Adobe Flash Player mms.cfg keeps resetting to default

[mattiasvdm]

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.9 - 10.11

Flash Player 21.0.0.242

In our Mac environment we have auto update enabled for Flash Player, we accomplish this by deploying the mms.cfg file. The file is located on:

/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/mms.cfg

Contents of the file:

AutoUpdateDisable=0

SilentAutoUpdateEnable=1

AutoUpdateInterval=1

DisableProductDownload=0

SilentAutoUpdateVerboseLogging=0

This always worked perfectly until recently the Flash player wasn't updated anymore. I found out that the mms.cfg file was reset to:

AutoUpdateDisable=0

SilentAutoUpdateEnable=0

AutoUpdateInterval=1

DisableProductDownload=0

SilentAutoUpdateVerboseLogging=0

So, I redeployed the mms.cfg file to the environment. Everything worked fine until a couple of hours later it's back to default. I see that also the creation date of the file keeps changing to today.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[jeromiec83223024]

It sounds like there's a conflict in your environment, whereby some running job is resetting mms.cfg to a previous state.  I

Do you have any logging facilities that could tell you what process is writing to the file?

[mattiasvdm]

I did some more digging and it looks like the LaunchDaemon com.adobe.fpsaud.plist causes the problem. It runs every hour and when it does, the mms.cfg is being reset.

The LaunchDaemon runs the following file:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash Player Install Manager/fpsaud

And indeed, when I run that file manually it resets the mms.cfg file every time.

~/Library/Logs/FlashPlayerInstallManager.log says on every run:

End SAU run with exit code: 2001

[mattiasvdm]

Did some more digging

When I completely uninstall the flash player with the Flash Player Install Manager and then re-install it again, the problem is solved. The mms.cfg file will not be reset anymore.

Of course, I can't perform this action for all the Macs. So I started testing and I've narrowed it down to one file:

/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Flash\ Player\ Install\ Manager/FPSAUConfig.xml

If I remove and reinstall Flash, the contents of the file looks like this:

<SAU><CheckFrequency value="1"></CheckFrequency><UpdateAttempts value="0"></UpdateAttempts><LastCheck value="1465395327.630881"></LastCheck><LastAutoUpdateCheck value="0.000000"></LastAutoUpdateCheck></SAU>

When I look at the file on a Mac with this problem it looks like this:

<SAU><CheckFrequency value="1"></CheckFrequency><UpdateAttempts value="7"></UpdateAttempts><LastCheck value="1465395327.630881"></LastCheck><LastAutoUpdateCheck value="0.000000"></LastAutoUpdateCheck></SAU>

So the only difference is the UpdateAttempts value. When I change it to 7 and run the fpsaud file, it will reset the mms.cfg file. When I change it back to 0 everything works fine!

Hope someone can reproduce this problem...

[_maria_]

Background Updates will reset the update setting to notification updates in the mms.cfg file after 7 failed attempts to update Flash Player via Background Updates.  An update attempt = a check for an update is made, an update is found, download the update, attempt to install, but but for some reason, the update fails to install.  Resetting the update setting to Notification Updates after 7 failed attempts is to prevent an endless loop of Background Updates that fail to install and give the user an opportunity to install the update.

But if you have the latest version installed (you state in the first post Flash Player version is 21.0.0.242, which is the latest version), when the player checks for an update, it won't find one, and the UpdateAttmpts value shouldn't be updated, only the LastCheck value should be updated.

To confirm, what version are you installing?  And which plugin are you installing?  NPAPI (for Firefox/Safair or PPAPI (for Chromium-based browsers) or both?  If both, what versions?

I also want to get a verbose background update log file from you to investigate further.

Please do the following

1. Uninstall Flash Player
2. Enable background update verbose logging, by setting SilentAutoUpdateVerbose=1 in the mms.cfg file
3. Install Flash Player (if you're using both NPAPI & PPAPI, install both) and opt into background updates
4. Wait for the background update checks to run
5. When the mms.cfg file resets to notification updates, upload the ~/Library/Logs/FlashPlayerInstallManager.log file to cloud.acrobat.com/send using the instructions at How to share a document
6. Post the link to the uploaded file in your reply.

[mattiasvdm]

We're installing 21.0.0.242 NPAPI plugin.

I've followed your steps. When uninstalling Flash Player it of course also resets FPSAUConfig.xml file to 0. When it runs the background update check the value stays 0. So everything works as it should and the mms.cfg file stays untouched.

In the log file I see that sometime in April there were 7 failed attempts which caused this problem. Somehow, every Mac in this environment failed those attempts resulting in not updating anymore.

For the sake of this investigation I've manually changed the FPSAUConfig.xml file to 7 and ran the FPSAUD script. You can see 3 errors at the end of the logfile.

Logfile:

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/a4bfe167-4de6-4338-a82a-fad22893ae20

[_maria_]

Thank you very much for the additional info and the log file.  It was very helpful.  While investigating this issue we did find a bug, in that the UserAttempts value was not being reset in the FPSAUConfig.xml after an upgrade occurred. Since it wasn't being reset the update settings were being reset from Background Update to Notification Update.  A bug has been filed for this and it will be fixed in a future release.

[mattiasvdm]

You're welcome. Glad I could be of assistance. Will there be an update on this topic once the bug fix is released?

[_maria_]

I've made a note in the internal bug record to update this discussion when the bug fix is released.

[_maria_ · Accepted solution]

To close the loop on this, the fix was released in the July release of Flash Player, 22.0.0.209.  Sorry, I forgot to update the discussion at that time.