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Local Settings Manager won't retain settings

New Here ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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Environment Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit

Internet Explorer 11

Flash Player 27.0.0.130

Issue:

We are rolling out Flash Player 27.0.0.130.  We noticed that after upgrading to Flash Player 27.0.0.130 from Flash Player 26.0.0.151 our Local Settings won't "stick".  We haven't had this problem in the past with upgrades.  We've had this happen on several machines, so we've stopped our rollout until we understand what's going on.

The machines were functioning perfectly before the upgrade.

For example, on the Storage tab we set "Block all sites from storing information on this computer".  Camera and Microphone settings are set to "Block all sites from using the camera and microphone".   Peer-assisted networking is set to "Block all sites from using peer-assisted networking".

After opening-closing IE, we return to the Local Settings Manager UI in Control Panel.   All of the above settings are set back to their default Allow (Storage), or Ask (Camera and Microphone, Peer-assisted networking) settings.

We've tried a clean install by using the Adobe uninstaller and removing all traces of Flash from our system without fixing the issue.  Flash installs successfully.  IE is set to automatically delete cookies when it is closed.

Any ideas?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Sep 25, 2017 Sep 25, 2017

We identified the offending change this afternoon and rolled it back out.  We're in the endgame for this release, so there's no opportunity to land it in a beta, but it will be fixed in the next release.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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This is close to a duplicate of mms.cfg settings​, as such, locking.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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Actually, unblocking to investigate the settings not sticking issue.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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The settings are typically stored in C:\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\settings.sol.

That the settings revert to default each time Flash Player loads indicates that they're either not being read or written.  When I see this, it's generally a permission or group policy thing that prevents the client from accessing settings.sol.

(edit: You explicitly stated you're upgrading from a recent version, so this probably isn't applicable, but it might help someone else)

If you're upgrading from a really old version of Flash (<14), and you're storing the user's Windows profile on a network share, you might have a look at the description for the EnableInsecureJunctionBehavior flag in mms.cfg.  Details are on pp. 39 of the System Administrator's guide, here: Adobe Flash Player Administration Guide for Flash Player | Adobe Developer Connection

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New Here ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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We're upgrading from 26.0.0.151 to 27.0.0.130.    The user's Windows profile is stored on the local machine.

We noticed this behavior if we install before the September Windows maintenance and also if we install after the Windows maintenance.  This is a real puzzler - we're experienced techs.  Have had very few problems with Flash Player in the past.  We've tried all of the usual - uninstall, delete any remaining Adobe files as in Uninstall Flash Player for Windows and How do I do a clean install of Flash Player - Windows?

These are production machines.  They have been working fine and are updated on a routine basis.  We haven't had any permissions issues in past installs.  26.0.0.151 was installed during our August maintenance cycle.

We haven't tried deleting settings.sol in C:\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\.  We're assuming that doing the clean install took care of that.

Is it possible that something changed in 27.0.0.130?   We've seen postings about new audio settings -  maybe the other settings were affected somehow.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 21, 2017 Sep 21, 2017

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I just double-checked my Win7 x64 machine, and I'm definitely able to get settings to persist.  This is also the only complaint I've seen about this, and the release has been in the field for ~9 days at this point.  I'd expect a much higher volume of complaints.

I'm not sure what we would've broken that would cause this to happen in such a limited way.  I'm not ruling it out, but it seems like it's going to be nuanced bug if that's the case.

If you delete settings.sol then re-launch Flash Player, we should recreate it with default settings.  Do the settings persist after that?  If so,  I'm wondering if we're corrupting the file.  If that's the case, I'd be really interested in comparing a copy of settings.sol pre and post upgrade on a system where the settings now fail to persist. 

It seems unlikely that we would break the config file itself, since I seriously doubt that we modified the classes through which those settings are stored and retrieved, but I'd definitely like to rule it out.

Have you changed anything with IE11, like tightening the rules around IE's protected mode?  I did notice that I had to authorize the native control panel to launch from IE when I chose Global Settings from our context menu.


It might also be helpful for you to articulate some exact repro steps.  I'm making assumptions about what you're doing that might not be valid.

