Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Dev Channel Update: 0.10.156.18

Dev channel was updated to 010.156.18 tonight. The most significant update appears to be Adobe Flash 10.2. Chrome browser is at version 10.0.648.49 which means it should include all the fixes noted in the Chrome releases blog yesterday.

Note that if you go to about:plugins, Flash still reports 10.1, you have to click Details at the top right to see the 10.2 version file, not sure why this is. The big question is how does Flash perform? I was able to play a 720p Youtube video with decent performance. I've yet to try other flash content like Hulu and Netflix. Update: Commenter Dave pointed out that Netflix doesn't use Flash, it uses Silverlight, silly me.

If you get updated let us know how Flash does for you and any other differences you notice in the comments!

Update: No go on Netflix, they still list Chrome OS as incompatible. There also seems to be a sound bug. It worked fine until I tried to turn the volume up at which point the onscreen showed the volume as muted. No pressing of the volume up down or mute keys would undo the mute :-(

2nd Update: Ouch! This one might get ugly. I logged out to see if the sound might return with a new session. Instead of the login screen I was greeted with the Out of box "Let's get started" screen! Looks like some issues with detecting that I've already run through the setup. Luckily once I ran through that and logged in, my user settings were untouched. Well, when you live on the bleeding edge, sometimes you've got the edge and sometimes you just stand there bleeding... Gonna try a reboot now...

3rd Update: Volume control buttons are definitely borked. As a workaround, open a shell and run "alsamixer" to use a non-GUI volume control, it works and can unmute the sound or adjust volume when needed.

4th Update: I toggled the Dev switch under the battery this morning in order to wipe the stateful partition (wipe to factory defaults). That appears to have gotten rid of the volume issue and the strange return to OOBE on logout or reboot issue. 720p videos are jerky but I'd characterize it by saying that flash support is definitely improving with plenty of room for more improvement.

5th Update: It seems that although Flash 10.2 is included, 10.1 is also still included and is the default. You can disable 10.1 by going to about:plugins, clicking Details to the right and clicking Disable next to 10.1. You can verify what version of flash your Cr-48 is using here.

13 comments:

  1. Regarding the Flash 10.2, I think there are some different files in the 10.2 MIME sections: application/x-shockwave-flash Shockwave Flash .swf application/futuresplash FutureSplash Player .spl

    I've thankfully avoided the volume issue, so far.

    On the other hand, when I first logged in, I was unable to really do anything -- seriously. After scratching my head, I tried out the guest mode and got a warning-style gold banner saying that nacl was messing things up, so I disabled all my flags, and things are working, for the moment. I'm going to try and turn individual flags back on and see what happens.

    On a relatively positive note, I was pleased to find the green arrow waiting for me, tonight (rather than doing the endless-click update).

    I'll probably come back and comment, if I find anything else I think might interest you/the teeming masses.

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  2. Okay, after going through my flags more or less one at a time, I believe the culprit (that was making everything fail) was actually CRX-less Web Apps. I'm struggling to think of a time where I ever needed its functionality, anyway . . .

    BTW, when I went into guest mode to turn off CRX-less Web Apps, I did still get the nacl stability/security warning. I'm confused why it seems to pop up in guest mode and stay hidden in regular. Ah, well. Bleeding edge, right?

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  3. I just keep hoping they will give those of us on the "beta" channel a little update love one of these days...

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  4. HufftingtonPost App used to have a crash on the Egypt Riot page, probably because of the multimedia content. It won't crash now. But some other similar webpage still crashes, like wikipedia in Chinese

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  5. @Cougar: Have you just not touched the volume buttons or do they actually work for you? If they're working are you on a Pony or a Fish? I have a Fish and it has the volume issues. Although I'm not sure this is a hardware issue as alsamix can adjust the volume just fine. Seems more like a programming mistake that set all three audio buttons to perform mute instead of adjustments...

    @Ron: 0.10.xxx is stabilizing (despite the issues this latest update has brought). My guess is beta channel will be bumped to 0.10.xxx in a month or less while dev channel jumps up to 0.11.xxx

    Jay

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  6. @Jay. I have physically touched all three buttons, and I'm confident they all work.

    I'm on a IEC MARIO PONY 6101.

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  7. Mini update: I was draining my battery (because I've heard that's the best practice on some batteries, nickel-cadmium, or something -- is that true for the Cr-48 battery?) when my system quit.

    I plugged into power and had the three mute buttons problem.

    I rebooted and got the out-of-the-box setup process. It looks like my settings are all intact (other than my account picture, sob!).

    Thanks a lot for the Flash tip (and all the others). Why do you think the devs packaged both Flash files?

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  8. type youtube into the omni bar and don't press enter. theres an option on the right to say search youtube using tab. not sure if thats a new feature

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  9. The Dev channel been updated again today.(Feb 10)

    Chrome OS 0.10.156.20 (Official Build caa798a8) dev x86-mario
    Google Chrome 10.0.648.54

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  10. just got around to applying this update.

    Chrome OS 0.10.156.18 (Official Build caa798a8) dev x86-mario
    Google Chrome 10.0.648.49

    prior to this, pandora was unusably laggy and hulu videos were unwatchably choppy; youtube videos at standard resolution were fine. after the update, i still seem to be on flash 10.1, but pandora and hulu are both fine now. i have no problems with the volume buttons so far. i have actually not had any problems with anything yet.

    also, i have a fish.

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  11. Thanks for this. Sucks to be having problems but it's really nice to know that they are common place problems. I will definitely be following this blog from now on. I'm having both the mute issue and the random out-of-box start up issue as well. oh well, that's the price you pay for an awesome free notebook with something so experimental. (i still love it :))

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  12. i'm having the same issue with my "volume +" button. on dev channel.

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