Release Notes | Flash Player® 22 AIR® 22

Welcome to the Flash Player and AIR 22 release notes!

September 1, 2016

In today's release, Microsoft has updated Flash Player for Edge on Windows 10 with an important bug fix.  Windows 10 users will receive this update via the normal Windows Update mechanism.  No other version of Flash Player was affected.

July 12, 2016

In today's scheduled release, we've updated Flash Player with important bug fixes and security updates.

June 16, 2016

In today's scheduled release, we've updated Flash Player and AIR with important bug fixes and security updates and new features.

How to update Flash Player

Current Flash Player customers who have enrolled in the "Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)" update mechanism will be automatically updated to the latest version of Flash Player within 24 hours after release.

Users who have selected "Notify me to install updates" will receive an update notification dialog within 7 days from release date.  Please note that Windows users will need to restart their system or log out and in to activate the update notification dialog.

The latest version of Flash Player can always be downloaded and installed by simply visiting https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

Customers using Google Chrome or Windows 8.x/10 Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge will receive updates through the Google and Microsoft update mechanisms.

How to contact us

We hope you enjoy this release.  If you encounter any problems please us know by posting issues to our public bug database.  For installation or usage help, please visit our community for assistance.

Adobe Bug Database - https://bugbase.adobe.com
Flash Player Community - http://community.adobe.com/t5/flash-player/bd-p/flash-player?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all
AIR Community - http://community.adobe.com/t5/air/bd-p/air?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

September 1, 2016

Flash Player

• Fixed bug that could cause Flash Player to crash for some Microsoft Edge customers.

July 14, 2016

Flash Player

• Fixed installer bug that caused a false error dialog to appear on systems that had Internet Explorer running during certain updates.

July 12, 2016

Flash Player

• Embedded Flash player in Adobe Reader fails to load in Firefox and Internet Explorer (4167793)
• Black screen is observed on an online examination software Secureclient using Activex (4167280)
• [Windows]Blank screen is observed and content is not loading (4165783) 
• [Windows]Blank artifacts are observed while playing some 3D content (4166319)
  
  

June 16, 2016

Flash Player

• SecurityError.prototype in Dictionary throws an exception [4100136]
• Printing via FlexPrintJob, border of the "Print" button is missing [4136816]
• Player crashes if "totalFrames" property of a loaded volatile MovieClip is accessed [4127339]
• XML attributes randomly receiving null characters [4100928]
• PPAPI Printed rectangle gets shifted in position [4119300]
• [Chrome Only] Portrait mode prints objects smaller as compared to landscape mode [4122310]
• DisplayObject.setScrollRect is throwing error 1508 [4150980]
• Space metacharacter [\s] doesn't include non-breaking spaces [\xA0] [4138365]
• Error#1508 thrown on some sites with a blank screen appearing afterwards [4136470]

AIR

• [Win10][StageWebView]Some uppercase letters can't be entered in a form input [4091451]
• [Win10] AIR quits unexpectedly when trying to instantiate camera on Surface 4 [4086185]
• Application throws error#2031 if SecureSocket tries to connect to non-TLS server socket [4049565]
• [iOS] App crashes when compiled with AIR 20 or higher [4151370]
• [iOS9] AIR crashed when use sound in background mode [4083774]
• [iOS] [Win SDK] Compilation fails while executing ld64 error on packaging IPA in Windows machine using  -hideAneLibSymbols yes [4118588]
• [iOS][Android] StageText: FocusEvent.MOUSE_FOCUS_CHANGE event added that allows preventDefault[] to cancel focus loss [4057869]
• [iOS] UIBackgroundModes for "location" not working [4136086]
• [iOS] Push notification subscription crashes the app [4137024]
• [iOS] App crashes on calling CameraUI [4148590]
• [iOS] A particular application crashes when brought to foreground from background
• [iOS] The Bengali[ or Hindi] characters displayed as blank box when clicked outside of Textfield after typing Bengali[or Hindi] characters into Textfield. [3975752]
• [iOS][Win] IPA packaged on Windows machine cannot be submitted to the Apple App store. Error "This build is invalid" occurs in iTunes connect
• [iOS][Win] Installation Error: ApplicationVerificationFailed message appears on installing IPA using adt command if there is any info plist inside the assets or ANE
• [Android] FocusEvent.MouseFocusChange event should be added in StageText in Android ‐ 3797220
• [Android]Memory problem on airSDK20 [4101613]
• [Android] FLV videos don't work with StageVideo [3943664]
• [Android] Entering Unicode Emoticons crashes an App [4118744]
• ATF containing RGB888 format are not getting rendered properly [4154433]
• ANE compiled with AIR 22 is not working anymore [4146925]

