Maxthon & Flash Player in Windows 7=Unsolved Headache

[EdS]

Somewhere between Dec 2014 and now a Maxthon browser update has resulted in this fine browser losing the ability to play Flash Player video consistently or more correctly at all.  Its time for this issue to get resolved.  The two test sites I propose are www.bnn.ca and www.cbc.ca/news  The most challenging site is bnn.ca 

 

Numerous messages have been sent to the support/help desk and have received varied advice over many months as how to get Flash player working in the latest release of Maxthon but nothing works.

 

Advice 1: rename the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit systems to "1".  Does not solve problem

Advice 2: rename the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit systems to "anything.dll".  Does not solve problem

 

 

Advice 3: delete the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll  located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit .  Does not solve problem.

Advice 4: copy a current NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located elsewhere in the computer as in Shockwave and paste it into the C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit .  Does not solve problem.

 

Advice 5: follow all the instructions located at http://forum.maxthon.com/index.php/topic/13262-adobe-flash-and-maxthon/Does not solve problem. I have now uninstalled the extra NPAPI FP load this instruction has suggested as it did not work. Nor did any other suggestion on this page.

 

The latest version of flash player is 18.xxx as of todays date.  all microsoft updates are applied and includes w7 SP1 on my computer.  I have 3 different machines with the same configuration. HP Pavilion g6, Lenovo M70e and a homebrew with an Intel I5-4670K cpu and Asrock Extreme 3 motherboard.  All are unreliable when trying to play flash video via Maxthon.

 

Hopefully this issue can be raised in priority in the near future and a resolution found.  For the record both latest versions of Google Chrome and Microsoft IE 11 play videos from these two test sites listed at the top 100% successfully everytime.  Lets make Maxthon better asap please.

 

[SnowLeopard]

Somewhere between Dec 2014 and now a Maxthon browser update has resulted in this fine browser losing the ability to play Flash Player video consistently or more correctly at all.  Its time for this issue to get resolved.  The two test sites I propose are www.bnn.ca and www.cbc.ca/news  The most challenging site is bnn.ca 

 

Numerous messages have been sent to the support/help desk and have received varied advice over many months as how to get Flash player working in the latest release of Maxthon but nothing works.

 

Advice 1: rename the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit systems to "1".  Does not solve problem

Advice 2: rename the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit systems to "anything.dll".  Does not solve problem

 

 

Advice 3: delete the NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll  located in C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit .  Does not solve problem.

Advice 4: copy a current NPSWF32_XX_X_X_XXX.dll located elsewhere in the computer as in Shockwave and paste it into the C:\Program Files\Maxthon for 32bit Windows & C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxthon for 64bit .  Does not solve problem.

 

Advice 5: follow all the instructions located at http://forum.maxthon.com/index.php/topic/13262-adobe-flash-and-maxthon/Does not solve problem. I have now uninstalled the extra NPAPI FP load this instruction has suggested as it did not work. Nor did any other suggestion on this page.

 

The latest version of flash player is 18.xxx as of todays date.  all microsoft updates are applied and includes w7 SP1 on my computer.  I have 3 different machines with the same configuration. HP Pavilion g6, Lenovo M70e and a homebrew with an Intel I5-4670K cpu and Asrock Extreme 3 motherboard.  All are unreliable when trying to play flash video via Maxthon.

 

Hopefully this issue can be raised in priority in the near future and a resolution found.  For the record both latest versions of Google Chrome and Microsoft IE 11 play videos from these two test sites listed at the top 100% successfully everytime.  Lets make Maxthon better asap please.

I have had no problems playing Flash videos on either site.  Well, I did have todisable ABP's ad blocking for the video on  www.cbc.ca/news.  I only use Wilser's Super Quick List from here: http://forum.maxthon.com/index.php/topic/15747-adblock-plus-super-quick-list-to-block-ads-17082015/#entry85505, no other listd whatever.

 

On www.bnn.ca the video just played and ABP was enabled.  But on  www.cbc.ca/news, the video was in a loading pattern and dispolayed a message that the vidoeo would play after these ads.  However, when I disabled ad blocking for that web site, the video actually played and there were no ads.

 

I am usingg NPSWF32_18_0_0_232.dll as installed in SysWOWl\Macomed\Flash\ folder.  I deleted the NPSWF32*.dll file in maxthon_portable\Core\Plugins\ so Maxthon would use the system's Flash Player.

 

I am on Win7 Enterprise w/ SP1 and using Maxthon/4.4.7.2000.

[7twenty]

For the record both latest versions of Google Chrome and Microsoft IE 11 play videos from these two test sites listed at the top 100% successfully everytime.

 

Chrome uses it's own version of Flash, as does IE - and that's why they both work. Neither version is related to the version that Maxthon uses, which you have subsequently removed.

 

Firstly goto http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/and see if Flash is working at all on Maxthon. If not, go through the instructions in the Flash & Maxthon thread again, them test the below.

 

-

 

On my first test I had no issues with www.cbc.ca/news, first video on the page works with ABP enabled - can't really test more than that. If you're still having issues, first test with ABP disabled.

 

bnn.ca was a little trickier, but the problem seems to be UserAgent related. After testing a few different variations of UA's, adding a Chrome string in the UA causes videos to fail on this site.

 

With Maxthon being a niche browser there is always going to be some compatibility problems. How or why the Chrome string in the UA is the cause I have no idea seeing as it works fine in Chrome. Hopefully it's something that will be fixed in later releases to make life easier on users.