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New Here ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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Thanks for your reply.  We're using the Windows ActiveX version installed with the exe.installer.  We run the installer "as is" to install the product - take the defaults - no customization during the install.    For the "clean" install, we've followed the instructions in Uninstall Flash Player for Windows and reinstall as above.   The version of the uninstaller.exe is.27.0.0.130.

The only setting that seems to persist for us is "Never Check for Updates".

We will attempt to reproduce the problem and provide step-by-step doc as we go through the process.

What can we use to view settings.sol?  We used notepad and it appears that some of the text is unprintable.

Just for kicks, try opening Local Settings Manager in Control Panel and press the "Delete All" button.  Check only "Delete All Site Data " and Settings and press "Delete Data".   Exit and go back in to Local Settings Manager, make changes and see if they persist.  Browse a bit and then check again.  Don't know if deleting data a settings is doing the corruption.

We'll post an update once we've got all of our doc together.  Hopefully we aren't doing something stupid.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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LSOs are binary files.  You'd need a parser to interpret them, and we don't provide one, since you can normally just query the data directly from ActionScript.

I found some links to forensic tools on GitHub if you want to go down that rabbit hole, but I haven’t played with them:
http://forensicsfromthesausagefactory.blogspot.com/2009/04/adobe-flash-player-local-shared-objects.h...

That said, simply blowing away settings.sol on an affected machine should tell you a lot about what’s going on.

If you delete it and re-launch Flash Player, it should recreate settings.sol.  At that point, if your settings persist, then we know that you’re able to write and read at that location.  The one thing you might want to double-check in that instance, is whether or not the ownership of the recreated settings.sol matches the affected one (i.e. is there a side-effect from the scripted maintenance that messes up ownership).

If settings.sol isn’t recreated and settings don’t persist, you have pretty clear evidence that Flash Player running under the user lacks permissions to write to that directory tree.

If settings.sol *is* recreated and the settings don’t persist, then something really weird is going on, and some samples would be useful.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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Also, you probably know about it already, but just in case, there’s a lot of detail on distributed installations in the System Administrator’s Guide, here:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_admin_guide.html

It might be worth sanity-checking your script against the details for manual removal, and maybe looking over the installation logs to see if there are any errors.

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New Here ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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Thanks for the heads up about settings.sol.  We've changed absolutely nothing on these machines (you probably hear that a lot).  Stability is of prime importance to us, so we don't futz around with the machines.  It will be surprising if there's something going on with permissions.

We'll follow your guidance regarding settings.sol and update this thread when we have some results to post.

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New Here ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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OK - here's what's happening.  Looks like something changed in 27.0.0.130 that affects how/where the settings are saved.

There are no permissions issues.

Two issues/changes from 26.0.0.151 and previous versions

1.  Windows Control Panel - Local Settings Manager.

pressing "Delete Data" actually resets the settings in the Local Settings Manager to the default "Ask" for Storage, Camera and Mic, and Playback.   "Delete All" on the Advanced Tab resets the Local Settings as well.   Prior to 27.0.0.130 the Local Settings were not affected by "Delete Data".  We tested/verified on both 26.0.0.151 and 27.0.0.130 today.

If the settings are reset using "Delete Data", you have to go into the Local Settings Manager twice to set them and actually have them saved.

2.  In our shop, Internet Explorer is set to "Delete Browsing History" on exit.  Here are the settings.

Selecting "Cookies and website data" resets the Flash Player Local settings.  We tested this multiple times checking and unchecking "Cookies and website data".   If "Cookies and website data" is NOT checked, the Flash Player settings are retained.   If "Cookies and website" data IS checked, then the Flash Player Local settings are reset back to the default "ask" for Storage, Camera and Mic, and Playback.

We've always had "Cookies and website data" checked in the past as a part of our standard build.  Prior to 27.0.0.130, our Flash Player settings were retained.   We tested/verified on 26..0.0.151 today that "Delete Browsing History" on exit was checked and  "Cookies and website data" was checked. Our Flash Player settings were retained after opening/closing Internet Explorer multiple times.

