Release Notes | Flash Player® 11.8 AIR® 3.8

September 24th, 2013.

Welcome to Flash Player 11.8 and AIR 3.8. In today's release, we've updated Flash Player for Windows Internet Explorer (ActiveX) to resolve multiple issues regarding the ExternalInterface API.

• 3630443 - [External][Windows][IE] ExternalInterface.call() method with non-ASCII text as a parameter corrupts the characters on the Javascript side
• 3631555 - [Windows][IE] ExternalInterface.call() does not work normally since flash player 11.8.800.168
  
• 3631605 - [Windows][IE][Video] Video playback failure in Nico Video
  

• 3618042 - [WinXP][IE7][IE8] Video may not play properly on some websites after the page is refreshed
• 3630542 - [External][Windows][IE] JavaScript->Flash AS3 ExternalInterface is not available in IE8 after the first page opening

• 3587773 - [External bug][iOS]Creating too many FileStream objects will cause app to crash on iOS
  
• 3601024 - [Safari OS X 10.9] - File Downloads now work
• 3611679 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [WebVTT] - Caption colors now render correctly
• 3507613 - [Win7 IE10] - A Microsoft update to Internet Explorer corrects the following issue: Mouse movement interferes with Flash Player display updates
• 3575123 - [Mac][FullScreen, MouseLock] - Corrects an issue where when the mouse movement values for a given frame were identical to the values of the preceding frame, the values returned would be zero
• 3609793 - [Chrome] - Improved Audio Latency path is enabled by default
• 3507613 - [Internet Explorer 10] [Win7] - An update to IE10 resulted in an improvement where instantiating an ActiveX Flash Player instance in IE 10 using a Windowless Mode (opaque or transparent) now works
• 3597568 - [MacOS 10.9] - Mavericks Developer Preview 3 corrects an issue where Flash Player configuration files were not readable by Flash Player
• 3604526 - [IME CCJK] - The IME candidate window position no longer moves to the left when the composition string extends beyond a single line in a textfield
• 3583135 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [WebVTT] - Changing the options on a caption no longer erroneously resets that caption's position
• 3602519 - [Chrome] [PPAPI] - Video on NYTimes.com now plays correctly
• 3609793 - [Chrome] [PPAPI] - Audio latency improvements are enabled by default
• 3613819 - [iOS7] [AIR]- Using Sound.play app asks permission for accessing the Microphone even when microphone API is not used in the app
• 3587452 - [Android] [AIR] - 144x144 image size icon should be supported on android
• 3570724 - [Flash Access] - Ability to specify a shorter timeout for license response
• 3580139 - [Chrome] [PPAPI] [Mac] - screen.yahoo.com - video playback stopped after exiting full-screen mode
• 3580607 - [Chrome] [PPAPI] - Resolves video jitter after exiting fullscreen mode on an embedded YouTube video
• 3572762 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - A stream with WebVTT captions now plays all of the captions available in a stream
• 3572767 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - Captions are no longer erroneously broken across multiple lines
• 3577355 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - Captions are now displayed when seeking backwards in a video stream
• 3577367 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - Caption customizations are now displayed on the correct frame
• 3583137 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - Captions are now displayed with the correct font weight
• 3586532 - [HTTP Live Streaming] [Web VTT] - Ampersand, Less Than and Greater Than cue escape characters are now correctly displayed
• 3583922 - [Internet Explorer] - ExternalInterface now works correctly in instances where SWF content was embedded using only the tag.
• 3599625 - [Internet Explorer] - Fullscreen Mode now works correctly on https://apps.facebook.com/warcommander
• 3582320 - [Win8] [ARM] - Flash video now appears as expected on http://www.orange.fr
• 3600931 - [Win8] - Playback Controls are now rendered correctly on http://www.cnn.com/video/
• 3590934 - [Win8] [Firefox] - When the Windows display settings are zoomed to 150%, the right-click context menu in Flash Player now works correctly
• 3606308 - [Android][SecureSocket] [AIR] - Application getting crash when trying to connect with host contains SSL certificate.
• 3077653 - [iOS] [AIR] - Creating too many FileStream objects will cause app to crash on iOS.
• 717340 - [Mozilla] [Mac] [Dual Monitor] - Fixes an issue where the Cursor disappeared when moving from Full-Screen video in the second display to Firefox/Safari in the primary display.
• 3560721 - [iOS] [AIR] - Application crashes having Microphone running for 10 to 20 mins
• 3572885 - [Android] [AIR] - 'orienattionChange' event is not fired when Stage rotated through setOrientation() method
• 3554585 - [Android] [AIR] - Stage is blank in GPU mode because of rotationY property
• Multiple stability and security fixes

• SWF content loaded with the HTML/HtmlLoader components fail to receive proper user input (3603433)
  

• Touch events extremely slow on AIR with Stage3D(3536911)
• [Android only-> GPU] Stage is blank in GPU mode because of rotationY property(3554585)
  
