Reports of 17.0.0.169 with garbled sound and vid on rtmp streaming w/jwplayer?

Report · Apr 14, 2015

Hello Adobe,

I run a website that uses live streaming rtmp to the jwplayer6 video player. Starting today, some viewers who downloaded Adobe Flash player 17.0.0.169 are getting very garbled sound and video that speeds up/slows down. This is happening on a number of users on various platforms: Win 7, Win 8.1, Linux and various browsers; Firefox, Safari, Opera, and IE (reported so far). Some folks are reporting it happens only on Firefox and not Chrome. Thoughts? How to proceed? We are telling our users, unfortunately, uninstall the latest version of Flash and rollback.

Frank P.

Report · Apr 15, 2015

Hi Frank,

If you must tell people to downgrade, please point them to the Extended Support Release.

It rolls back any feature work, but keeps them up to date on security fixes.

Adobe Flash Player Distribution | Adobe

Can you please provide a link to a video that demonstrates the problem? We'd be happy to take a look.

(If you don't want to post it publicly, you can send me a PM - just click my name)

As a side note, these kinds of bugs tend to be very codec and bitrate specific. You might want to try experimenting with various encoding schemes to see if you can work around this temporarily.

Thanks,

Jeromie

Report · Apr 15, 2015

Hello Jeromie. The link, use http://www.StreetJelly.com and choose any musician who is performing live. If no one is currently live, let me know and I can arrange to have someone perform.

I tried the Extended Support Release version: Flash Player 13.0.0.281 But it is also causing the same problems. Could there be something in the latest security patch that causes the issues? For more info; we are using Wowza Media Server 3.6.4 to stream the rtmp. Our broadcasters are using Flash as well. Versions depend on whatever the users have locally.

Frank

Report · Apr 15, 2015

Cool, I can reproduce this on some configurations. I noticed that I'm having a hard time connecting to the service and getting it to return HTML pages (some page loads are taking upwards of a minute -- they're hanging on external resources --- scorecardresearch, etc.).

I was able to reproduce the garbled audio and incorrect speeds. I'll file a bug on that shortly.

It's going to be a month before our next release, so I want to get you a workaround in the meantime. I *don't* believe that what we changed on the security side would have this kind of fallout (it was codec specific, and not on a codec that you should be using). I also found a number of other JWPlayer demos using RTMP that work fine.

The good news is that you can probably change the encoding settings in Wowza to avoid hitting the issue. It would be useful to know what the configuration for the streams that are served to viewers look like at the moment. I've never run Wowza before (Adobe sells Flash Media Server), so I haven't had a reason to play with it.

Report · Apr 15, 2015

Thank you, Jeromie. I'll continue to see what I can find what is coming out on the Wowza streaming side. We have a few different streaming formats we can test - this may verify if it's rtmp related settings, or broader.

Report · Apr 15, 2015

Sure. The protocol isn't going to matter. I'd fiddle with the audio settings on the stream. Try to use an alternate audio codec for encoding. I'm also curious about what you're using. It would be nice to be able to set up a stream on my end to replicate the problem.

Report · Apr 15, 2015

We broadcast from a Flash Actionscript, (running as a swf object). The codecs are H264 vid, Nellymoser audio (default for mic object).

[snipet]

import flash.media.Camera;

import flash.media.H264Level;

import flash.media.H264Profile;

import flash.media.H264VideoStreamSettings;

...

var h264Settings:H264VideoStreamSettings = new H264VideoStreamSettings();

h264Settings.setProfileLevel(H264Profile.BASELINE,H264Level.LEVEL_3);

nsPublish.videoStreamSettings = h264Settings;

...

camera = Camera.getCamera();

microphone = Microphone.getMicrophone();

camera.setQuality(0, 90);

camera.setKeyFrameInterval(15);

microphone.rate = 44;

microphone.setSilenceLevel(0, 1);

[end snipet]

I did some testing and it appears if I turn down the mic rate to 22. The garble/distortion IS GONE! But this is not really a victory as we are looking for the best possible sound quality. Any suggestions from the Flash CC group on best settings? Documentation on the mic rate show only options fro 44, 22, 11, 8, 5kHz. Anything new in between like 32kHz? Or any new sound codecs, like AAC?