 

Until then the easiest fix is:

- Main Menu > Settings > Advanced > Others, check Customise User Agent, choose any UA (except Chrome or Maxthon);

- Or select Maxthon and remove the Chrome part of the string.

 

As to the instructions in the Flash thread not working, unless you can show that Flash doesn't work on ALL sites, then there is nothing wrong with your Flash install or the instructions in that thread. As above the issues you have aren't related to Flash, otherwise it wouldn't work at all, rather something else - in this case the UA.

 

Hope that helps, please post with your findings.

[SnowLeopard]

Chrome uses it's own version of Flash, as does IE - and that's why they both work. Neither version is related to the version that Maxthon uses, which you have subsequently removed.

 

Firstly goto http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/and see if Flash is working at all on Maxthon. If not, go through the instructions in the Flash & Maxthon thread again, them test the below.

 

-

 

On my first test I had no issues with www.cbc.ca/news, first video on the page works with ABP enabled - can't really test more than that. If you're still having issues, first test with ABP disabled.

 

bnn.ca was a little trickier, but the problem seems to be UserAgent related. After testing a few different variations of UA's, adding a Chrome string in the UA causes videos to fail on this site.

 

With Maxthon being a niche browser there is always going to be some compatibility problems. How or why the Chrome string in the UA is the cause I have no idea seeing as it works fine in Chrome. Hopefully it's something that will be fixed in later releases to make life easier on users.

 

Until then the easiest fix is:

- Main Menu > Settings > Advanced > Others, check Customise User Agent, choose any UA (except Chrome or Maxthon);

- Or select Maxthon and remove the Chrome part of the string.

 

As to the instructions in the Flash thread not working, unless you can show that Flash doesn't work on ALL sites, then there is nothing wrong with your Flash install or the instructions in that thread. As above the issues you have aren't related to Flash, otherwise it wouldn't work at all, rather something else - in this case the UA.

 

Hope that helps, please post with your findings.

Your observation that a Chrome string in the UA string messes up video play on www.bnn.ca matches my experience with video play on www.cbs.com.  In the latter case, the presence of any Chrome string in the UA blocks video play.  I don't know why any better than you.  Butt there might be some connection between the two sites if they both use some of the same ad sites.

[EdS]

Thank you all for helping investigate.  Your work has proved my point that for windows 7 computers Maxthon is unable to play flash videos on some sites but not all. The "help" instructions the maxthon help desk provides are not relevant to the issue as I have summarized in my post. 

 

Yes, I have now tried setting it to Firefox as you suggest.  Yes the videos at www.bnn.ca play when I select a special UA that is not MAXTHON or CHROME like FIREFOX. I have never used the UA feature and did not know its there.  This makes a useful temporary workaround.

 

Many years ago I switched to maxthon as they played videos flawlessly when others had problems.  Now it seems maxthon has the problem and is unaware of it. I guess the question now is how to bring it Maxthon's attention that they have done something in their code in the past year that has caused videos to suddenly not play on certain web sites.  I have never used the UA feature that you suggested as I have never had a problem in the past.

 

Thanks for your help.

[7twenty]

I don't know if it's necessarily Maxthon that changed. The web is constantly evolving and in doing so things change on sites that browsers may not always keep up with. I'd be willing to bet that the sites mentioned changed their code in some means that Maxthon isn't currently able to deal with leading to the issues.

 

Maxthon is currently in the process of updating it's "core", this should help out in many compatibility issues such as this in the future. Hopefully this is something that will be fixed when it is released.

 

 proved my point that for windows 7 computers 

 

 

I'm on Windows 10, so it's not related to the OS, but as I said something to do with the UA and the way the site/s detect the browser and/or capabilities.

 

The "help" instructions the maxthon help desk provides are not relevant to the issue as I have summarized in my post. 

 

 

Are you referring to the Flash and Maxthon thread or something else?

 

If referring to the thread, it was created so users know how to force Maxthon to use the latest version of Flash instead of the included version which is generally a few versions old. It is not, nor was it ever meant to be a fix for getting Flash to work on sites that have other issues as you have found.

 

As stated above, it works for what it was written to do.

[EdS]

When I said "help desk" I was referring to the advice provided by someone you reach by sending feedback via the maxthon browser menu panel... help... send feedback.

 

Thank you for your help.  This forum's members seems to be particularly skilled at zeroing in on the issue.  Just wonder if the Maxthon developers refer to it for bug fix ideas?

[7twenty]

When I said "help desk" I was referring to the advice provided by someone you reach by sending feedback via the maxthon browser menu panel... help... send feedback.

 

Thank you for your help.  This forum's members seems to be particularly skilled at zeroing in on the issue.  Just wonder if the Maxthon developers refer to it for bug fix ideas?

To my knowledge you rarely if ever get anything back from that "support desk" apart from an auto reply email with some basic info which may or may not be relevant. It's definitely not customised to the issue sent, at least not in my experience.

 

I'm happy I could help, i'll take that as meaning the "fix" worked. As stated above, hopefully much of this is resolved when MX implement their core update. Till then most issues can be resolved with some tweaking one way or another. Not ideal but it is what it is. 

 

As far as the dev's referring to here for fixes... well I would hope so. As much as we are here to help users, there's no point if dev's aren't going to take issues on board and fix them. Some are noted and fixed quickly, others along with feature requests can be left aside a little longer than some would like. Seems to depend on a number of factors.