Video Pipeline Changes for Android AIR

To address recommendations from Google and to keep pace with OS future developments, we've made significant changes in the way we use video codecs for decoding on AIR Android.  There is no impact on functionality or performance for an AS developer.  However, if you encounter issues with your AIR Android application, please report them to us at https://bugbase.adobe.com.

 

Prevent Flash Player Cross-Channel Installation on OSX

Beginning with Flash Player version 22, installing a beta version over a release version - and vice versa - will require first uninstalling the installed version before installing the cross channel version.

For example, if you have a current release version installed, you'll first need to uninstall it using the beta uninstaller before installing the beta version. The beta version must also be uninstalled, using the beta uninstaller, prior to installing the current release version.

Note that this brings feature parity with Flash Player on Windows, which has had this feature since version 14.

 

EnableLocalAppData

Flash applications use Appdata/Roaming directory (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player) to store information like LSOs (Local Shared Objects) or logs etc. If this folder has been redirected to a network drive, which can occur at times in enterprise environments, performance and security issues may arise. With this feature, we are providing a new property for the mms.cfg, "EnableLocalAppData" which if set, will place the Macromedia Folder (where flash app data is stored) in AppData/Local directory (C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Macromedia\Flash Player). With EnableLocalAppData, the user will be able to place their system's AppData folder on a network location without worrying about impacting flash applications' data or log performance. Users can set EnableLocalAppData by adding EnableLocalAppData=1, EnableLocalAppData=yes, or EnableLocalAppData=true value in mms.cfg. 

 

HiDPI support for AIR Windows

From AIR 22 onwards, we have introduced HiDPI support for AIR Desktop on Windows, where we will be providing higher quality rendering for AIR contents on HiDPI displays. The feature will work on the concept of higher pixel density scaling instead of pixel-doubling scaling. The feature is already provided for AIR on Mac Retina displays.

To implement the above feature in your AIR application, set requestedDisplayResolution to "high" in your application's descriptor file.

<requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution>

stage.contentsScaleFactor

AIR content scales according to the value of stage.contentsScaleFactor. Where, the value of stage.contentsScaleFactor would be calculated as

stage.contentsScaleFactor = Current DPI / DPI at 100% (The DPI at 100% for Windows is 96 by default)

However, some of the content on Windows would scale only after the user signs-off and then signs-in again, as prompted by the OS. In the case where an extended screen is connected, the AIR app would adjust according to the DPI level of the particular screen, where each screen can have its independent DPI level.  Hhigh quality renderings will cover the Stage3D content, vector assets and text, whereas high-resolution bitmap assets will have to be provided by the developer.  

The Stage3D back buffer needs to be configured to the high resolution back buffer which can be done by calling Context3D.configureBackBuffer with the wantsBestResolution parameter set to 'true'.  

The number of Screen pixels for the content will be ActionScript side Flash Pixels * Contents Scale Factor * Contents Scale Factor

 

Anti-Aliasing (Render to texture) for AIR Mobile

Anti-Aliasing is useful in improving perceived image quality in applications. Hardware base Multisampling Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) is now available for both Mobile Platforms i.e. iOS and Android using Contex3D.setRenderToTexture API.

This feature was previously available for Desktop and Flash Player.

To enable MSAA set the level from 0 to 2 using the Context3D.setRenderToTexture.

The following are the effect of levels of antialiasing values:

0=1 subsample, No antialiasing

1=2 subsamples, medium antialiasing

2=4 subsamples, high antialiasing.

