Flash Update Script

@mm2270

Thank you very much Mike!!! I wasn't using any Flags : )

C

@cgiordano I understand that some organizations have rules around open source. You definitely should adhere to your organization's rules.
What you describe would then also not allow you to use some random script you found posted to JamfNation as well, no? I don't see that @peterloobuyck has posted a privacy statement, or even released his script as open source. You might be in violation.
So you have to write your tools and maintain them yourself to remain in accordance with your company's privacy policy. I'd think you'd have to stay away from using Python, Perl, Ruby and/or bash to write your tools as well unless those open source projects also have privacy statements.

@peterloobuyck so the adobe script you posted replaces the broken one ?

haven't tested it yet but just wanted to ask

@cgiordano , I just downloaded the file manually, then I selected 'Show Info' in Finder. The URL is right there...

@tcandela Right, I adjusted the download url and download page. Works fine again.

@mm2270 I tested the script on your GitHub repository (installLatestFlashPlayer-v1.sh) and it doesn't download the latest dmg, but html saying the "The requested URL /get/flashplayer/current/licensing/mac/install_flash_player_24_osx_pkg.dmg was not found on this server"

Is there a newer script I should be looking for?

edit: It's actually creating a dmg file per the curl command, but its only a few bytes and if I open it in TextEdit it's a brief snippet of HTML with that message.

@cwaldrip Ah, no. That script is old, and I should really remove it at this point since its definitely not working anymore. As you already discovered. The one I was referencing isn't something published on my github page unfortunately. I've been meaning to do it, but because it continues to be a work in progress, I held off on doing that. Its really a rework of another script on my github that I also should remove, called "Update_Core_Apps.sh"

If you want to try out the one I'm talking about, send me an email at mm2270 [at] icloud [dot] com and I can shoot the script over to you at some point this week. Just as a reminder though, for the Flash portion to work, it does require signing up with Adobe to get a distribution license, so be sure you have that in place before anything.

@mm2270 I am kinda stuck on the custom url part . I signed up at adobe and I got an email with a download url which I should not share.. I entered this url in the script but still it does not work.. So my guess is that I have the wrong url...

Any tips ?

@rblaas Downloads from the adobe agreement site are more than just...
https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/distyfp/current/mac/install_flash_player_24_osx.dmg

But really something like...
https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/distyfp/current/mac/install_flash_player_24_osx.dmg?adobedist=<10_digit_number>-<32_character_string>

It includes a session ID that's only good for that browser session, so the long URL won't work for scripting as far as I know. But I think others have figured out how to do it. Personally, I'm back to using the public link even though I've signed up for the distribution page.

@cwaldrip I guess that's where the problem lies... I don't have url's like that....

I did apply for the Agreement..

regards,

Ronald

@cwaldrip I did receive a licence agreement but I can not find any usable url in it.

I must be looking at the wrong places

@rblaas The URL I received that I'm using in my script looks something like the following:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution4.html?auth=<LONG-UID-STRING-HERE>

Do you see anything in your emails from Adobe that look like that?

@mm2270 I don't have that.. What can I possible have done wrong?

Mine ends with distribution5.html
with no authentication id or whatever

Hmm. I'm not sure. When did you sign up? I know it took a few days, if I recall now, when I first signed up, before I got the URLs. Also, I noticed you have distribution5.html. Mine is still distribution4.html. I wonder if that makes a significant difference. I will need to look into that. I'm guessing mine is an older URL since I signed up a while back.

To see the long URL you can't just copy paste from the web site. They do some 'magic'. Download a file, and then use Get Info to see the URL the file was downloaded from, and a link to the page it came from (separated by a comma).

@cwaldrip FWI, it wasn't necessary for me to download anything to get that long URL. For me, it was right in the email Adobe sent me after signing up. I'm looking at that email now. To be fair, it was from March 29, 2016. So its possible they no longer send the full URL in the email, but some kind of redirect link that gets you there in some other fashion.

Edit: On second looks, I see that your address is from actually downloading the DMG. So, the issue with using that is, while it works today, when Adobe decides to change some portion of that address, as they did kind of recently, the script will break, since its now using the wrong direct link to the download. By using the distribution page and some code to scrape the location, it should continue to work even when Adobe switches things up. That's why I'm using that in my script, not the direct link. IOW, the script will locate the actual download location from their distribution page and then download it from there, rather than hardcoding in a path from their fpdownload site.

That said, there is of course no guarantee Adobe won't completely change around their distribution page at some point and break what I'm doing.

Yeah, it doesn't look like they include it in the email any longer. The address from the download seems to be a session ID, which times out after a few minutes or an hour or so. Hovering over the provided URL reveals the same generic URL.

Ok, thanks for that. Well, that explains the difference. The change must have happened when they moved to the distribution5.html pages. I see hitting that exact page brings me to a sign in page, so that means it will no longer work. Time to rethink this.
As others have already ranted about, Adobe seems hell bent on putting the final nails into their own product with this onerous process, just to get a stupid installer for their plug-in. You have to wonder what they are thinking sometimes!

I can back you guys up...

My 1st link that I received in 2016 has the auth code and the my new link from this year doesn't : )

C

Ok,

@mm2270 So for now the status is that it is not working?

@cwaldrip I do see the adobedist id you are referring to...

@rblaas I'm sorry, but yes, since Adobe has changed the link to not have an embedded auth code in it, unless you still have one of the older links that does have that auth code in it, my script won't pull down the installer. The page it hits requires you to actually log in now, unlike before where it just brought you right to the install locations.

You're better off using some of the code from other posts above that use a direct path. You just may need to keep an eye on that and update it every so often according to Adobe's whims.

In case it hasn't been posted yet, the script posted by @rtrouton on GitHub works perfectly to update Flash. It works flawlessly as of today.

https://github.com/rtrouton/rtrouton_scripts/tree/master/rtrouton_scripts/install_latest_adobe_flash_player

Argh. I really need a week to figure out how SED works. Until then, can someone see why this line has stopped getting the current version number?

latest_ver=`/usr/bin/curl -s http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ | sed -n '/Safari/,/</tr/s/[^>]*>([0-9].*)<.*/1/p' | head -1`

This works for me.

latestver=$(curl -s http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/about/ | grep -A4 "Macintosh" | grep -A2 "Safari" | sed -e 's/<[^>][^>]*>//g' -e '/^ *$/d' |  tail -n 1 | awk '{print $1}' |tr -d "
")

You can test it out by just running this part in terminal

curl -s http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/about/ | grep -A4 "Macintosh" | grep -A2 "Safari" | sed -e 's/<[^>][^>]*>//g' -e '/^ *$/d' |  tail -n 1 | awk '{print $1}' |tr -d "
"

I just changed grep to -A2 I think it was previous -A1

Ah, that got me where I needed to go. Thanks @ssrussell