Off Topic. Computer stuff

N801BH

N801BH

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Hi guys/gals..

After the thread a while back on what each of us do I noticed a lot are computer geeks...

Here is my issue.... Up until a few days ago all was well for viewing videos on youtube, Vimeo and other websites that host videos... Now when I click on any of them all I get is a black screen where to current video is supposed to play. The column on the right side still shows multiple related videos but if I click on those, it transfers the new one to the ready to play box and that one is nothing but a black screen.

So, I google "youtube quit playing videos" and first page or two suggest the problem is Adobe FlashPlayer needs to be refreshed to the new version.. So I follow the instructions and uninstall the current version and click on load the new version.... BIG mistake... I starts to load the new version and itpromptly stops about 50% through and a pop up displays a message that is saying "turn off brccmctl... So I google that and it is a .exe function for my Brothers printer. So... I restart and try the whole routine over again.. same results except now the pop up box says "turn off brccmctl and Internet Explorer".

Then I remember Google bought youtube and maybe even Adobe.:dunno:.
In all the screens that show up during searches for how to fix the problem a common theme keeps showing up... The fix is supposed to be to switch to Google Chrome...... Hmmm... Is it just me of is Google sending out a suicide sequence to get everyone to have to change to Chrome.:dunno:
I try not to be paranoin but the word ""Predatory activities" keeps flashing before my eyes.:yesnod:.

So...
1- Can I repair /return my computer to the way it works a few days ago or do I have to switch to Chrome?

2- How the heck to I disable Internet Explorer long enough to load the new Adobe 11.0 Flash player?

3- Do I have to uninstall my Brothers software till I load the Flash player and then reload the printer stuff.......

4- Is there a patch in the pipeline to fix this that any of you computer insiders have heard about?

Thanks in advance for any help you can share...

Ben.
 
Not predatory. HTML 5 and Canvas should do away with flash altogether... Here's to hoping. Basically when you're installing flash, it's needing to replace/update some files that are in use, it has determined that IE (Highly likely since it's wanting to install a plugin) and whatever the printer process is are going to prevent it from installing correctly due to having these files in use already. Exit IE, and go to your task manager and kill the printer process then install flash.
 
bartmc said:
Not predatory. HTML 5 and Canvas should do away with flash altogether... Here's to hoping. Basically when you're installing flash, it's needing to replace/update some files that are in use, it has determined that IE (Highly likely since it's wanting to install a plugin) and whatever the printer process is are going to prevent it from installing correctly due to having these files in use already. Exit IE, and go to your task manager and kill the printer process then install flash.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions...

I uninstalled the Brothers software, got the Adobe Flash11 ActiveX player successfully loaded and still a black pic and no video from any source... Must be a bad video board in the puter....
Nuttin that a 10 lb sledge won't fix..:yesnod::yesnod::nono::yikes:

Ben.
 
N801BH said:
Thanks for the suggestions...

I uninstalled the Brothers software, got the Adobe Flash11 ActiveX player successfully loaded and still a black pic and no video from any source... Must be a bad video board in the puter....
Nuttin that a 10 lb sledge won't fix..:yesnod::yesnod::nono::yikes:

Ben.
Click to expand...
you still see the windows stuff and other programs? If so, I don't think the video board is the problem.
 
bartmc said:
www.google.com/chrome :rofl: seriously try chrome or firefox, if they work and IE doesn't well that wouldn't be anything new :)
Click to expand...

KOOL... Chrome is MUCH faster,, and my favorites are in alphbetical order too...

Any way to fix the clarity of the font on Chrome.... it is kinda light and looks scratchy.....

Oh yeah.... still no youtube....... just a black screen.:sad::sad::sad:

Ben.
 
Mine does this too only on certain websites, I think I posted the problem here earlier. Seamonkey browser. The SM help guys made a bunch of suggestions but so far no joy. Can't see, for eg, foxnews videos. Most others are fine.
 
N801BH said:
KOOL... Chrome is MUCH faster,, and my favorites are in alphbetical order too...

Any way to fix the clarity of the font on Chrome.... it is kinda light and looks scratchy.....

Oh yeah.... still no youtube....... just a black screen.:sad::sad::sad:

Ben.
Click to expand...

Flash issue then... You've re-installed it and eliminated it being a browser issue.. I'm out of suggestions.
 
Could also have been an update to your video card driver. Sounds like the "accelerated" video features are not working but regular desktop graphics are.

Any recent Windows Update things installed? Any of them a video driver for your video card, perhaps?

