Topic

Mac OSX Lion: potential issues with Flash

It might disable Flash hardware acceleration. (link)

Something to take into account if you are thinking of updating right now. You may want to hold off until the issue is resolved... or at least until the next test is over. ;)

Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • And it might not, as Flash is compatible with (not built into) Lion. 

    Just make sure you a total system back-up of your HD and you should be fine...
    Posted 17 months ago by MeherMan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have been on Lion for weeks now, and been playing Glitch before. No issues at all.
    Posted 17 months ago by MonkeyPantz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How can they build flash into lion? Isn't that a security hole? I can't see apple ever choosing to update as frequently as adobe nor caring about security as much. Look at how they handle the Java updates.
    Posted 17 months ago by Not IxAEoN Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Good to hear, MonkeyPantz!
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @FairTradeFullStacks - It's been an issue with earlier versions of the Mac OS I've found, at least with Java based items.. They build a version of Java into the Mac OS as well and I've often found it lacks essential features and updates. Apple tries to keep close control over every essential piece of software on their machine, meaning that there is often a strong disconnect to original platform developers. It's one of my complaints AS a developer with Apple. Windows has it's own share of problems, but it and Linux are very friendly to developers. OS X IS a proprietary version of Unix. Closely connected to Linux, but it's also proprietary. Ever seen a zip file as done by a Mac? It adds extra files to the zip. One for every file and folder that's being zipped up and one more that says "I was zipped on a Mac" basically. It can often greatly expand the size of a zip file. I once uploaded a bbs package to a host that I had zipped up on a Mac. It took me weeks to figure out that all the broken features were due to those nice, hidden, extra files that the Mac had added. That was OS X 8-9 I believe. A buddy of mine who does contract work for Apple says it hasn't changed.
    Posted 17 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @FF - Java is decoupled from OSX now as well. In Lion, first time you do something that needs Java it offers to download it for you. Apple no longer maintain it themselves.

    This happened a couple of months back.
    Posted 17 months ago by Spong Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Flash can be forced to use hardware acceleration i think. At least in linux there is way. If parameters are same...
    Posted 17 months ago by Lilla My Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Glitch in Lion has been working fine for me for months - I was a beta tester for it. Lion, I mean, as well as Glitch!
    Posted 17 months ago by Spong Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We don't recommend you upgrade to Lion given the Flash issues that Apple introduced by disabling hardware acceleration and breaking the ability to click anything in the Flash settings panel. Unfortunately, the game's performance suffers greatly, but I suppose that is further motivation for me to improve it :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i upgraded yesterday to Lion and its working ok here, none of the hideous lag i had last week.
    Posted 17 months ago by HarleyQuin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm just running my first Glitch session under Lion. Not noticed any major differences so far.
    Posted 17 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the update on the OS X/Java changes. It's been since December since I had to work with one. :)

    I haven't messed with Flash at the coding level (yet). Just play the consumer with that one.
    Posted 17 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • running glitch under lion here as well.

    if anything, it runs better than it did before, likely due to improvements in the client since last test.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All of this is great to hear!
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All of this is great to hear!
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've also upgraded to Lion and the game runs just fine (in Google Chrome).
    Posted 17 months ago by Augustana Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Update from the Adobe website (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html) :
    Flash Player may cause higher CPU activity when playing a YouTube video.   Possibly related to disabled hardware acceleration.  
    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.
    Posted 17 months ago by Wundur Subscriber! | Permalink
  • WHAT?! NOOOO!

    I upgraded the other day, and haven't had a chance to play since...hope it's OK since every Mac in the house got upgraded... O_o;;
    Posted 17 months ago by blogkitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's been fine throughout the Lion beta test, don't panic. As Wundur quoted above, it was an erroneous report from Adobe.
    More at www.computerworld.com/s/art...

    Wonder what the issues Jono's seen are, though?
    Posted 17 months ago by Spong Subscriber! | Permalink
  • OKAY! If you *are* seeing bad Flash performance in Lion, try closing *all* other browser tabs when playing (yes, all of them). I think I figured out the problem, but it's an Apple/Adobe problem rather than one we can fix.

    (I'm not seeing Flash instances in inactive browser tabs throttled to 2 FPS as they should be -- this would mean that all instances of Flash are running at full speed at all times.)
    Posted 17 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, I think it's Safari 5.1 related.
    Posted 17 months ago by Jono Subscriber! | Permalink