second life viewers and flash

[malcolmmerlyn1]

Hi, was not sure where to place this whether in developer forums or where but decided to place it here. I have a question regarding content in sl and the impending demise of adobe flash. Let me explain, I have an arcade game that I love in sl, and it requires adobe flash for opera or chrome for it to play. I realize that most browsers are pushing into html5 for flash to play, but my question is this: does anyone know when this push will happen or is that something that's on the devs shoulders? I mean, once my game quits working by the end of this year, (when adobe flash quits working) will it be the creator who updates it with code pushing it to use html5, or will it be a viewer thing as in will a viewer update keep all things flash working as they should? I may be overcomplicating this train of thought, but I know I can download other methods of flash playing at this point but it would be wonderful to know ahead of time what one to have in place.

[Pussycat Catnap]

December 31, 2020:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/adobe-flash-end-of-support

It will be blocked out of browsers. Whether or not you can play flash files downloaded onto your local machine is something I don't know however.

Changing an app from Flash to HTML5 is a complete rewrite. If they've not done so yet, or talked about plans to do so, expect it to just die off. The skills needed to develop for one vs the other are not at all related.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[malcolmmerlyn1]

right, thanks for replying. I just hope devs can manage a workaround or fix between now and then, whether by standalone player support through sl browsers or otherwise.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Flash is actually broken with the latest CEF update
BUG-229024 - [CEF UPDATE] Flash is unusable in Built-in browser

[malcolmmerlyn1]

interesting, I was just playing the arcade game about an hour ago, so hopefully it is not as dependant on flash, and may continue to work then. Thank you Whirly. I just hope this does not have a substantial impact on any more of sl.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Just now, malcolmmerlyn1 said:

interesting, I was just playing the arcade game about an hour ago, so hopefully it is not as dependant on flash, and may continue to work then. Thank you Whirly. I just hope this does not have a substantial impact on any more of sl.

Well, it depends which viewer you are using.  Not all viewers have the CEF update yet.
 

[malcolmmerlyn1]

I am using firestorm, and my arcade game worked as of an hour ago. interesting that I brought this up just as it starts going wonky for people. if you have any links to any other discussions on this I would appreciate it if you could post them for me to watch and follow?

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

Test using the current LL release viewer from here: Downloads | Second Life
This will not interfere with your Firestorm install.  You can have both viewers installed & in use at the same time.
This LL viewer has the CEF update that broke Flash.
The next release of Firestorm will have the same CEF update.

It does appear that the broken Flash after the CEF update is a bug though.
I have no idea whether LL will fix it or decide it's time to call it a day for Flash seeing as Chrome web browser already blocked Flash & the EOL of Flash is only 6 months away.

[Whirly Fizzle]

If you want to give me a SLURL to your arcade machine, I can also go & test it on a build of Firestorm viewer that has the CEF update too.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

I updated as you suggested, and well, I can 100% confirm what you said, the newest sl update definitely stopped my game from working. the screen stayed white on the arcade game. As for the game? It is tron, and its only available in the 5,000L pack at this url:  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AMG-Arcade-Exchange-Mega-Pack/12561094           

The seller does not offer it separately anymore, but I would assume his other games also will no longer work if you choose to test one

 

I contacted the seller earlier and he responded by saying he hopes for an update, but had no idea when or if that would happen. I am really bummed by this, and I hope it does not spread to other things in sl being broken too.

Edited July 6, 2020 by malcolmmerlyn1

[Whirly Fizzle]

2 minutes ago, malcolmmerlyn1 said:

I contacted the seller earlier and he responded by saying he hopes for an update

Honestly, any SL content that relies on Flash media should really be updated by the creator so that it doesn't need Flash to work.
It's only a matter of a very short time until Flash is dead.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

I sent the original creator a message yesterday, he has not replied. I was asking him when the eod comes if there would be an update for this very issue.

[Garnet Psaltery]

[Lindal Kidd]

Dale Arden in the movies was such a fainting damsel.  In the Flash Gordon comic strip, she was a stand-up kinda gal.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Flash will never die...

