I tried out the Chrome beta for Linux on two different computers yesterday. On the first one, Flash worked right “out of the box.” On the second, it wouldn’t even show up in about:plugins. I couldn’t figure out what was different.

  • Both are 64-bit systems running Fedora 12.
  • Both are running the 32-bit version of Flash from Adobe’s yum repository.
  • Both are running the 64-bit version of Google Chrome from the beta download page.
  • I had run mozilla-plugin-config -i to create the 64-bit wrapper on both computers after updating Flash. (A security update came out yesterday.)
  • Flash works just fine in 64-bit Firefox and Opera.

I looked thoroughly at my home computer last night and came up empty. This morning I took another look at my work computer — the one where Flash actually showed up — and I think I’ve found it.

Chrome is using nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so according to about:plugins. The actual file is in /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/. This system has two symbolic links to that file, one in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and one in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/. IIRC Only one of these was present on my home computer.

So I think this will fix it:

ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Run the command as root or using sudo.

I’ll check back tonight and update this entry to show whether it worked.

Update: Yes, it worked!

22 thoughts on “Getting Flash to work on Google Chrome for 64-bit Linux

  1. To do this manually you can just copy the flash plugin to /opt/google/chrome/plugins (you may have to make that directory).

    I copied the 64 bit linux flash player from the adobe site (updated 12/08/09) and it is found by chrome although it is not stable.

    I should try the 32 bit wrapped one to see if there’s a big difference in stability.

    • Interesting. I’d seen references to that directory when I searched online, but since there didn’t seem to be one on my system, I figured it was a difference between the alphas and the beta.

    • So the nspluginwrapper wrapped plugin is much more stable. Pandora.com loads fine whereas the 64 bit version from Adobe instantly crashed.

      Thanks for the tip.

    • Hi, I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 64bit. I tried to download the libflashplayer.so file from the Adobe Labs site. Copied it to /opt/google/chrome/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ also /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins. However, the file doesn’t find by the Chrome.

      • sorry. I missed a important try. ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped/nswrapper_32_64.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

  2. Very cool thanks. So nice when you do a search for something and the first thing you find gives you the exact answer you needed, and it’s a cool new geeky blog you’ve not come across before 😉

  3. Great tip. Thanks a lot. Did you figure out how your system in office happened to already have the symbolic link in the first place?

  4. Thanks a bunch. Not having flash work on my laptop has been a small thorn in my side for months now. Finally I can do all my work in Chrome 😉

  5. Just a quick note to say thanks — this works great on Fedora 14. It was bothering me that Flash worked fine in Firefox but not in Chrome.

  6. Hi, the answer is so easy. Purge [completely remove] FLASHPLUGIN-NONFREE and then simply reinstall the same. This downloads a new version of Flash player complete with new updates etc automatically. No reboot needed.
    I am fairly new to Linux, but this was easy to solve, now if you could just tell me how to change that awful Chrome icon……….

    regards to all Nick

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