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When I went to watch some only episodes of star trek on Amazon Prime, the player would get stuck on updating. I followed the instructions here and doing so actually worked for 3 seconds. It was the oddest thing. Clearly the video was playing and I saw 3 seconds of the episode, but a message came up saying I needed to update my flash player. I tried loading videos over and over again, but no success, not even the 3 seconds. Here is the error message:

Sorry we were unable to stream this video. This is likely because your Flash Player needs to be updated.

I am running Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail, Firefox 20, and adobe flash-player 11,2,202,280. Apparently Adobe isn't going to make newer versions of flash available for Linux, only security updates.

So has anyone been able to play prime instant videos, and if so, under what circumstances? Is there perhaps an alternative implementation of the flash plugin I can use? Or is the cause of my problem something different altogether?

Problem probably has to do with the version of flash being used. If anyone has gotten Prime to work with an my current version of flash or an open-source/free implementation of it, please do tell. Or if anyone can get videos on amazon to play with any other parameters aside from changing my browser to chrome, please tell me.

This also affects protected content in Hulu and other services that employ DRM through Flash.

What hasn't worked:

  • Using Chrome which has the newest version of flash via ppapi. Amazon Prime strictly prohibits it.
  • Using Chromium has the same issue as using firefox
  • Trying to install Adobe Flash 11,2,202,275. Is not compatible with raring libraries(?).
Community
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Nil
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  • I'm not going to post this as an answer since I'm not satisfied with it. So Adobe decided to make new versions of flash for linux using Pepper plug-in API developed by google instead of the Netscape plug-in API used by every other browser except Internet Explorer which uses Active X. Reasons why they did this would instill much debate. However, Amazon Prime requires I guess the newest version of flash which maybe is the problem. Anyone know any forks of firefox that has the ppapi? The only work around I can see is using chrome, which doesn't answer the question. – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 01:34
  • gah, even though I specified that this question is for firefox, I should point out that I can't install the pepper-based flash plugin for chromium either. – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 01:59
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    I doubt it will help, but you can try Gnash, which is an open-source implementation of Flash. IIRC, however, it's outdated (I'm not sure though). – strugee Apr 27 '13 at 02:02
  • @strugee it's worth a try. The main issue the Amazon has is that it wants a player that supports digital rights management. Edit: Oh drats, turns out that it supports up to swf 7 and some of swf 8 and 9. No flash 11... – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 02:14
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    I tried installed proper Google Chrome (not Chromium) as well. Had to symlink the old udev library to get it to run, but it still didn't work. – Sajan Parikh Apr 27 '13 at 02:26
  • @SajanParikh you're right, I tried to install Chrome after all other roads failed. The .deb file opened with ubuntu software center, and said that the libudev0 dependency was not satisfied. I searched on Synaptic package manager and it wasn't there. found this http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/FyszF27mzIc where the user says it's been removed from the repositories (dafuq, why is this so hard?!?) and another user gives an alternative link to download it. I'll update u on if it works... – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 02:59
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    @nil, you don't need to actually install libudev.so.0 as in 13.04 libudev.so.1 exists. If you simply force the install, ignoring the dependency check, then symlink libudev.so.0 to the existing libudev.so.1, you can get Chrome to run just fine. – Sajan Parikh Apr 27 '13 at 03:01
  • @SajanParikh oh... lol, hmm, well regardless, amazon specifically rejects ppapi and says to use firefox, which has me asking dafuq? Is it really the case that Amazon refuses to support linux? Only thing I can think of is running firefox through wine. Well, might as well, then I can use the Unity browser plug-in (not related at all to the unity desktop environment, just the same name) to play some browser based games. – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 03:13
  • EUREKA, this might be the smoking gun. This thread here suggest using an older version of flash. Kind of heading in the opposite direction of all other solutions, but people report using 11,2,202,275 as working. – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 03:17
  • yeah...having issues finding 11.2.202.275....maybe i'll pick this up tomorrow and update to whether or not this was a solution – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 03:52
  • tried downloading it from here. Uninstalled flash via synaptic package manage. Opened the deb file with software center. Seemed to install fine. Restarted firefox, but flash player wouldn't load. It was a grey box on multiple websites, amazon said i didn't even have the flash player. Upgraded it back to 11.2.202.280 using synaptic package manager. cries I'm sure there is a solution somewhere.... – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 04:10
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    I don't think it's a flash issue now. I just looked on my 12.10 installation where it is all working just fine, it and it has the same version of Flash as on my 13.04 where it doesn't work. 11.2.202.280 – Sajan Parikh Apr 27 '13 at 21:18
  • o dang, wonder what could be causing the problem then? Well, wine works at the very least. Maybe someone should file a bug report and leave this question as a work around? – Nil Apr 27 '13 at 21:24
  • @SajanParikh I don't know the details of how, but you could probably use the equivs package to fix the Chrome dependency issue. – strugee Apr 28 '13 at 04:49
  • @strugee I got Chrome running just fine. I was just telling Nil. You have to force the installation without the dependency check as the packages Chrome depends on don't exist in 13.04. Then you have to symlink the new 13.04 udev library to where Chrome expects it to be and everything works flawlessly. – Sajan Parikh Apr 28 '13 at 19:18
  • @SajanParikh right, I'm just saying that if you don't like having a weird install with regards to deps, equivs is an option. – strugee Apr 28 '13 at 19:28
  • @SajanParikh Telling you this a little late, but there was a question asked about Chromes dependency issues some time ago. I liked your comment here on how to go about it. Could you add it as an answer to that question? – Nil May 14 '13 at 05:10

