Failure to download extra data files: flashplugin-installer (not a duplicate question)

Question

This is not a duplicate of: askubuntu.../failure-to-download-extra-data-files-flashplugin-installer nor of askubuntu .../how-do-i-stop-failure-to-download-extra-data-files-error-with-pepflashpluginin.

The first link is the closest but the accepted answer does not work.

The Error Screen

The Recommended Solution

sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

The new errors from apt-get

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  bbswitch-dkms dkms libcuda1-361 nvidia-prime
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
Suggested packages:
  x-ttcidfont-conf ttf-bitstream-vera | ttf-dejavu ttf-xfree86-nonfree xfs
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  flashplugin-installer
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 6,782 B of archives.
After this operation, 59.4 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/multiverse amd64 flashplugin-installer amd64 11.2.202.635ubuntu0.16.04.1 [6,782 B]
Fetched 6,782 B in 0s (17.6 kB/s)                
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package flashplugin-installer.
(Reading database ... 336994 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../flashplugin-installer_11.2.202.635ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking flashplugin-installer (11.2.202.635ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.168.1) ...
flashplugin-installer: downloading http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz
Err:1 http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz
  Could not open file /var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz - open (2: No such file or directory) [IP: 91.189.92.191 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz Could not open file /var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz - open (2: No such file or directory) [IP: 91.189.92.191 80]

E: Download Failed
Setting up flashplugin-installer (11.2.202.635ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

This problem seems to have ocurred after I removed google-chrome-beta but kept the regular google-chrome. Google chrome works fine for watching TV shows with pepper flash plug-in but it would be nice to keep firefox as a backup browser if chrome goes down. I believe firefox needs the separate flashplugin.

Is there a glitch in canonical somewhere?

Should I just apt-get remove purge flashplugin-installer and not bother apt-get install it again?

PS the ca. prefix on ubuntu.com website name means Canada servers for Canonical and has never been a problem before.

Solution

Credit to gunnar-hjalmarsson for this answer.

Adobe once began life making fonts for Microsoft Windows. Later it became the premiere program for playing videos over the internet and live TV broadcasts (which I use it for). However now HTML5 is commonly used for playing videos in Google's YouTube and FlashPlayer is becoming marginalized.

Within Google Chrome web browser PepperFlash support is built in so a separate flash plugin is no longer required for watching flash content. However on my system (perhaps because I deleted Google Chrome Beta) the error in the original question occurred.

The error message:

Err:1 http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_20160913.1.orig.tar.gz

showed up because Canonical partners was not enabled. I don't remember turning it off but the solution is to turn it on.

Enable Canonical Partners

To enable partners in Canonical select System Settings then Software & Updates and then Other Partners. This screen appears:

Check the box to allow partners.

As Gunnar points out flashplugin-installer isn't needed for firefox so adobe-flashplugin is a better option to install. Google chrome has flash player support embedded through a process called Pepper Flash Player and doesn't need flashplugin-installer either.

The final solution is:

sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

Thanks again to Gunnar for his comments to solve the pesky pop-up message.

Although flashplugin-installer is in the title and body, the partner errors could apply to many situations and I welcome recommendations to change the title, question or answer.

PS I realize remove and purge can be combined into a single line. I also realize apt-get is inferior to a solo apt in many respects.

PPS Adobe also gets credit for .PDF files although on Linux platform many free alternatives exist.

PPPS I notice there are other boxes not checked off on the screenshot above and if this answer can be improved by explaining them don't hesitate to comment. I am dpkg challenged as recent down votes have proved.

Comments

[mook765]

This Firefox-add-on works nice for me, you should try it. Flash shouldn't be installed to use this.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

@mook765 Thanks for the link. That will make a good Plan B should flashplugin-installer simply be removed instead of fixing the download problem.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Possibly a simpler "plan B": Enable Canonical Partner in Software & Updates and install the adobe-flashplugin package.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

@GunnarHjalmarsson I had never turned that option off, but turning it on and running sudo apt install flashplugin-installer made all the errors go away. Thanks! (Care to post an answer so I can mark it solved?)

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@mook765: Actually there is a fresh beta version of Flash Player available now: askubuntu.com/questions/817182/…

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

My idea was an alternative package (adobe-flashplugin) which includes Flash for both Firefox and Chromium without a need for that extra download procedure. ;) (As regards the answer, please feel free to write it yourself.)

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

@GunnarHjalmarsson good point on adobe-flashplugin I just tried firefox and flash isn't even installed for my "Plan B" backup browser for chrome. I haven't used Chromium in years so flashplugin-installer was probably being downloaded with google-chrome-beta which I deleted last week to save space and time...

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Please note that Google Chrome has flash built-in, while Chromium has not. Both Chromium and Firefox need a plugin, and adobe-flashplugin provides it for both those browsers.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Nice wrap-up of the comments! A couple remarks: You could as well just have installed adobe-flashplugin directly. If you had, flashplugin-installer would have been removed anyway. Also, at this time adobe-flashplugin provides Flash Player 11, which is pretty old and not sufficient on some sites, so you may also want to check out this answer. I'm making Flash Player 23 Beta available in a PPA version of adobe-flashplugin. As regards your PPPS, I think it would be another question.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

Thanks for the compliment! I'll leave the removal instructions as is in case others reference the answer for a different extra data file which isn't auto-removed. Besides remove and purge give me a pleasant feeling :). I look forward to Flash Player 23 some day, but I'll probably get it embedded in a Chrome update without knowing it.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

For Chromium (and probably also for Chrome) you have version 22 already, but for Firefox you have version 11.

[Timo]

I get in my update-notifier-common mails: flashplugin-installer: downloading +archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/aadobe-flashplugin/adobe‌​-flashplugin_2018010‌​9.1.orig.tar.gz - It seems that both plugins are correlated?