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Adobe claims they don't ship Flash with known crash bugs, user proves they do
Apple's recent iPad product announcement fanned the flames of the Flash debate, namely whether it belongs on Apple's mobile devices -- or not. Since the release of the iPhone Apple has been staunchly against putting Flash on its mobile devices, citing performance and stability issues. In fact at an Apple Town Hall meeting just over a week ago, Steve Jobs said, "When a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash." It doesn't get much more blunt than that.
Adobe, of course, is crying foul, and their chief technology officer Kevin Lynch responded by making the grandiose statement that "Regarding crashing, I can tell you that we don't ship Flash with any known crash bugs, and if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today."
Unfortunately, Matthew Dempsky begs to differ, and he can prove it. Before you click that link, you should know that unless you are running the very latest beta version of Flash, it will crash either the Flash plugin, or your entire browser, depending on what browser you are using. The thing is, Dempsky found this crashing bug in September of 2008 and reported it to Adobe then, and the bug has continued to exist in every version of Flash on every platform since.
Lynch's comment is what you'd expect any CTO to say publicly; realistically, what else could he say? It's just very unfortunate for him that someone was able to prove the inaccuracy of his statement in a very compelling way.
If you're tired of Flash giving you troubles, check out the various solutions we've presented by searching Download Squad for "flash block" or "disable flash".
[Update] Adobe has now acknowledged Dempsky's bug report, and has offered an explanation for why it has taken so long to fix it. The explanation is reasonable, but likely won't do anything to dampen the rising level of distaste for Flash that is becoming evident in the online community.
Comments
23
Subscribe to commentsVDFeb 8th 2010 8:49AM
Didn't crash for me. However I have a newer Flash version (10.0.42.34) than the ones listed in the bug (thank you Firefox), which probably means that the issue has actually been fixed.
I am not on Mac though.
JennFeb 8th 2010 9:34AM
@vd: it crashes in MAC os x only.
BrandonFeb 9th 2010 9:26AM
This is not a mac only problem. It crashed on me an I'm using the latest version of flash with firefox 3.6 in windows 7.
216Feb 8th 2010 8:56AM
haha that Flashcrash worked sure enough. Cool tho that it only messed up one tab in Google Chrome (and disabled flash in all other tabs)
SkapigFeb 8th 2010 9:32AM
Adobe loves to turn a blind eye when it can get away with it.
You can further disprove the claim by checking out their own public bug tracker at http://bugs.adobe.com. Filter on Flash Player bugs with a severity of Crash/Hang.
David LevineFeb 8th 2010 9:39AM
The link did not crash Firefox or IE 7. I have the latest stable release of Flash (not a beta).
Matt S.Feb 8th 2010 9:50AM
The fact of the matter is... You can't just ditch Flash, at least not a member of hulu or any other video site and want to stay one.
WilhelmRFeb 8th 2010 9:52AM
Crashes Firefox on windows XP
But not Opera on XP
How come? :P
holdenpageFeb 8th 2010 10:16AM
Um...
Flash beta is not a stable version, so wtf point is this dude trying to make?
JayFeb 8th 2010 4:55PM
The only one that DOESN'T crash is the beta. The others, that Adobe claims ship clean of crash bugs, crash even though he informed them of the bug two years ago. That's the point.
calintel2Feb 8th 2010 10:19AM
FF 3.5.7 (XP-SP2 ), latest version Flash Player.
Tested with Matthew Dempsky's "Crash Link", (article above).
It immediately crashed my Firefox browser!
Recently, I've been having frequent, unexpected FF crashes,
sometimes when visiting the NYT and other Flash-intensive sites.
At first I thought it was the latest version of FF (3.5.7),
and re-installed an older FF version (3.5.5).
Same thing...frequent crashes!.
Anybody else = problem?
SFdude
BrianFeb 11th 2010 4:52PM
Yes, I've recently (within last week or so) begun having frequent FF crashes, several times a day. I'm running 3.5.7 and always have multiple windows and tabs open. Any solution would be appreciated. Also, I was unable to install the latest (?) version of Adobe a couple of weeks ago. I forget the error message; it just wouldn't complete the process, and I had to reinstall and earlier version.
HenryFeb 8th 2010 11:33AM
Crashed firefox browser for me.
Chrome crashed but didn't close out.
Opera and IE 8 didn't crash.
Firefox flash plugin version: 10.0.42.34
Chrome: 10,0,42,34
Opera: 10,0,42,34
IE: 10.0.12.36
TheOneAndOnlyJHFeb 8th 2010 12:28PM
Flash failed in Seamonkey, but didn't crash the browser.
An alert popped up saying "The plug-in performed an illegal operation. You are strongly advised to restart SeaMonkey."
I selected a box to not alert me again until I restart a new browser session and was able to keep browsing. Flash in other tabs didn't work though, but I was able to finish the articles I had open.
VDFeb 8th 2010 2:16PM
Well, it crashed my home computer, while my work computer was fine, as I said earlier. It may have something to do with the firewall, although it usually plays any Flash site.
The more I look at the description of the bug, I see that while it is a critical issue, it's something that shouldn't bother end users - except if the developer is malicious. Any good developer would see this while programming, and can work around it if he/she really wants to do something like what is described in the testcase (I wouldn't).
I'm not one to approve of Adobe, I am certain they are lazy - they took long enough to develop Linux plugins, and 64bit versions are still only experimental. Not to mention that they promised to open source Flash, but it still far from open.
But I would love if the big companies would use or improve competing technologies, besides just bashing Adobe for their bad products. SVG+SMIL+Javascript can be at least as powerful as Flash for animation and games, but there aren't tools that are as good as Flash for this purpose, and Adobe seems to be unwilling to support SVG more than they do now.
sahaskattaFeb 8th 2010 4:00PM
Crashed Win 7 with latest version of stable flash and in latest release of Firefox!
jacobFeb 8th 2010 4:47PM
An app crash is not a Mac crash. The browser died but the OS is fine.
darwinsurvivorFeb 8th 2010 5:00PM
"if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today."
The same can be said about windows, wait...
Bruce AbernethyFeb 8th 2010 5:00PM
Because the iPhone/iPod never crashes without Flash? Mine usually hangs about once a week and needs a hard reset.
dmcallisFeb 8th 2010 5:49PM
Actually, Adobe over the weekend did admit this crash and that it is fixed in the beta. Yes, it does impact older versions. And yes, Adobe does accept responsibility.
Take a look at http://blogs.adobe.com/emmy/archives/2010/02/flash_bug_repor.html.
in particular paragraph 3
davemc