I hate suggesting fixes for video remotely, because video under Windows is a veritable House of Cards... you pull out the wrong piece and the whole House falls down. But I've seen and successfully fixed the exact problem you're describing by either installing the manufacturer's latest video drivers (which usually come with all their add-on crap for controlling the card, and most PC manufacturers ALSO include something for this, so from that day forward, the two pieces of software fight with each other, unless you uninstall one of them), or even trickier, uninstalling them first -- which typically will drop you back to some AWFUL looking video with a 800 x 600 VESA standard built in driver in Windows, and then rebuilding the House of Cards from the ground up, reinstalling the driver, etc.

If that machine is newer than XP... you might look to see when the last few System Restore Points were saved, and correlate them in your head to the last known time you could play a YouTube video, and roll back to a date prior to that. Then, IF that works... keep a careful eye on the Windows Updates that come through (turn off automated install of updates, and only auto-download them) to see if something whacked your video drivers upside the head.

Those are just some thoughts... your mileage may vary. Windows Video Drivers can be a total PITA when they decide to stop working. If that's even the problem... but it sounds like it is, from past experience.

In theory, whatever error is happening when you get the black screen should also be in the OS logs, which in the case of Windows, is the Event Viewer... but EV is so full of garbage it's usually quite a spelunking mission to go dig through it for anything useful.
 
denverpilot said:
Could also have been an update to your video card driver. Sounds like the "accelerated" video features are not working but regular desktop graphics are.

Any recent Windows Update things installed? Any of them a video driver for your video card, perhaps?

I hate suggesting fixes for video remotely, because video under Windows is a veritable House of Cards... you pull out the wrong piece and the whole House falls down. But I've seen and successfully fixed the exact problem you're describing by either installing the manufacturer's latest video drivers (which usually come with all their add-on crap for controlling the card, and most PC manufacturers ALSO include something for this, so from that day forward, the two pieces of software fight with each other, unless you uninstall one of them), or even trickier, uninstalling them first -- which typically will drop you back to some AWFUL looking video with a 800 x 600 VESA standard built in driver in Windows, and then rebuilding the House of Cards from the ground up, reinstalling the driver, etc.

If that machine is newer than XP... you might look to see when the last few System Restore Points were saved, and correlate them in your head to the last known time you could play a YouTube video, and roll back to a date prior to that. Then, IF that works... keep a careful eye on the Windows Updates that come through (turn off automated install of updates, and only auto-download them) to see if something whacked your video drivers upside the head.

Those are just some thoughts... your mileage may vary. Windows Video Drivers can be a total PITA when they decide to stop working. If that's even the problem... but it sounds like it is, from past experience.

In theory, whatever error is happening when you get the black screen should also be in the OS logs, which in the case of Windows, is the Event Viewer... but EV is so full of garbage it's usually quite a spelunking mission to go dig through it for anything useful.
Click to expand...

If video under windows is a house of cards, video under Linux is a solar system of cards. :) MSFT just did an update push, IIRC it was big, not sure what was in it.
 
Ok... Update..

I just did a system restore and went back to 2-20-2012.. A full week or more before this issue showed up..... It appears as if the computer boots up ok , other then the fact it will not play youtube, vimeo or any other source like that. One more data point.... When someone posts a pic in a thread I used to be able to click on it and and after a few seconds I get a larger pic... Now when I click on any pic all I get is gray screen where the pic should show up.... I first noticed that happening a day or so ago when I posted some pics of the friendly moose sitting next to my front door on the 'warmer winter' thread..... So the issue in not just video related but still pics too.

Probably time for a new puter.:no::nonod::sad:

Thanks guys for all your time in helping me... :)

Ben.
 
Update........
I am pretty thickheaded and can't give up too easy....

Another data point...

Pandora won't work now either... I get the nice blue homepage but absolutely no way for me to trick it into taking me to the sign in page... Could this be a continuation of my issues?:dunno::dunno:

TIA.

Ben.
 
Pretty much every symptom you've listed indicates Flash is not working on your system.
 