• [Android] [Screen Orientation] 'orienattionChange' event is not fired when Stage rotated through setOrientation() method(3572885)
  
• [iPhone only] Application crashes when the Microphone is on for 10 to 20 mins(3560721)
  
• [Screen Orientation][Android] Application rotates even if tag is set to 'false' and tag is set to 'any'(3562132)
  
• StageWebView.drawViewPortToBitmapData draws incorrect bitmap on retina devices(3558603)
  
• Support PIE enabled Apps on iOS - Apple now encourages developers to have the PIE enabled binaries - A warning is shared when app is uploaded on Apple App Store(3556281)
  

• StageVideo for AIR Desktop
• Datagram socket support(Mobile)
• Server socket support(Mobile)
• LZMA compressed SWF support(Mobile)

• [Android] USB debugging dialog box isn’t shown when waiting for a connection(3577889)
• [iOS] [AOT] Application crashes due to symbol conflicts in AOT mode only (3551212)
• [ASC2 Compiler] AIRSDK compiler not finding obvious errors during compilation time (3554037)
• [Android]Stage3D is shown completely black (no display) after playing a video(3543325)

Support for recursive stop on MovieClip()

It is common for developers to build games comprised of many externally-loaded SWF files containing multimedia assets (either from an application package or downloaded from the internet). Often, these SWFs contain MovieClips that begin playing after they are loaded. On mobile platforms, in particular, there is significant CPU overhead in processing these playing MovieClips even when they are not visible, and it has long been our recommendation to developers to call the stop method on all unnecessary MovieClips after loading a SWF. The new stopAllMovieClips method of DisplayObjectContainer is intended to provide an easier way to accomplish this.   It will stop the timeline animations of all MovieClip objects that are descendants of the corresponding DisplayObjectContainer, in addition to the DisplayObjectContainer itself, if it also happens to be a MovieClip. 

RectangleTexture class added to Stage3D

The RectangleTexture class is available in the BASELINE and BASELINE_EXTENDED profiles.  Unlike a Texture, RectangleTexture allows for non-power-of-two dimensions, but does not support mipmapping, compressed textures, or the 'wrap' sampling mode.  It supports the following texture formats: BGRA, BGR_PACKED and BGRA_PACKED.  It is intended to be used for 1:1 screen drawing, including backbuffer-sized blits.  The maximum size is at least 2048 in the BASELINE profile and 4096 in the BASELINE_EXTENDED profile, or the size of the backbuffer, whichever is greater.

Authoring for Flash Player 11.8

To use the new Flash Player, you will need to target SWF version 21 by passing in an extra compiler argument to the Flex compiler: -swf-version=21. Directions are below. If you are using the Adobe Flex SDK:

• Download the new playerglobal.swc for Flash Player 11.8
• Download Flex 4.5.1 SDK (4.5.1.21328) from the Flex 4.5 SDK table.
• Install the build in your development environment
• In Flash Builder, create a new ActionScript project: File -> New -> ActionScript project.
• Open the project Properties panel (right-click and chose 'Properties'). Select ActionScript Compiler from the list on the left.
• Use the 'Configure Flex SDK's' option in the upper right hand corner to point the project to Flex build 21328. Click ok.
• Configure your project to target SWF version 21
• Open the project Properties panel (right-click and chose 'Properties'). Select ActionScript Compiler from the list on the left.
• Add to the 'Additional compiler arguments' input: -swf-version=21. This ensures the outputted SWF targets SWF version 21. If you compile on the command-line and not in Flash Builder, you need to add the same compiler argument.
• Ensure you have installed the new Flash Player 11.8 build in your browser.

Authoring for AIR 3.8 Update to the AIR 3.8 namespace

You must update your application descriptor file to the 3.8 namespace in order to access the new AIR 3.8 APIs and behavior. If your application does not require the new AIR 3.8 APIs and behavior, you are not required to update the namespace. However, we recommend all users start using the AIR 3.8 namespace even if you are not yet taking advantage of the new 3.8 capabilities. To update the namespace, change the xmlns attribute in your application descriptor to: <application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/3.8">

Found a bug? Please submit a bug to the Flash Player and Adobe AIR bug database.

Flash Player and AIR may leverage your graphics hardware to decode and play H.264 video. There may be video issues that can only be reproduced with your particular graphics hardware and driver. When reporting an issue involving video, it is essential to note your graphics hardware and driver, along with your operating system and browser (when using Flash Player), so that we can reproduce and investigate issues. Please be sure to include this information as described in Instructions for Reporting Video Playback Issues. Note: Due to the high volume of email we receive, we are unable to respond to every request.

Thank you for using Adobe® Flash Player® and AIR® and for taking the time to send us your feedback!

For the latest Flash Player system requirements please review the document here

For the latest AIR system requirements please review the document here