4 Answers4

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I did the following on 13.04 64bit:

sudo apt-get install hal

sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe

sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/information

/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes --verbose=yes

rm -rf ~/.adobe

That got things up and going in Chromium....

Commenters also confirmed that the same instructions work for 12.04 64bit.

Catskul
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Aaron
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    This works beautifully. Better than firefox in wine! Would you mind explaining what the problem was and why this fix works? Also, I'm running the 32 bit version of raring, so it works for both versions. – Nil May 02 '13 at 02:47
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    This fix also made it work in firefox. You are the man! – Nil May 02 '13 at 02:51
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    Amazing! Would be great for someone to explain this a bit more though. Glad things are working again. From the fix, it looks like it was an issue with HAL. – Sajan Parikh May 02 '13 at 06:15
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    Apparently hal isn't working properly on 13.04. It is missing directories and not running when it is supposed to. Seems that hal functionality is being roled into udev. – Aaron May 02 '13 at 17:13
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    Thanks for posting the solution. I understand that udev replaced hal, but since hal is still provided and still required for Flash DRM, perhaps a bug should be filed? – aap May 03 '13 at 02:58
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    hald isn't available out of the box in 13.04, so you might want to tip future readers to install it with apt-get install hal – blee May 07 '13 at 07:49
  • Could you explain exactly what these commands do? I'd be interested to know the specifics of why this fixes the problem. – kmgdev May 20 '13 at 02:41
  • I tried this fix with Chromium and received this error message (Firefox works): If you're using the Chrome browser with Linux, you must disable PPAPI to continue using Amazon Instant Video. You can also use a different Web browser, like Firefox. – Kendor Jun 05 '13 at 22:06
  • This fixed all broken content for me except for TheComedyNetwork.ca, which is how I stream the Daily Show in Canada... any advice? – serilain Jun 09 '13 at 05:41
  • This is no longer required in 13.04 at least in Firefox as of version 23. – Goddard Aug 16 '13 at 05:42
  • I can confirm that this works in 12.04 as well. – Catskul Nov 04 '13 at 20:21
  • None of these mentioned here worked for me. I am using Xubuntu 13.10. I have installed the package adobe-flashplugin and it worked immediately. I don't have reputation, so, I hope it helps someone like me. – would_like_to_be_anon Dec 14 '13 at 18:11
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    This still works in Ubuntu 14.04. Nice solution, thx. – Jack Senechal Jun 02 '14 at 21:12
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The other solutions here haven't worked for me in 13.10 64bit. The only thing that does is adding a ppa :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install hal

That worked in Chrome.

Thanks Michael Blennerhassett for the ppa

Thanks omgubuntu for providing the instructions I got the answer from: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/10/fixing-amazon-prime-streaming-drm-protected-flash-13-10

snowguy
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  • I can confirm that this also works in 14.04 64bit. In my case, I installed flash for Firefox, then installed HAL, and all worked perfectly. – Kim Nov 09 '14 at 02:30
4

Code the Following:

sudo apt-get install hal

hald

(This works for version 12.10 I apologized. I forgot I have not upgrade my laptop yet)

For version 13.04 ( I am running Xunbuntu on my Desktop)

In my case I did have to download hal and run hald

then I made the same changes from the answer above 

sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe

sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/information

/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes --verbose=yes

rm -rf ~/.adobe

I got an error the first time I copy and paste this line

/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes --verbose=yes

But once I installed hal and run hald it worked.

I can watch amazon prime video using Firefox.

Luis Alvarado
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Sergio
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1

As of today, April 27, 2013, I have found no other solution to watching Amazon Prime instant videos on Ubuntu aside from the following:

  1. Install Wine from the Ubuntu repository.
  2. Install the latest version of Firefox for Windows using Wine. The version of Wine I used was 1.4.1. I have noticed no bugs when doing so.
  3. Download the Windows installer for latest version of Adobe Flash Player and run it using Wine. I noticed no bugs when doing so.

When playing videos on Amazon Prime, I notice no artifacts or anything that would detract from the viewing experience. Even with the extra layer of compatibility, it runs just as if it were native. If another solution appears in the future that doesn't require Wine, I will update that as the correct answer.

Damian Yerrick
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Nil
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