I have had intermittent issues with flash. Usually a reboot cures them. And a funny thing, I just got a notice to upgrade flash.
Coincidence? I think not.
If just an update doesn't do it, uninstall and reinstall. Not sure why PC software needs it but it does work sometimes. Is it because something else screws with its files?
I'm glad large mainframe software (MVS, OS390, zOS, VM) doesn't do that. Usually you just edit a control file and you're off and running. I didn't include UNIX or its many flavors because I find sometimes the only cure is to reinstall the OS.
 
silver-eagle said:
I have had intermittent issues with flash. Usually a reboot cures them. And a funny thing, I just got a notice to upgrade flash.
Coincidence? I think not.
If just an update doesn't do it, uninstall and reinstall. Not sure why PC software needs it but it does work sometimes. Is it because something else screws with its files?
I'm glad large mainframe software (MVS, OS390, zOS, VM) doesn't do that. Usually you just edit a control file and you're off and running. I didn't include UNIX or its many flavors because I find sometimes the only cure is to reinstall the OS.
Click to expand...
I've been running Linux systems for about 15 years and I've never had to just reinstall the OS. That makes no sense, nothing is hidden, if you know how it works you can fix it.

I've stiched together completely busted systems that have had nearly their entire filesystem deleted. Pretty much every binary and configuration file and library were accidentally deleted. I still had a bash session open (so it was in memory) and I was able to slowly reassemble it without taking the server out of production. That meant recompiling all the core utilities with staticly linked libraries on another system. From there I was able to figure out a way to get them onto the filesystem of the running system. Once I had that, I got the standard c library and a compiler on the system and was able to completely stich everything back together.

I can't think of a case where you would ever just have to reinstall a Linux system. It's always fixable. Sometimes it's just a matter of how much it matters to you.

I'd like to see a Windows sys admin keep a Windows box in production that just had everything in C: deleted.. Everything. And repair it back to a fully functional state while it continued to be a production machine doing a task.
 
jesse said:
I've been running Linux systems for about 15 years and I've never had to just reinstall the OS. That makes no sense, nothing is hidden, if you know how it works you can fix it.

I've stiched together completely busted systems that have had nearly their entire filesystem deleted. Pretty much every binary and configuration file and library were accidentally deleted. I still had a bash session open (so it was in memory) and I was able to slowly reassemble it without taking the server out of production. That meant recompiling all the core utilities with staticly linked libraries on another system. From there I was able to figure out a way to get them onto the filesystem of the running system. Once I had that, I got the standard c library and a compiler on the system and was able to completely stich everything back together.

I can't think of a case where you would ever just have to reinstall a Linux system. It's always fixable. Sometimes it's just a matter of how much it matters to you.

I'd like to see a Windows sys admin keep a Windows box in production that just had everything in C: deleted.. Everything. And repair it back to a fully functional state while it continued to be a production machine doing a task.
Click to expand...

Not saying I had to, but I just did restore a Ubuntu system from from a CloneZilla backup, the new version of CUPS installed a nice bug that broke all the printers on a POS (Point of Sale) thin client.. After about 6 hours of dependency hell trying to back out the CUPS version to the version in a previous Ubuntu release, I just punted and restored the client images from clonezilla and shutoff all updates.
 
bartmc said:
Not saying I had to, but I just did restore a Ubuntu system from from a CloneZilla backup, the new version of CUPS installed a nice bug that broke all the printers on a POS (Point of Sale) thin client.. After about 6 hours of dependency hell trying to back out the CUPS version to the version in a previous Ubuntu release, I just punted and restored the client images from clonezilla and shutoff all updates.
Click to expand...
Is it a good idea to not install security updates on a POS system that is obviously connected to the internet since it downloaded updates by itself in the first place?
 
jesse said:
Is it a good idea to not install security updates on a POS system that is obviously connected to the internet since it downloaded updates by itself in the first place?
Click to expand...

Sort of, I just converted the POS system over to Linux from Windows to save the $ (When there's thousands of systems out there, that saves quite a few $) this was our test bed and our first attempt at pushing an update to them... Didn't go so hot. :D
 
No Joy....:no::no::no:

I uninstalled Flash and reloaded it in both the IE and the Chrome format..
Even though Google Chrome says this on the set up screen that pops up.

"
Your Google Chrome browser already includes Adobe® Flash® Player built-in. Google Chrome will automatically update when new versions of Flash Player are available.
To learn more about the enhanced support for Flash Player in Chrome, including information for developers, see this TechNote.
..
One thing that seems strange to me is I can go into "all program" column and that shows all the programs ... I see Adobe reader and nothing else with the Adobe name.... So I go to the Add/Remove section page and and the Adobe reader 8.3.0 shows up with a size of 88.94 MB...
Both of the Flash programs are there. One says " Adobe Flash Player 11 ActiveX", and the other one says " Adobe Flash Player11 Plugin"... Neither one shows a size of the file, as if they are there but consist of nothing..:dunno:

Is this normal ????

Ben.
 
