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Adobe Suggests Disabled Hardware Acceleration for Flash Player in OS X Lion [Update]

Thursday July 21, 2011 8:57 am PDT by Eric Slivka
TUAW reports that Adobe has posted a list of known issues for its products running on OS X Lion. The list is unfortunately extensive, but the company's discussion of Flash Player issues stands out for the revelation that OS X Lion may have disabled hardware acceleration.
Flash Player may cause higher CPU activity when playing a YouTube video. Possibly related to disabled hardware acceleration.
Other issues with Flash Player include a loss of response to mouse clicks in the setting dialog and problems with animation of custom native mouse cursors.

In addition to the Flash Player issues, Adobe's support document lists a number of other issues with its products under OS X Lion, as well as a few general notes for users to be aware of:

- With OS X Lion now hiding the user Library folder by default, users may need to use Finder's "Go to Folder" command to access preferences and other user settings for Adobe applications. Alternatively, users can use the command line to make the Library folder permanently visible.

- OS X Lion's new reverse scrolling may throw off some users, not just in Adobe's applications but across the entire experience. Reverse scrolling can be disabled in System Preferences.

- A lack of Rosetta support in OS X Lion means that some older Adobe software such as CS2 or earlier will not run on the new operating system.

- Adobe is considering how it may adopt some of OS X Lion's new features such as Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and new multi-touch gestures, but they haven't been implemented yet. Adobe specifically notes that the Restore feature which reopens all windows and files to their previous state when an application is relaunched does not function on Adobe applications.

Update: Adobe corrected their post to say that hardware accelerated Flash is supported in Lion.
The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous “Known Issue” described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration. We continue to work closely with Apple to provide Flash Player users with a high quality experience on Mac computers.
[ 374 comments ]

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eliehass
47 months ago
I'm sorry, but this is just sad. Adobe is not some small no name developer. Apple has put out pre-release development builds of Lion for a while before its release. Adobe had plenty of time to put out a Lion compatible update. These comments make it sound like Adobe is just thinking about the implications of Lion now, after it's official release. They seriously dropped the ball here...
Rating: 105 Votes
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paradox00
47 months ago
So... what did Adobe do during the year that the beta was available?
Rating: 43 Votes
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Porco
47 months ago
Hey, be fair, maybe no-one told them about Lion until this week! :rolleyes:
Rating: 29 Votes
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jamesnajera
47 months ago
How long did Adobe have to test their software on Lion? Adobe is full of crap. Adobe get your act together or watch people stop using flash. Google labs is making a flash to HTML5 converter, YouTube supports HTML5, if Adobe keeps spewing crap like this, they will be forgotten.
Rating: 17 Votes
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Skika
47 months ago
Uninstalled Flash yesterday anyways, i decided i don't need junk on my computer.
Rating: 16 Votes
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bp1000
47 months ago
So, Adobe, one of the biggest software houses in the world couldn't be bothered to release a flash player update for Lion despite having months a pre-releases

I'm lost for words.
Rating: 14 Votes
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thatisme
47 months ago
I love how they state "possibly" because of hardware acceleration being disabled. Seriously, could this not have been tested and realized by Adobe before now with all the developer seeds going out. If they realized that HW acceleration was disabled, they should have brought it to Apple's attention, or re-written the application to "enable" HW acceleration.

What we haven't seen is any evidence that Apple had revoked the HW acceleration access in the API framework. For all we know, they may have made modifications to how that API works, and it just isn't compatible with the current Adobe program code.

But... "let's just wait and see what happens" seems to be Adobe's way, and if the backlash is bad enough, maybe they will kick it in gear and actually patch or re-write portions of the code, or release a totally new version.
Rating: 12 Votes
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BJMRamage
47 months ago
Flash slows down my PC laptop as well.

Though so does Picassa and even Windows Explorer. and Internet Explorer slows down the PC.

We need to have software reduce the strain on the computer and be more efficient.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Skika
47 months ago

Worst. Feature. Ever.


I.Like.It
Rating: 10 Votes
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addicted44
47 months ago

Except Adobe uses VDA, an Apple framework, for the hardware acceleration. This suggests that somehow Apple broke their own VDA framework under Lion.

Why would Apple disable one of their own frameworks ? It's not like Adobe is directly accessing the hardware here, this is what frameworks are for!


Apple does not need to disable the framework.

The new sandboxing model requires applications (and probably plugins) to declare the resources they need, before they use it (so, for example, if you need to access the file system, just calling the APIs to access the file system isn't enough. You need to also request the permission to do this. This is new in Lion).

Read Siracusa's review for more information on this.

Also, Adobe must have known this was broken for months. Lion DPs have been out for a long time.

Unless Apple went out of its way to block Adobe Flash from accessing the Graphics card (why would they do this? It only makes the mac look bad. And Apple is not going to change the world's Flash usage by affecting mac usage, since the mac is barely 5% of global PC sales). In the meanwhile, its safe to assume its just a consequence of a new OS. MANY apps break when you move to a new OS, even the simplest ones (which is why they release DPs so many months in advance). Its not shocking that low level access to Graphics HW might have broken, without attributing any malicious motive.
Rating: 10 Votes

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