swf object. Something they descide on a server and generating alternative HTML output based on that?
http://www.allvision.nl (use the swf object an fails)
http://www.archyves.com/wijngaardshof (uses the eolas fix, together with an IE condition in HTML to get the output valid and works)
I guess something went wrong with the express install from the adobe website. An unistall of the flash player and a reinstall did the trick
You need to upgrade your Flash Player
IE 7.05 XP Pro sp2 + flash player 9,0,115,0
It occured the same way w/ my coworker when she upgraded to IE 7 and she already had flash player in her sytem, yet she could not see a .swf file displaying on her IE 7. I told her to do the same. It worked right away. So, just uninstall the flash player and installed it again. Don't install on top of what you already had because it won't work.
Thanks for everyone's help.
_michael
var so = new SWFObject("movie.swf", "video", "325", "230", "0", "#FFFFFF");
Seems to be what youtube does and it does work. Are there any disadvantages to setting it to "0"?
Asks me to reinstall. I have been using SWFObject (I use the famous FLV player by Jeroen Wi jering)
and it has the SWF Object. I am not going to install the Flash player fix you mentioned, I am also upset since many will not be able to see the videos I posted as well, fixing it for myself or asking other users to do so, will not solve the problem to the mass.
Any Solution yet?
You may not want to go ahead and tell your users what to do with their flash players. :-)
Re-installing from the web did not solve the problem but downloading the stand-alone install did (as suggested).
However i am equally concerned by the impact of this and would like to know if there is an update to SWFObject / Flash which will solve this.
Thanks
Re-installing from the web did not solve the problem but downloading the stand-alone install did (as suggested).
However i am equally concerned by the impact of this and would like to know if there is an update to SWFObject / Flash which will solve this.
Thanks
Thanks.
Now Work For me.
And again tahnks
Instead, you can add another Flash object created in a 'normal' way as your alternative content. This should also contain alternative content, say an image.
If user doesn't have Flash, they see the image. If they have a broken IE7 installation they see the Flash created by the 'normal' object (with eolas fix). Otherwise, SWFObject does the business.
Here the code that worked for me:
[code]
<!--[if IE]><script type="text/javascript" src="fix_eolas.js" defer="defer"></script><![endif]-->
<div id='flash-home_presentation'>
<div>
<!--[if !IE]> -->
<object id="flash-f1aa9c839f6645eb08330d3cd1458821" data="home_presentation.swf" width="410" height="214">
<!-- <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE]>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/...=6,0,0,0" width="410" height="214">
<param name="movie" value="home_presentation.swf" />
<!-->
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
<div><img src="" border="0" alt="Image Alternative" /></div>
</object>
<!-- <![endif]-->
</div>
</div>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
var so = new SWFObject("home_presentation.swf", "flash-home_presentation", "410", "214", "6", "#ffffff");
so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.write("flash-home_presentation")
//]]>
</script>
[/code]
No problem in XP IE7 (whichis an older version), or FF or anything else.
This has just started to happen in the last few days, so it has to be some silly update of IE7 pushed lately for Vista.
Not happy at all.
How utterly silly!
But I am thankful that I ran into yoru site and found out what's needed at least.
XP, Flash 10.0.12.
but yeah, i understand what u mean cos my webpage has 'errors on page' when i had the Flash running. No errors when the flash object was disabled.
www.whatididonthisday.com
I have been looking for a solution for 2 weeks! The problems started after a auto-update from adobe. FF worked fine, IE8 was having this isuue.
Now it's fixed and I'm happy :-)