If you provide higher level of antialiasing (more than 2) the level will be clipped to either the maximum level of antialiasing supported by GPU or 2.

Note: This feature is currently not available in configureBackbuffer.

API Assumptions and Dependencies

1) Anti-Aliasing is not available in software mode rendering.

2) Extra GPU memory will be used by the App using Anti-aliasing and hence can cause slight performance degradation.

 

Echo Cancellation on AIR iOS

Starting with AIR 22, AIR developers will now have access to Echo Cancellation with AIR iOS applications.  Acoustic echo occurs when speaker output feeds back to the built-in microphone input producing disturbing echoing artifacts and significantly reducing the quality of captured data.  Typical acoustic echo arises with collaboration applications, where two or more parties carry out interactive conversation.  With AIR 22 and onwards, developers will be able to create VOIP applications without any echo using AIR on iOS.

This feature is already present on AIR for desktop.  To get access to the device Microphone, we typically use Microphone.getMicrophone(), but this API returns a simple microphone, which does not have the ability to eliminate acoustic echo.  In order to remove acoustic echo, we need to get an instance of the Microphone using the API: Microphone.getEnhancedMicrophone(). The device microphone returned by this API will have the acoustic echo cancellation feature enabled.

Please note that the application must be packaged with latest AIR SDK 22 or above and
the swf-version should be 33 or above.

public function Microphone()

{

mic = Microphone.getEnhancedMicrophone();

mic.setLoopBack(true);

mic.addEventListener(StatusEvent.STATUS, mic_status);

}

Limitations:
VOIP Applications will work only on RTMP.
Performance of this feature will be varying depending upon the iOS version and the device type.
The API MicrophoneEnhancedOptions will be a no-op on AIR for iOS.

 

Multitasking Enhancements Support in AIR iOS - Beta

With iOS 9, Apple introduced Multiasking enhancements for some iPad devices, please see details on following pages.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS9.html

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/AdoptingMultitaskingOniPad/

We're happy to share that AIR 22 lets developers utilize these iOS enhancements (with the exception of Picure-In-Picture).

Here are the technical guidelines to bring these functionalities to your iOS application on supported iPads.

Technical Guidelines

Application Descriptor Changes

Three new tags (multiasking, launchScreen, and assetsCar) in the application descriptor have been introduced.

<iPhone>

    <multitasking>true</multitasking>
    <launchScreen>LaunchScreen.storyboardc</launchScreen>
    <assetsCar>Assets.car</assetsCar>

<InfoAdditions><![CDATA[
    <key>UIDeviceFamily</key>
        <array>
            <string>1</string>
            <string>2</string>
        </array>
]]></InfoAdditions>
</iPhone>

The default value of multitasking tag is false. We need to keep the value true for supporting multitasking.  launchScreen and assetsCar represent the name of storyboardc and Asset.car file used respectively. The launchScreen file is mandatory but assetCar is optional.

Note: these files are also used to show the launch images for your app, hence you do not need to provide the launch images separately while packaging the IPA for iOS 8+ devices. For iOS 7 and below, you still need to package the launch images separately. As per Apple guidelines, to be able to support the multasking enhancements, your app needs to support all orientation states, that means following tags are mandatory.

<aspectRatio>any</aspectRatio>
<autoOrients>true</autoOrients>
 

Creating Assets.car and storyboardc files

To create Assets.car File and storyboard.c files used in your multitasking application, an AS developer needs to have a Mac with Xcode 7.1 or above.

On your Mac, launch Xcode and open File -> New -> Project -> iOS Application -> single View Application.

Give any name to the app and click create.

In the general tab of your project select Deployment Target as 8.0.

Click on Assets.xcassets on the left column and create a New Image Set, name it LaunchImageScreen and add images to the image placeholder as needed. For the various image dimensions, you might want to refer to this link.
 

Click on the LaunchScreen.storyboard in the left column.  

At the bottom right of the xcode window, enter the text "image" in the filter text box.

Drag and drop the Image View to the LaunchScreen.storyboard.

On the top right, in the image view selector, select the Image

Set the LaunchImageScreen created above.

Now, drag the image view in the storyboard to cover the full screen of the storyboard. At the bottom left click on add missing constraints.

