Problem downloading Flash Player

[erich37421944]

I support over 300 computers that need flash and I have a distribution license to download the installers which work fine if I manually download them. To save time I have a program that logs me in to the distribution site and then finds the latest MSI installers and uses a webclient to automatically download them. This was all working just fine until about a month or 2 ago, now the link that used to work now only downloads the html page and not the MSI. Why do these links no longer point to an ftp? https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/distyfp/current/win/install_flash_player_24_active... Is the link the MSI returns that does not download the MSI. Is the link launching another protocol that downloads? Why was this changed? Why is it getting even harder to distribute flash now? Lastly, why do you upgrade your distribution page and constantly change your HTML tags? The flash version name one time will be in an anchor tag then a span tag and is now in an H4 tag.

[_maria_]

Hi

The distribution page workflow requires customers log into the distribution page to download the files.  This verifies that customers have a current, valid, distribution license.  Unfortunately, the new workflow does not support programmatically downloading of the installer files.

For various reasons, it is not recommended customers use the distribution page to programmatically obtain the Flash Player version.  Several months ago we made available a masterversion.xml file that customers can programmatically query to find out if there is a new version of Flash Player.  The information is listed in the 'Player Versions' section of the Flash Player Administrator Guide (currently page 7).

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Maria

[erich37421944]

So basically the thought process is to make it as complicated as possible for users to get and distribute your free software?

[_maria_]

No, that is not the thought process at all.

[erich37421944]

But there is no way that once we log in as a verified distributor to have access to an ftp link to be able to download? Then the ftp server verify the user login before granting access? I understand clicking on a link may not seem like a huge deal but when you have many other items you are handling having the ability to have the download automated is huge. It used to be this way even when you went to only having the distribution page let us download it.

[_maria_]

At this time there isn't an FTP server solution for downloading the Flash Player installers.  I understand the new solution is not ideal for some customers.  I will forward your concerns to the appropriate folks.

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Maria

[_maria_]

Is hosting the Background Update resources locally, to update the clients via the Background Update workflow, an option for you?  We are planning on posting the Background Update resources outside of the distribution page, enabling customers to programmatically download the file and deploy the resources in their intranet.  For more information on the Background Updater, please see the ;Performing a background update' section in chapter 3 of the Flash Player Administration Guide​ for more information.

[erich37421944]

This looks like a good solution. I will work on implementing this and let you know if this solution works for us.

[_maria_]

If you have any questions on setting it up, or run into issues while setting it up, or testing it that it works, post a message here and I'll receive an email notification.  By default the Background Update logging is very minimal.  If you add SilentAutoUpdateVerboseLogging=1 to the mms.cfg file it'll enable verbose logging, which will help troubleshoot issues you may encounter during setup/testing.  Once it's working fine you can either remove the parameter from the mms.cfg file or change it to SilentAutoUpdateVerboseLogging=0, which will disable verbose logging.