Problem with badge installation in Chrome on Windows

[Timur_Valishev]

Dear Adobe,

The badge installation stopped working recently, probably after last Google Chrome update. Problem look like this: after clicking "install now" badge the confirmation window to install Adobe AIR appears ("Would you like to install adobe AIR?"). I click yes, download progress bar goes from 0 to 100%, and then error message appears ("Download error. Try again?"). Click yes - everything repeats.

Also, in Chrome on Windows there is text under the badge: "In order to run <app name>, this installer will also set up Adobe AIR" - but latest AIR is already installed. We used standard installation badge, provided with the SDK.

OS Windows 7 ver 6.1 (build 7600)

Browser Google Chrome 21.0.1180.60 m

Flash Player 11.3.31.222

AIR 3.3.0.3670

The problem appears only in Google Chrome, and only on Windows. In IE and FF everything seems to work fine. In Chrome 21.0.1180.57 on Mac OS X 10.7.2 it works fine as well.

You can look at the error here: http://www.jivosite.ru/install_application

[Guest]

I have exactly the same problem. It works on IE and FireFox. But in chrome I can't install AIR.

[chris.campbell]

Thanks for bringing this up.  When you have a chance, please visit this bug and add a comment:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=140854&q=air&colspec=ID%20Pri%20Mstone%20ReleaseB...

I'm going to talk with the Chrome team to find out the status.

[chris.campbell]

I was able to work around this by doing the following, I realize it's a cumbersome workaround but it does clearly show that this is a PPAPI (pepper) related issue.

1. Navigate to "about:plugins" in the Chrome address bar
2. Click the Details link in the upper right part of the page to expand all items
3. Locate the "Shockwave Flash" entries (there will be 2 or 3 of these)
4. Click "Disable" for the PPAPI copy (most likely the first one listed), which has a version number of 11.3.31.222
5. Restart Chrome for good measure and try again

[Born2code]

Chris,

You can't expect every visitor from the thousands of visitors we have to go and disable the plugin, this is crazy!!!!

Please reply back when this can be fixed....

[Born2code]

Adobe, can you please let us know if you are aware of this MAJOR MAJOR show stopper.

AIR Badge is broken in all Chrome in ALL THE WEB!!!

Is someone from Adobe working on this with Google?

Sean.

[DWUser_com]

Chris, asking average users to poke around in the Chrome plugin config just isn't reasonable.  We need a fix (not just a workaround) for this bug ASAP.  These bugs (and the lack of collaboration between you and Google) only damage the platform, hurting you guys in the long run. 

Please at least give us status updates if something is happening.  Communication goes a long way.

Thanks

[DWUser_com]

Also, I wanted to note that we're repeatedly seeing the following in log files:

[time] Starting runtime background update check

[time] Begin Background update download from http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/3/background/windows/x86/patch/3.3.0.3670/update
[time] Unpackaging http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/3/background/windows/x86/patch/3.3.0.3670/update to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\AIR\Updater\Background

[time] Runtime update not available

[Born2code]

Chris,

this is crazy... we need you or google to give us an ETA, we are losing businsess becuase of this.

Still no reply from anyone....

[chris.campbell]

I'm sorry for the delay, I've been waiting to hear back from the parties involved.  Unfortunately, I don't have a good story to tell you.  We're aware of this issue but neither Adobe nor Google have a solution planned at this time.  The workaround that I provided, is as you've noted, not scalable nor something that you'd want to recommend to all of your customers.  That leaves us without the badge install on Chrome, and instead suggesting that you include manual steps for the user to download the AIR runtime and your .air installer.

I'm sorry I don't have a better solution to give you at this time.  I'm going to continue to escalate this and see what we can do.

Thanks,

Chris

[Born2code]

Thanks for the reply...

Adobe has to pressure Google to fix this.

Adobe had said they are "Doubling down" on Adobe AIR. And not supporing Badge install in Chrome is a MAJOR issue.

Please push Adobe management to pressure Google for a workaround, this is not acceptable.

Thanks for updating, Sean.

[Timur_Valishev]

Chris, thanks for the reply!

Please continue to push Google it as hard as you can. Chrome is the most popular browser toaday, and such inconvenience in application installation is a serious problem for our businesses! Hope for your help!

[Erik de Bruin]

Chris,

Thanks for the update, but I'm sure you realise that this absolutely won't do. Breaking a feature with an update is one thing, but in that case I'm sure a fix is coming. However, if either Adobe or Google decided to discontinue this feature (you make it sound like they did), upon which so many companies rely for distributing their software, I would think that a public statement and a viable workaround would be presented...

Can you please ask for clarification higher up in your foodchain and tell us either if this is a bug, soon to be fixed, or a discontinuation for which an explanation is forthcoming?

Thanks,

Erik de Bruin

[Erik de Bruin]

Chris,

It look like there is a solution possible, and Google is willing to work with Adobe to make it happen. From "http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=140854#c35":

We have discussed this with Adobe in the past, and it is possible for Adobe to implement this functionality in a different way by integrating it with a Pepper "broker" that Chrome has provided. We are willing to support their efforts to do this if they wish.

The ball seems to be in Adobe's court...

[Carlos_Rovira]

So now the ball is in Adobe's hat.

Hope someone could respond to it and let us now if Adobe will fight for AIR as they promised or we will see another fail like the ones we used to see from the past 2 years...

[Born2code]

Ok Google has replied, and so it seems the Ball is in your Court Adobe.

As per Jeffrey C of Google and I quote: "We have discussed this with Adobe in the past, and it is possible for Adobe to implement this functionality in a different way by integrating it with a Pepper "broker" that Chrome has provided. We are willing to support their efforts to do this if they wish."

See here:  http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=140854

So Chris, please relay this to management that it is now up to Adobe to fix this using the Pepper "Broker" feature that is built onto Chrome 21.

Please let us know what Adobe has decided,

Regards,

Sean - http://MediaSignage.com

[chris.campbell]

I wanted to let you know that I hear you and I've relayed the sentiment along.  I'm working on getting additional information from my management team.

[Born2code]

THANK YOU!!!

[paleozogt]

Has anyone filed a bug with adobe about this yet?

[paleozogt]

I've filed a bug with Adobe here: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3310921

Please upvote!

[chris.campbell]

Thank you for adding the bug report.  I encourage everyone to vote, but be assured that we are very aware of this problem and are in the process of investigation.

[Born2code]

Any updates Chris?

This is taking a long time and we are losing business in the meanwhile...

regards.

[Luxvey]

I just wanted to mention that this work-around (disabling PPAPI in Chrome via the about:plugins page) fixed my problem with installing VUDU To Go.

[SpecialK]

This bug has also affected our app. All Chrome users cannot install our AIR app using the badge installer.

[Born2code]

Adobe and Google, come on? You can't just break the AIR Badge and leave it like that for days....

People are coming to our site and can't install our AIR app, this has to be fixed ASAP!!!!

We are losing business because of this bug.

FIX ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adobe, please reply....

See issue here: http://mediasignage.com/html/get_started.html