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Chrome

Enable Adobe Flash on Chrome after End of Life

As most of you know (or didn’t), Adobe Flash reached it’s End of Life on December 31st 2020, and as of January 12th 2021 does not function at all!

Since Adobe is no longer supporting Flash, they are blocking and disabling all Flash content beginning January 12 2021 from web browsers including Chrome.

For IT folks, this causes big problems when managing, maintaining, or dealing with older systems that use Adobe Flash, such as older versions of VMware vSphere, vCenter/vCSA, and VMware Horizon. This is because the admin interfaces utilize Adobe Flash. This will also apply to other software and systems.

The Problem

Up until now while approaching the end of life date, special steps were required to allow Adobe Flash because of security concerns.

As of January 12, 2021 these steps no longer work. Even when choosing to “Allow” flash, Adobe will deliberately block it. You’ll see something similar to below.

Adobe Flash Disabled Logo

The Workaround

This workaround should only be used for emergency situations as you should truly try to reduce your dependence on Flash.

In order for this workaround, you will need Chrome Version 87 or earlier. Version 88 does not include Adobe Flash.

On Windows, you’ll need to create a file called “mms.cfg” in the following path:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\System\

On a Mac, you’ll need to create a file called “mms.cfg” in the following path:

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/System/

Make sure you replace “USERNAME” with your own account.

On Linux, you’ll need to create a file called “mms.cfg” in the following path:

~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash/System/

The contents of the “mms.cfg” file should be as follows.

EnableAllowList = 1
AllowListUrlPattern = http://COMPUTERNAME/
AllowListUrlPattern = https://IP.ADDRESS/
AllowListUrlPattern = *://server.domain.com/

Feel free to add as many “AllowListUrlPattern” items as you require. These URL patterns are sites you’re allowing to run flash on.

To access a URL:

  1. After creating this file and populating it, open up Chrome
  2. Navigate to the page you want to view
  3. Click on the “Secure”, “Not Secure”, or the padlock to the left of the URL tab.
  4. Change “Adobe Flash” from “Ask” to “Allow”, then close the popup.
  5. Click on “Refresh” when Chrome prompts
  6. A new pop-up will open saying Flash is out of date. DO NOT UPDATE, click on “Run once without updating”.

And you’re set! Leave a comment and let me know if it worked for you.

For more information on Adobe Flash End of Life and End of Support, click here.

For more information on the workaround, view the “Enterprise Enablement” section of the Adobe Flash Player Administration guide.

Stephen Wagner

Stephen Wagner is President of Digitally Accurate Inc., an IT Consulting, IT Services and IT Solutions company. Stephen Wagner is also a VMware vExpert, NVIDIA NGCA Advisor, and HPE Influencer, and also specializes in a number of technologies including Virtualization and VDI.

View Comments

  • A simple fix is to reset your system's date & time settings back to 31st December 2020, if possible. That helped in my case on a server system with no internet access, but in a 6.5 environment where Chrome just stopped working because of this Flash restraint. Maybe others do work as well.

    • Hi Tobias,

      Thanks for leaving the comment. I might actually caution and advise against changing the system time and date.

      With Active Directory and various server systems, changing the date and time can actually cause communication issues and stop AD from working. It can also cause issues with SSL certificates, and also mess up system logs.

      It might work, but I would highlt recommend against it, because of all the issues that could arise.

      Cheers
      Stephen

  • Does this work for Chrome on Mac? If so, what is the path for the .cfg file? Thanks!

    • I just updated the blog post to reflect Chrome for PC, Mac, and Linux! :)

  • Greetings, That path did not exist on my Windows PC, so I created it, and made the mms.cfg file and populated, but it still won't load flash apps in Chrome. Am I missing a step, or because I manually created the path, it's invalid ?? Chrome version is 87.0.4280.141
    Regards

    • Hey Stickman,

      The only time the path should deviate is if you have multiple chrome profiles. In the example on my page, I use the profile "Default" which should be accurate 99.9% of the time.

      How far in the path did you get? In my case I only had to create the System folder if I can recall correctly.

      Also, did you change "USERNAME" to your Windows User account?

      Cheers,
      Stephen

  • Thanks for the quick reply. I was good up to C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data... but had to manually create \Default\Pepper Data\Shockwave Flash\System\. I checked in the \Default\AppData\local and there is no \Chrome below that. This PC is joined to an AD domain...may that be the problem ??
    Regards

    • I'm sorry, the user account and profile are two things in the context I'm using them in.

      For USERNAME, I'm referring to Windows user account. For the Chrome Profile (not windows profile), it's usually Default.

      It sounds like you had to create everything after the Chrome Profile directory of "Default" so I'm assuming your Chrome profile is under a different folder name since you had to create "Default".

      I don't know what the naming scheme is if it's not "Default" so you might have to poke around a bit. If you find the right profile directory, the rest of the path should be present except for the last folder of "System".

      I hope that makes sense!

      Cheers,
      Stephen

  • Update... I think I found the issue. I have multiple domain accounts on this PC. I finally found the account path that only needed the \System as you mentioned, and placed the mms file there. So far it's working. So even though it's not the AD login name I use on the PC, it may be the AD login name that was used to join this PC to the domain. Thanks for this workaround. It buys me enough time to upgrade to vsphere 6.7
    Thanks again sir !!

  • Hi im trying to make this works i have to create the folder system on my chrome but is not working.
    Sorry I am bad at enlgish, what you mean when you say create and populate, I already create Cfg with the url but that populate how i do that?

    • Hi Miguel,

      That is correct, you probably need to make the System folder, and then create the mms.cfg file inside of it.

      When I say create and populate, I mean creating the file mms.cfg and the contents should be the example inside of the list.

      Cheers,
      Stephen

  • I followed the steps and got flash working, however, my flash has to connect to a socket server and it doesn't connect successfully, any idea?

  • Hi Stephen,

    I have executed all the mentioned steps.
    No success.

    Kindly help me on this.

    • Hi Reelina,

      I'd recommend checking to make sure the steps were followed fully and check for spelling mistakes and then try again.

      The steps should work.

      Cheers
      Stephen

  • Hey Stephen,

    I forgot to mention the IP address in exception list.
    Its working now.
    Thanks for your online support.

    Thanks a million.

  • This is a very useful tip, thanks, and very well explained. Will give me a bit of breathing space to finalise upgrades to HTML5 management clients

    Thanks
    Jeremy

    • Hey Jeremy,

      Glad it helped! I'm lucky I was able to figure this out, lol...

      Cheers,
      Stephen

  • Thanks for this tip. I have a Netgear Stora which although 10 years old works fine. It uses a Flash Ui to manage to manage the server. Netgear responded to this by simply dropping support for it.
    Your tip means I can contine to use this and avoid spending hundreds of pounds on a replacement.

  • HI stephen, I got the similar problem with Mr. Stickman. But in my case, I renamed my USERNAME in windows account. What should I do to resolve this? Thanks!

    • I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

      Are you saying you changed the username directory (C:/Users/username)?

      If so is just rename it back, although it shouldn't have let you do that in the first place if that's what you're referring to.

  • Hi Stephen

    I got the similar problem with Mr. Stickman. But in my case, I renamed the USERNAME in windows user account. What should I do to resolve this?
    Thanks!

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