Our test setup was kept simple.   All manual, no automation.   We manually executed the ActiveX Flash Installer .exe for 27.0.0.130 to perform an upgrade in place over the existing 27.0.0.151 version.   I won't go through all of the permutations of our testing, but we eventually hit on the "Cookies and website data" is NOT checked setting to consistently retain the Flash Player settings.

If you want to test this yourself, be advised that it appears that the deletion of cookies and website data can occur some time after IE is closed and not immediately on closing.   Sometimes, it would appear that the Flash settings were retained after IE was closed (with  "Cookies and website data" checked).    We just happened to get to the Local Settings Manager before the actual IE delete process occurred.

So, we need to maintain our standard of automatically deleting cookies and website data AND retain our custom Flash Player settings.  Changing IE to NOT delete on exit is not an acceptable workaround for us.   We'll stop implementing 27.0.0.130 and fall back to 26.0.0.151 until we hear from you.

Lastly, deleting "settings.sol" made no difference.  The only way we were able to consistently keep our settings was by unchecking "Cookies and website data" as above.

We mention the changes noted in item 1 above because it could be a related symptom of the same problem.

Please advise.

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Guest
Sep 24, 2017 Sep 24, 2017

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Hi,

I can confirm this issue. I'm on Win 10 pro/64b v.1607 & Firefox 55.0.3 (32bit).

When I delete FF cookies, Flash Global settings goes to default (Allow.../Ask...).

It started right after latest (27.0.0.130) Flash update.

I already have uninstalled current version and I've installed previous (26.0.0.151) version.

Now, deleting FF cookies does not affect Flash settings.

@pro256

You may try to download previous (26.0.0.151) version from here (official):

https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp_26.0.0.151_archive .zip

Here (Win 10), I've uninstalled current version by common way (Control Panel/Programs and Features) and then install previous version. I didn't follow Adobe's instructions for uninstalling and everything's fine...till now...

The only "pain" is that you have to download a 400MB zip file while you'll only need 20MB (flashplayer26_0r0_151_win.exe installer) of that.

That's what I've done while waiting for a fix...

@Adobe Staff

There is no need to wait for some hundreds of posts. Most users don't even know about these settings and the ones who know, have no idea about that issue because Flash settings check is not an everyday thing and it should not be.

Note: Deleting Edge cookies does not affect Flash settings.

As for IE 11, issue exists even if Flash plugin has not been installed.

Regards!

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 25, 2017 Sep 25, 2017

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Thanks for the repro steps, that was exactly what I needed.

I'll get a bug open momentarily.

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New Here ,
Sep 25, 2017 Sep 25, 2017

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@jeromiec83223024 - Thanks for opening a bug report for us.  Please let us know the resolution.  In the meantime, we'll stick with 26.0.0.151.

@noikon - Thanks for confirming.  We've already regressed back to 26.0.0.151.  We were reasonably confident that it was a bug, but had to perform more testing to find the trigger.  It's always a good idea to function check new versions of any software.

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 25, 2017 Sep 25, 2017

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We identified the offending change this afternoon and rolled it back out.  We're in the endgame for this release, so there's no opportunity to land it in a beta, but it will be fixed in the next release.

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New Here ,
Sep 26, 2017 Sep 26, 2017

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Thanks for the quick response.   We're assuming that the fix will be in the October patch Tuesday release.

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Adobe Employee ,
Oct 10, 2017 Oct 10, 2017

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We are working on a fix for this bug and have partnered with browser vendors to help us with a resolution.

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New Here ,
Oct 18, 2017 Oct 18, 2017

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Any update on when the fix will be available - i.e., what version of Flash Player?

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Adobe Employee ,
Oct 18, 2017 Oct 18, 2017

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I'm pretty sure that this was fixed in the 27.0.0.159 release.  The current available version is 27.0.0.170.

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Guest
Oct 19, 2017 Oct 19, 2017

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I can confirm that. After 27.0.0.170 installation, issue's been fixed.

THANK YOU!

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New Here ,
Oct 19, 2017 Oct 19, 2017

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Thanks for confirming.  We will be installing 27.0.0.170.

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Adobe Employee ,
Apr 09, 2018 Apr 09, 2018

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Given the age of the thread and the fact that this has been fixed for months, I'm locking it so that the participants don't get spammed about new, unrelated issues that might share these symptoms.

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