Can anybody repro this?

[annathepiper]

So we're getting scattered reports of people coming to our various game pages, clicking on the green button that lets them view a little video to preview the game, and not being able to see the video.

Specifically, today I got a report of one of our affiliates in France having this issue on our French site. He's using IE 8, although I do not yet know what OS he's using it on, or what version of Flash he may have installed. And I need more data.

The behavior he sees is that he goes to the page, clicks on the green button, and gets a little popup window that's supposed to have the video playing in it, but which doesn't. I can't repro this on my IE 8 system here at work (XP SP3). Can any of y'all?

Steps for repro:

1) Go to this game page
2) You should see a green button with the caption "Regarder la video"; click on that
3) A popup should appear with the video launching to play within it, and a green button that says "Fermer la video". However, if you can repro the problem, you should not see the video; you'll just see the button.

If you can repro this behavior consistently, let me know what OS and browser you're running, and ideally, what version of Flash you have as well. In theory we're only supposed to work on Flash 9 or later; if you have older versions you shouldn't see the button for the video at all. Also be sure to let me know if you're running a 64-bit system vs. a 32-bit one.

Comments

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Works fine for me.

Linux 2.4 kernel (Mandrake 10, customized but old)
Firefox 2.0.0.20
Flash 9.0 r124

[annathepiper]

Cool, thank you for checking!

[mdlbear]

Iceweasel on Debian Etch gives me a window with the usual little animated progress bar on the bottom, but the main part of the window stays blue. No video, no audio.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

What does your plugins page say? Are you 64-bits?

Works fine for me, Firefox 3.0.11 with Flash 9.0 r124 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, 32-bits.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, no repro for me either on Ubuntu with Firefox.

[mdlbear]

I'm running 64 bits, and flash has been pretty wonky since I went to Lenny. The plugins page says it's Flash 9.0 r100.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm running a higher build than you are. Perhaps, if it's 64-bit-available, an upgrade is in order. (Would be real interesting to see if Anna's problem goes away should that happen....)

I only run 64-bits on servers, not workstations, for the specific reason that 64-bits and Flash don't tend to get along so well....

(Some banking sites require IE. Mine is *fine* on Firefox, but the login applet is Flash... whee.)

[mdlbear]

Yeah, flash is _very_ iffy on 64 bits; probably if I wasn't flinging gigabyte audio files around I'd drop back to 32.

[annathepiper]

Hrmm, the 64 bit OS is an interesting data point here. It may behoove me to check out some of the 64 bit boxes in our server lab here.

Noted on the build, thanks!

[annathepiper]

Iceweasel on Debian is unfortunately not a platform our dev team is likely to worry about; our games run on PC and (to a lesser degree) Mac, so whether the pages work in Linux of any sort is a very low priority issue.

But if you could ID your version of Flash I could perhaps see whether that version misbehaves on Windows.

Thanks for checking!

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

I can say it does work with firefox on XP Pro, and with IE tab on XP Pro. Tomorrow, when my mom is awake, I can go install IE 8 on her mac and see what happens there.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I haven't had any issues on XP at all, either in IE (version 6, version 7, or version 8), or in Firefox (version 3.0 or version 3.5). To the best of my knowledge the people who have been seeing issues are seeing them in IE 8 specifically, and I'm wondering if it's on Vista or Windows 7 or some other funky flavor of Windows I don't have on my desk at work.

Thanks for chiming in!

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Vista is pretty buggy. >< I'm not too fond of the new IE anyways, haven't been since 6. Bleh.

[annathepiper]

If you haven't looked at 7 or 8, just so you know, they're actually better than 6. Significantly. Especially 8, which is making a hard push towards making IE actually pay more attention to CSS standards in general.

Don't get me wrong, Firefox is still my browser of choice, but IE 8 doesn't make me cringe. And I do agree that IE 6 is highly annoying, after years of being QA for devs and designers who tear their hair out trying to design for it. ;)

As for Vista, I've only got passing acquaintance with it, but I've heard different people have different reactions to it, so.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Vista much before I went to work for Circuit City. When I became a tech, and had to work with it almost exclusively, because everything new had it, there were some things I liked (it was shiny), and many I didn't (it was... shiny).

Vista and Mac OS suffer the same fate to me, though mac more than vista: it's not what I'm used to, and the layout of things doesn't make any sense to me. I think they're *too* convenient, they try to make it too easy for the user to do things.

[annathepiper]

Mac OS in my experience does a way better job at arrangement of UI than Windows has for the most part. I have found it quite easier to get used to than I ever have Vista.

Though, that said, there are improvements in Windows 7, which has seemed more streamlined and less cluttered to me. Though not enough that I'll go out of my way for a Win7 install. ;)

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

all is OK here:

Ubuntu 9.0.4, kernel rev 2.6.27-14, 32 bit Intel 2-core arch (e5200)
Firefox 3.0.11
Adobe Flash plugin 10.0.22.87 (christ, is that a version number or an IPV4 address?)

[annathepiper]

Heh, thanks for chiming in! And, hah, yeah, way to go on the versioning there, Adobe. ;)

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

No repro for me.

Win XP Pro SP3
Google Chrome
32-bit machine
no idea my Flash version, sorry.

[annathepiper]

Thanks for checking! As long as it doesn't repro for you, no worries!

[pstratt.livejournal.com]

Works here with 32 bit IE 8.

Vista 64 with patches thru July 14.
IE 8 32-bit with similar patch dates and all default settings
Flash version is 10.0.12.36

----------------------
NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED

There is a separate 64-bit IE 8, but no flash is available so it doesn't work and most people don't use it.

I don't even get the green button in step 2.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, if you don't get the green button at all with 64-bit IE 8, that's actually expected behavior. The way it works is that if you don't have Flash installed/available at all, the video button doesn't even show up.

That doesn't seem to be the issue with the user who made the report, though--they did get the button and were able to launch the video popup. They just didn't see the video at all.

Thanks for checking!

[serasempre.livejournal.com]

Vista 32 Bit, IE8 in both regular and compatible mode, Flash 10.0.22.87, works fine. Works fine in all the other browsers too.

[annathepiper]

Good to know! Thanks for checking. :)