Frank

Report · Apr 15, 2015

We believe this is specific to Nellymoser. If you can use AAC, I'd try that first.

Report · Apr 16, 2015

Is there a library from Adobe to use AAC inside a Flash CC (actionscript 3) project?

Report · Apr 16, 2015

I was suggesting that you do an audio-only transcode in Wowza to transcode the incoming stream from Nellymoser to AAC for playback. I'm not sure if the Nellymoser problem is an encoding problem or a playback problem. I have a hunch that it's playback.

While the Speex code is also available for Microphone capture, its geared for speech. Nellymoser 22k is still the next-best available option. It's possible to capture Microphone data as a raw ByteArray (at which point you could write an encoder) - MicRecorder, a tiny microphone library < ByteArray.org, but I can't find a good example of anyone doing this in practice. It's interesting, but not a practical workaround at the moment.

Report · Apr 16, 2015

I have a related problem: starting with version 17.0.0.169, people cannot play recorded FLV files correctly. The playback goes to fast. The bug is reported in the bugbase: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3970924. If found that the problem only occurs playing the stream in AS2, not AS3. I don't know if there is any work-around but this is really a big problem. We cannot tell all of our clients to downgrade their Flash Player, especially since it is not a simple action. Please help!!

Report · Apr 16, 2015

Yes, I am also seeing the same issues. And it is actually both of these issues and they are related. Again this is only for users using flash version 17.0.0.169.

Issue #1 - Sound for live streaming RTMP video using NellyMoser and using AAC has "chipmunk" type effect when viewing. It becomes virtually unlistenable.

Issue #2 - Playback is sped up for pre-recorded FLV files streaming over RTMP. Both audio and video is sped up.

Both of these issues are causing us extreme issues. Unfortunately they are not cosmetic, and they are ruining the entire experience.

What is the current course of action for fixing these issues? If any more help is required documenting the issue, we are happy to help.

Thank you.

- jonathan

Report · Apr 16, 2015

Yes, this was fallout from an urgent security patch. Asking users to move backwards would leave them vulnerable to a known exploit.

We believe that we have a fix already. It will be available for evaluation in next week's beta (http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayerbeta), and will land in the next public release, which is currently scheduled for mid-May.

All of the reports from the field indicate that 44.1k Nellymoser audio streams are affected. We'd recommend transcoding the audio stream for recorded FLV playback to another codec (AAC, etc), and/or switching to Speex or 22k Nellymoser for Microphone capture (if necessary - I'm pretty sure that this is specific to playback) as a temporary workaround.

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Hi there,

I've been experiencing garbled and speeded up sound streaming Ustream broadcasts with Chrome and Firefox in Windows 7. I just ran the uninstaller and the problem is persisting-just started happening yesterday with exactly the same symptoms reported in the other posts. I clicked on your link to "restore shipped version" but it didn't take me to a download link.

What to do? Very frustrated. The streams ARE working properly on my Android device.

Thanks,

Laurence

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Laurenceg40784782, remember that Chrome has it's own version of Flash installed. So you will want to go into your chrome://settings and turn that one off there if you desire to go back and installed the older Flash player (but not recommended by Adobe). Your Android works fine because its not using a Flash player, but most likely HTML5

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Thanks for your reply. I disabled Flash player in Chrome. Now (with the Beta installed on the system) can't stream Ustream from their website. I get"video unavailable on your player" message.

Can I uninstall Flash from within Chrome and then install a working version?

Report · Apr 17, 2015

In Chrome, you will have to now allow for 3rd party plugins to run. Of all things, Chrome (v42) turned off support for 3rd party plugins. If you don't see the other Flash available, go to chrome://flags/#enable-npapi Click on "enable". Then, under chrome://plugins you should see the other Flash you can turn on.

