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Flash End-of-Life

Paul Roberts
Updated
 

Summary

This affects all customers who are...

  1. Using the older SureView V1 product which has some Flash components (live and audit player, Views, Videowall)
  2. Running the latest Flash Player v32.0.0.465 (which will likely be the case if you allow your Flash player to auto-update)
  3. Allowing your Chrome/Firefox browser to auto-update

NOTE: customers running the SureView V2 product are not affected as this uses HTML5 instead of Flash.

Flash v32.0.0.465 expiring after January 12th 2021:

FlashExpired.png

Checking Flash Version

View our Test Page to see what Flash version you have installed. You may need to click on the "Get Adobe Flash Player" button to have your browser run the plugin.

You will then see the version separated by commas such as "32,0,0,363" or an error if your browser does not have Flash installed.

You can also right-click any Flash control to see the version next to "About Adobe Flash Player" too.

Test page and right-click menu:

FlashVersion.png

Checking Chrome Version & Auto Update

Open the "Help - About Google Chrome" page

mceclip0.png

The next page will show you the Chrome Browser Version and if your browser auto updates

If the message "an error occurred while checking for updates" then chrome won't automatically update.

mceclip1.png

If there is no error message and Chrome says "Google Chrome is up to date" then the Chrome will auto-update

mceclip2.png

Solution

IMPORTANT: we recommend doing this on a single computer and testing that you can perform all normal daily monitoring actions first, before updating all of your computers.

The long term solution is to upgrade to SureView V2 which uses modern HTML5 instead of Flash.

In the meantime there is a temporary solution involving running a recent Flash version (32,0,0,363) that does not have the January 12th expiry with a browser version (Chrome v87) that still supports Flash.

As such we provide a zip which contains the current Chrome version for Windows 10 64-bit along with the most recent version of Flash that does not have the January 12th expiry.

To use this, do the following:
Watch Screencast Demonstration

  1. Open a PowerShell window as an Administrator

    mceclip2.png
  2. Run the following command
    which downloads the zip, extracts and installs it, and creates a "Chrome With Flash" shortcut on the desktop for all users:
    [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12; Start-BitsTransfer -Source "https://download.sureviewsystems.com/flash/ChromeWithFlash.zip" -Destination ".\ChromeWithFlash.zip"; Expand-Archive -Path ".\ChromeWithFlash.zip" -Destination "."; .\ChromeWithFlashInstall.ps1;
    mceclip3.pngmceclip4.png
    mceclip5.png
  3. Use the "Chrome with Flash" shortcut on the Desktop when using SureView
    IMPORTANT: When running the "Chrome With Flash" shortcut you must ensure you have closed all other Chrome windows first so they do not interfere.

    mceclip7.png

Offline Instructions

If your client machines do not have internet access the above PowerShell script will fail to download the packages required. To resolve this perform the below steps. 

  • Download the zip file here on a machine with internet access. Chrome and Flash zip
  • Transfer the zip file to the client machine.
  • Unzip the folder.
  • Open a PowerShell window with admin privileges.
  • Navigate to the extracted zip folder using the "cd" command. You can copy the full file path from File explorer and paste it into PowerShell. 
  • Run the PowerShell script in the folder.
  • Once complete ensure you use the Chrome with Flash shortcut on the desktop.
  • To prevent Chrome Auto updating, navigate to C:\Program Files(x86)\Google and remane the Update Folder.

Technical

  • For advanced users there is Adobe's Flash Player v32.0.0.363 archive which contains installers and uninstallers for all operating systems and browsers
  • For advanced users the Chrome and Flash zip can also be downloaded and used manually.
  • Chrome uses the PPAPI plugin (nicknamed "Pepper")
    • The system copies are located in "C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash" and "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash" called "pepflashplayer[version].dll". These will be removed by the uninstaller.
    • Chrome may have per-user copies of Flash in the "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\PepperFlash" folder. Renaming the "PepperFlash" folder to something else will move the DLL files out of the way.
  • Running Chrome with the argument "--allow-outdated-plugins" stops you from being prompted to run older plugins every time you open a page.
  • Shortcuts created in C:\Users\Public\Desktop will show on the desktop of all users

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