 

Come on girls, show us your wits

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

Flash is still a thing? 🤣🤦‍♀️

[Melody OwO]

Linden Labs has falsely stated they can't fix what they have broken because it is a dying product (NOT DEAD) so they have essentially killed it prematurely. 🤦‍♀️

[Whirly Fizzle]

1 hour ago, MsKayess said:

Linden Labs has falsely stated they can't fix what they have broken because it is a dying product (NOT DEAD) so they have essentially killed it prematurely. 🤦‍♀️

Well to be fair, it will be dead in 6 months anyway.  May as well get all the screaming over with now then in 6 months time.
 

[animats]

There's a way to run Flash in SL for years to come. It's complicated.

Flash, on a prim, in SL. But not Adobe's Flash implementation.

There are others who want to keep Flash alive, and they have written an implementation of the Flash player in Rust, called Ruffle.

It's still under development, but you can try .swf files on it now and see how it works.

Ruffle can be compiled to WebAssembly, which can be downloaded into a browser, where the WebAssembly is compiled into machine code and executed. The Flash emulator now running in the browser runs the .swf file. The headless version of the Chromium browser in SL viewers can do this. You then have Flash running using modern technology.

 

string URL = "http://ruffle-rs.s3-website-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/builds/web-demo/index.html?file=synj1.swf";
integer FACE = 4;

default
{

    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llSay(0, "Touched.");
        llSetLinkMedia(LINK_THIS,FACE,[PRIM_MEDIA_HOME_URL,URL]);
    }
}

Here's some LSL for a demo. Just put this in a cube and touch the cube. You can change the "file=" parameter to run other Flash files. See the Ruffle documentation.

Ruffle isn't a full Flash implementation yet. If your game won't run, create an issue for the Ruffle project.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

flash will never die.. it will live forever!!! even if others dont want it too..

[malcolmmerlyn1]

on a side note,  flash game archivists have already created a system to archive old flash games and keep them alive indefinitely. With this knowledge especially of Ruffle as listed above, I hope someone can fix some of the content in sl that is going to be affected, or I hope they update content to html5

Edited July 8, 2020 by malcolmmerlyn1

[malcolmmerlyn1]

23 minutes ago, animats said:

There's a way to run Flash in SL for years to come. It's complicated.

Flash, on a prim, in SL. But not Adobe's Flash implementation.

There are others who want to keep Flash alive, and they have written an implementation of the Flash player in Rust, called Ruffle.

It's still under development, but you can try .swf files on it now and see how it works.

Ruffle can be compiled to WebAssembly, which can be downloaded into a browser, where the WebAssembly is compiled into machine code and executed. The Flash emulator now running in the browser runs the .swf file. The headless version of the Chromium browser in SL viewers can do this. You then have Flash running using modern technology.

 

string URL = "http://ruffle-rs.s3-website-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/builds/web-demo/index.html?file=synj1.swf";
integer FACE = 4;

default
{

    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llSay(0, "Touched.");
        llSetLinkMedia(LINK_THIS,FACE,[PRIM_MEDIA_HOME_URL,URL]);
    }
}

Here's some LSL for a demo. Just put this in a cube and touch the cube. You can change the "file=" parameter to run other Flash files. See the Ruffle documentation.

Ruffle isn't a full Flash implementation yet. If your game won't run, create an issue for the Ruffle project.

your input is appreciated, the game seller told me that most of their games are already html5 ready and once swf goes defunct, they will release updated versions using html5 as replacements to their customers. now its just a waiting game to see how long until they update mine to html5.

[Melody OwO]

Might as well tell them it has and point them to the now closed ticket. The CEF Update will likely be rolling out to all third party viewers, and almost everyone I know uses Firestorm and that too will be getting it.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

Just now, MsKayess said:

Might as well tell them it has and point them to the now closed ticket. The CEF Update will likely be rolling out to all third party viewers, and almost everyone I know uses Firestorm and that too will be getting it.

I told the seller 2 days ago about the ticket, and the cef update coming, and to expect a lot of complaints about games not working. that's when they told me that most of the games they sell are ready for html5. Just not mine at the moment.