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Now in Chrome plugins it says 2 versions of version 17 Flash player are enabled. It doesn't allow me to choose between its embedded app and the Beta.

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Thanks for giving it a shot Frank.

L

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Update-just installed Beta Versions for both Chrome and IE, tried to play videos off Ustream website-both Chrome and IE have garbled and speeded up sound. I know the uninstall was successful in at least IE because initially I was asked to install Flash Player plugin.

Please let us know what's happening.

Laurence

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Like I said in post 12, the *next* beta that we ship will have the fix. I think that should land Tuesday afternoon, PST. Chrome and IE on Win8+ are special cases, where Google and Microsoft distribute Flash Player directly as part of their browsers. Frequently Flash Player betas will appear in the Chrome Canary channel, but there are no guarantees. If you want a beta, you'll need to use one of the available configs.

I would strongly discourage you from moving backwards to NPAPI in Chrome. You're negating the fundamental security improvements in the plug-in architecture, which is why NPAPI is disabled there. It's worth clarifying that Chrome didn't ban third-party plugins. They banned NPAPI plug-ins. Like Flash, anyone that wanted to make the investment to porting to the modern PPAPI interface had years of advanced notice that NPAPI was going away.

After further investigation and feedback from multiple customers, we learned that it's actually malformed Nellymoser streams that are problematic. After going back and auditing our test coverage in light of the problem, we confirmed that we have comprehensive tests for this functionality, and they all pass. The only places where we can reproduce this issue are on customer supplied streams, all of which are (at least so far) have been from third-party streaming software. We've confirmed that users of Adobe Flash Media Server are not impacted by this issue, because their streams are correctly encoded. One of the advantages of using FMS is that we have a comprehensive test suite that's run with each Flash Player release, and based on current data, moving to FMS looks like a viable workaround.

We're now interested in building a list of affected third-party tools and streaming servers, so that we can share technical information about the encoding problems with the appropriate vendors. We're still planning to relax the condition that's resulting in the playback problem, but it's good information to have.

@johnathan - What are you using to create the pre-recorded FLVs?

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Ustream is our live video streaming provider. We are using their web broadcaster, and can't change the encoding mechanisms on them. we are advising our customers to stream with FMLE instead of using the web broadcaster for the moment. Unfortunately this is extremely disruptive to our business. Our core value is providing streaming directly from the browser to our customers. Downloading and figuring out FMLE is unfortunately too high a barrier for most of our customers. A new version of flash is extremely important to our business.

Thanks for your response/attention to this issue Jeromie Clark‌. I hope that there is some kind of fast tracking that can occur for the fix. Thank you.

Report · Apr 20, 2015

We're using ustream for a nightly live broadcast that's beginning on Wednesday night, running until May 2. We need to use the ustream web broadcasting interface, which uses the nellymoser codec, for the live chat functionality, and we've been testing all month long without problems until the flash player update hit. We've invested significant money for our not-for-profit organization into this broadcast, and now this conflict is posing a serious threat to our program delivery. I cannot urge you strongly enough to please release this fix you've developed immediately in order to fix the problem, rather than waiting until mid-May, which will certainly be too late for our purposes.

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Hi Simon,

I'm really sorry to hear that your event may be impacted. I'd highly recommend that you reach out to Ustream. We would be more than happy to share technical details with them on how to configure the streams to work around the issue. We *will* have a public beta available for download before your event at http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayerbeta/, but realize that this is a sub-optimal solution.

Ustream employees can send me a private message via the forums (just click my name), and I'll be more than happy to put them in contact with an engineer that can offer guidance.

Thanks,
Jeromie

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Hi Jeromie,

I'm and end user getting disastrous garbling and speeding via Ustream Streams.One broadcaster I watch was able to almost elimate the issue by reducing the quality of the outgoing content I believe. It would be beneficial if you contacted Ustream yourself so they can notify their subscribers of a work around.

Laurence

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

From:"Jeromie Clark" <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

Date:Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 15:01

Subject:[Installing Flash Player] Reports of 17.0.0.169 with garbled sound and vid on rtmp streaming w/jwplayer?