Jesse; Where'd your humor go? I haven't had that serious a problem with any OS that I've had to take such a drastic step. Now, a guy I worked with buggered up a VM system that he felt reinstalling was the easiest way to fix.
(PS: I don't do smileys.)
 
jesse said:
I can't think of a case where you would ever just have to reinstall a Linux system. It's always fixable. Sometimes it's just a matter of how much it matters to you.
Click to expand...

If root's shell isn't a statically linked one, and certain things happen to lose the shared library it needs... it'll put a hamper in that rebuild from an open shell trick.

That's why some *nixs use a statically linked default shell for root.

Personally, I'll take the risk with bash... since I've only seen someone do the "oh crud, I deleted /usr" screw-up, once.

We have a non-Unix guy who brought us a shell script he had written to do some file downloads, conversions, and such... over for a look the other day.

It started with:

cd /some/full/path/here
rm *

We both chuckled and said, "What happens the day that /some/full/path/here doesn't exist for some reason?

:)
 
bartmc said:
Sort of, I just converted the POS system over to Linux from Windows to save the $ (When there's thousands of systems out there, that saves quite a few $) this was our test bed and our first attempt at pushing an update to them... Didn't go so hot. :D
Click to expand...

Few unsolicited thoughts, take or leave...

- Was the updated version tested on the printer hardware before the push?

- On small "embedded" type systems, I tend to prefer pushing whole disk images, and setting up the bootloader and the partitioning to jump back and forth between old/new. They're usually small, and it sets you up for a quick push of a grub.conf (or whatever bootloader you're using) plus a reboot, and you're back in business. Can make it easy as a menu, or hide it and completely bury it from the end-user, at your pleasure. Can even password-protect the old image so you can walk someone through "just type this" and it'll boot the old version.

- Can get "fancy" and do the above with LVM snapshots or similar to copy "current" running system to "disaster recovery", or the other way around... patch goes bad, instead of swapping back and forth, just regress to the snapshot. LVM's kinda overkill for embedded boxes, though. Heck, we used to do it with 'dd' and like sized partitions, long ago...

- Also have done this with RAM disks on embedded Linux stuff, if you've got the RAM. Why run from the spinning platter at all if the data isn't staying on the box? (PCI) Probably the one application where those cheap annoying "green" drives are a plus... load the OS from the platter into RAM at boot-time, chroot into the RAM disk, and umount the platter... it'll spin down and go to sleep. Downside in a "terminal" application like PoS is a simultaneous loss of network so you have to store locally, and a power outage, though. I can see where that might not work for PoS...

- If you have a limited number/type of printers, roll your own CUPS package that has your drivers, and lock it down. Why be beholden to the upstream distro packager's whims anyway?

- Taking that a step further, roll the whole distro. It's not too difficult. Then you have full control over what goes into the box.

Lots of fun options in small embedded stuff. I always liked the engineering challenge of stripping down Linux to bare-bones for those kinds of applications. These days I'm working on machines that have FAR too much "cruft" loaded on them from the distro...

I'd get away from Ubuntu in an embedded system, if possible. WAY too much crud linked in that isn't necessary.

For the ultimate in roll-your-own for an embedded machine, there's always linuxfromscratch.org -- but you have to be slightly nuts to want to attempt that, especially if the hardware isn't identical. (Strangely, their website is down right now. Hmm.)
 
Finally fixed...:yesnod::yesnod::yesnod:

Long story short... Last Dec I switched from Century link for my phone and internet to Optimum... With that conversion came some virus provider Optimum uses..http://www.antivirusoffers.com/CA_A..._13819454019&gclid=COTgw9yY064CFSQaQgodljDvdg

Worked great till March 1 when they had a update.... There is obviously a bug in it because it disabled Adobe Flash... I fought it,, you guys gave great feedback,, the local computer guru spent hours and it had him stumped... Just as I was about to buy another computer from him a person walked in complaining about the EXACT same issue... She went on to say she had just switched to Optimum and loaded the CA antivirus stuff and then her puter puked... Hmmmm .. We removed the CA stuff from mine and it instantly started to work,,, Did the same to her puter,,, hers fired right up..... Moral of the story........ Watch out for this CA internet protection as it will kill Adobe Flash while it tries to protect the computer... Ben is a happy boy again. :yesnod::):):)

Ben.
 
Adobe products are like a virus.

Glad you got it working!
 
I got an old laptop given to me that had been on "frontier roadrunner" network with the CA provided antivirus. It's an old XP machine but it was crawling it was so slow.

I took CA off and installed MS Security Essentials, much better now.
I even took Norton 360 V4 off my NetBook and installed MS Security Essentials, much better.

