Flash Player 10 Kills WordPress Flash Media Uploader
Some of you may notice something not right when you try to upload media with WordPress’ Flash based upload. You probably just upgraded to Flash player 10, which now no longer supports. According to bit101 on the WordPress support forum, “The problem is the interaction with the SWFUpload JavaScript library. Flash 10 does not allow you to open a file browse dialog except via a direct mouse click. It is that SWFUpload tries to open the dialog indirectly that causes it to fail.”
The folks at WordPress are looking for alternative solutions but this issue will probably not be fixed until WP 2.7 comes out. Moderator Otto42 said, “I’m working on implementing a Gears solution. I figured out how to make a Gears uploader (surprisingly easy), and am reading the WP code to figure out how to integrate it nicely and provide fallbacks. I doubt anybody will get it in until 2.8, but I’ll see what I can do. I can say that Gears uploading is *sweet*. Fast and clean.
If Flash is going to break things like this, then we can’t rely on it. We have a patch that works in WordPress, but IMO the new SWFUpload is a bit of an ugly hack (no offense to the excellent work by the SWFUpload crew, I blame Adobe for this one entirely). Having to make a button in flash changes the look to where it no longer has the same look and feel as the browser’s own buttons. Even the idea of making a button in HTML and covering it with a transparent Flash button strikes me as unbelievably stupid. Clever, but deranged. The idea is to be browser neutral here, people. That said, we’ll probably leave Flash in as a fallback, if you don’t have Gears.”
There are two options at the moment that are temporary fixes:
- Downgrade to Flash Player 9. Remember to first run an uninstaller.
- Install the No-Flash Uploader plugin to default your image loader to the Browser uploader. I personally use WP-CMS Post Control which also has an option to switch to the classic Browser Uploader.
Whether WordPress goes with Gears or manages to find a solution which works for Flash Player 10 (and whatever newer version come out), I think the most important thing would be to always have the classic Browser Uploader as an option, but also include the ability to disable whichever new uploader they decide to go with. A few more checkboxes in the settings menu would help solve a lot of headaches for WordPress users.
interaction with the SWFUpload JavaScript library. Flash 10 does not allow you to open a file browse dialog except via a direct mouse click. It is that SWFUpload tries to open the dialog indirectly that causes it to fail.”
Interesting, indeed
I was having this problem, too. It did not just break the WordPress uploader but it also did to another website’s uploader. I was having trouble uploading images and it really was a lot of work with multiple files. So, I might as well try those temporary fixes. Thanks! This post is very helpful.