How can I get flash working on Kubuntu 11.04 64bit?

Question

Flash is not working on Kubuntu 11.04, 64bit on any browser. Even after a purge and reinstall, any flash application gives either says the plugin is missing or not up to date (depends on browser).

This problem is just with Kubuntu, not with Ubuntu. How can I get flash working again?

After installing the package flashplugin-installer, the command
find / -name "libflashplayer.so" doesn't find anything.

Update

December 29, 2011
Manual install is no longer necessary. The package adobe-flashplugin works as intended. If you used the script I originally provided, you'll have to do some clean up to get things working correctly again. See the now edited post for a script to do the clean up. Note that I had to completely remove and reinstall chrome to convince flash to work in chrome again.

Update

June 22,2011
I fixed it by manually installing flash.
I posted my script and made it a community wiki so it can be improved upon.

Solution 1

I usually do it like this.

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_square.html

download and extract

#cleanup
sudo killall -9 firefox
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper

#install

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ 
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so  /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/

Solution 2

Updated December 29, 2011

It is no longer necessary to manually install flash. The package adobe-flashplugin will install the latest version of flash (currently 11). The original script is kept below for historical purposes.

If you used the original script to manually install flash, you'll need to do a bit of cleanup before things will work right. I've provided an additional script immediately below which will both perform the clean up and install flash.

# Clean Up #
sudo killall -9 firefox
sudo kiallall -9 chrome
# Note that it might be desirable to remove nspluginwrapper, but I have not included
# it because acroread requires it.
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-installer flashplugin-nonfree
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual
sudo rm -f /opt/google/chrome/plugins/libflashplayer.so
# Install #
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y adobe-flashplugin

Note that I still had to purge chrome (sudo apt-get remove -y --purge google-chrome-stable) and redownload and install to get flash working properly in chrome. Firefox worked no problem.

Original

Adapting the script given by @anne and combining it with these instructions, I have the set of steps I followed below.

# Preparation #
sudo killall -9 firefox
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper

# Download and Extract Flash #
cd ~
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz
tar xzvf flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz


# Install #
sudo mkdir /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual
sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual/
# Firefox
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
# Note that I didn't need to do the next two commands, but I left them in anyway.
# Firefox is not my main browser, so I'm not sure what the purpose of those two commands are 
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual/libflashplayer.so  /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/
# Chrome
sudo mkdir -p /opt/google/chrome/plugins
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/flashplugin-manual/libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/libflashplayer.so

# Cleanup #
rm flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz

Comments

[Jason Southwell]

Can you confirm also that /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins is empty and that locate libflash* returns nothing?

[Lekensteyn]

possible duplicate of How do I install Adobe Flash player?

[cledoux]

While this isn't the whole answer, I'll still accept it since it is what I based my solution on.

[MountainX]

that PPA has been removed

[MountainX]

see post by karategeek6 Updated December 29, 2011 - "It is no longer necessary to manually install flash. The package adobe-flashplugin will install the latest version of flash (currently 11). "