Any bad reports on MS SE?
 
BillTIZ said:
I got an old laptop given to me that had been on "frontier roadrunner" network with the CA provided antivirus. It's an old XP machine but it was crawling it was so slow.

I took CA off and installed MS Security Essentials, much better now.
I even took Norton 360 V4 off my NetBook and installed MS Security Essentials, much better.

Any bad reports on MS SE?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it can "fight" with other programs and send the CPU usage sky high especially when you're already doing something processor intensive.

I haven't found anything any better though. All anti-whatever software is big time bloat and very intrusive. MSFT seems to have made some gains in getting the issue with high CPU usage fixed... Most of the time I turn it off before doing something processor or file I/O intensive.
 
Last edited:
denverpilot said:
Few unsolicited thoughts, take or leave...

- Was the updated version tested on the printer hardware before the push?

- On small "embedded" type systems, I tend to prefer pushing whole disk images, and setting up the bootloader and the partitioning to jump back and forth between old/new. They're usually small, and it sets you up for a quick push of a grub.conf (or whatever bootloader you're using) plus a reboot, and you're back in business. Can make it easy as a menu, or hide it and completely bury it from the end-user, at your pleasure. Can even password-protect the old image so you can walk someone through "just type this" and it'll boot the old version.

- Can get "fancy" and do the above with LVM snapshots or similar to copy "current" running system to "disaster recovery", or the other way around... patch goes bad, instead of swapping back and forth, just regress to the snapshot. LVM's kinda overkill for embedded boxes, though. Heck, we used to do it with 'dd' and like sized partitions, long ago...

- Also have done this with RAM disks on embedded Linux stuff, if you've got the RAM. Why run from the spinning platter at all if the data isn't staying on the box? (PCI) Probably the one application where those cheap annoying "green" drives are a plus... load the OS from the platter into RAM at boot-time, chroot into the RAM disk, and umount the platter... it'll spin down and go to sleep. Downside in a "terminal" application like PoS is a simultaneous loss of network so you have to store locally, and a power outage, though. I can see where that might not work for PoS...

- If you have a limited number/type of printers, roll your own CUPS package that has your drivers, and lock it down. Why be beholden to the upstream distro packager's whims anyway?

- Taking that a step further, roll the whole distro. It's not too difficult. Then you have full control over what goes into the box.

Lots of fun options in small embedded stuff. I always liked the engineering challenge of stripping down Linux to bare-bones for those kinds of applications. These days I'm working on machines that have FAR too much "cruft" loaded on them from the distro...

I'd get away from Ubuntu in an embedded system, if possible. WAY too much crud linked in that isn't necessary.

For the ultimate in roll-your-own for an embedded machine, there's always linuxfromscratch.org -- but you have to be slightly nuts to want to attempt that, especially if the hardware isn't identical. (Strangely, their website is down right now. Hmm.)
Click to expand...

For the real POS systems (found in retail outlets), we use an HP read-only file system distro based off Debian but tailored for the thin clients with some actually useful proprietary HP software (image managment, VPN etc..) , sent out and (rarely)updated via images (HP does offer auto-updates and are more trustworthy than the random ubuntu pushes). The Ubuntu installs are for desktops at the regional offices that need the software a la carte.

We're thinking of doing away with the desktop installs and having the desktop users just KVM over to a thin client when they need to use the POS system. Probably more secure and not much of a hassle for the users to push a KVM switch.
 
bartmc said:
For the real POS systems (found in retail outlets), we use an HP read-only file system distro based off Debian but tailored for the thin clients with some actually useful proprietary HP software (image managment, VPN etc..) , sent out and (rarely)updated via images (HP does offer auto-updates and are more trustworthy than the random ubuntu pushes). The Ubuntu installs are for desktops at the regional offices that need the software a la carte.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Didn't realize HP had a distro but then again, doesn't everyone these days. ;) At least HP and IBM both have significant staff paid to work on their Linux initiatives and also significant cluefullness about supporting it for the right jobs.

bartmc said:
We're thinking of doing away with the desktop installs and having the desktop users just KVM over to a thin client when they need to use the POS system. Probably more secure and not much of a hassle for the users to push a KVM switch.
Click to expand...

Seems popular these days. Trades the complexity of managing desktops remotely for the complexity of a centralized server big enough to handle the job, but centralized servers are less prone to getting crufty and if they do, another can be stood up. Also lends well to virtualization/clustering/farm scalability. Downside is the network becomes critical. No network, business comes to a halt. Pluses and minuses to that one.
 
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