Run this native app on your iOS device (iOS 8+) and make sure the launchscreen covers your screen.

Go to the .app file created in your file system where you created the project, right click on .app file and show package contents.

Copy the Assets.car file from the package and also the LaunchScreen.storyboardc file from Base.lproj folder.  

You can package the app with the extracted Assets.car and LaunchScreen.storyboardc as
assets as the following ADT command.  Appropriate resize events are dispatched on runtime for various app states, AS Developers can handle them on runtime.

<path to adt> -package -target ipa-app-store -provisioning-profile <.mobileprovision> -keystore <.p12> -storetype pkcs12 -storepass <password> <.ipa> <.xml> <.swf> LaunchScreen.storyboardc Assets.car

 

Support for Android N Beta

AIR Applications built using AIR 21 or below may not run properly on Google's latest Android N preview build and can encounter following error (see below).  We've fixed this issue with AIR 22 and developers are encouraged to upgrade to the AIR SDK 22 to comply with Android's new restrictions.

Detected problems with app native libraries (please consult log for detail):
libCore.so: unauthorized access to 'libstagefright.so'
libCore.so: unauthorized access to 'libutils.so'
libCore.so: unauthorized access to 'libui.so'

 

System level Flash Player support for AIR desktop applications

Starting in AIR 22, applications that play swf content via the HTML control (WebKit) will now load the system level NPAPI Flash Player provided by Adobe (https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer).  If this plugin is not available on the system, the end user will be prompted to download and install the plugin from Adobe.

 

Override Flash Player's default language via mms.cfg

This feature allows users to change flash player's default language by setting a property, named DefaultLanguage in mms.cfg.  Flash player's default language will be set to the language given in DefaultLanguage key in the mms.cfg regardless of the system's language.

Note: "Y" indicates flash player's language will be overridden with language given in DefaultLanguage property while for "N", "en" will be assigned for the configured language.

This feature is applicable to both Flash Player (all plugin-types) and AIR.

DefaultLanguage can have any value from table below:

For a full list of features in Flash Player and AIR, including features introduced in previous releases, please review the document here

Flash Player

• Write in a shared byteArray from a worker is slower than before (4170367)

AIR

• [Android] softKeyboardRect Height is Incorrect (4085072)
• [iOS] App using concurrency closes (crashes?) when a class is instantiated on the worker .swf (4067035)
• [iOS] CameraRoll on iOS returns Bitmap in incorrect orientation (4070057)
• [iOS] sharedobjects fail when available storage is low (3711301)

Authoring for Flash Player 22

To use the new Flash Player, you will need to target SWF version 33 by passing "-swf-version=33" as an extra compiler argument to the ASC 2.0 compiler.  Detailed directions are below.

• Download the new playerglobal.swc for Flash Player 22
• Download and install Flash Builder 4.7 from Creative Cloud: https://creative.adobe.com/products/flash-builder
• Backup the existing AIR SDK if you need to restore it later then replace the bundled AIR SDK with the AIR 22 SDK.  To do this, unzip the AIR 21 SDK to this location:
  • MacOS: /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4.7/eclipse/plugins/com.adobe.flash.compiler_4.7.0.348297/AIRSDK
  • Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.7 (64Bit)\eclipse\plugins\com.adobe.flash.compiler_4.7.0.349722\AIRSDK\
• In Flash Builder, create a new project: File -> New -> project.
• Open the project Properties panel (right-click and chose 'Properties'). 
• Select ActionScriptCompiler from the list on the left.
• Add "-swf-version=33" to the 'Additional compiler arguments' field.
  • This ensures the outputted SWF targets SWF version 33.  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 22 build in your browser.

Authoring for AIR 22 Update to the AIR 22 namespace

You must update your application descriptor file to the 22 namespace in order to access the new AIR 22 APIs and behavior. If your application does not require the new AIR 22 APIs and behavior, you are not required to update the namespace. However, we recommend all users start using the AIR 22 namespace even if you are not yet taking advantage of the new 22 capabilities. To update the namespace, change the xmlns attribute in your application descriptor to: <application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/22.0">

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