Adobe Flash, ZFS, Carbon

Adobe Flash doesn’t quite work if your user directory is a ZFS filesystem. Some 3rd party plugins that some websites like Livestream, Comedy Central, and Hulu’s desktop player will not be downloaded and you’ll sit at a blank screen.

Here is my layout: NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT tank 73.1G 43.0G 272K /Volumes/tank tank/Users 69.3G 43.0G 19.6M /Users tank/Users/Shared 32.4G 43.0G 32.2G /Users/Shared tank/Users/Shared@0801 254M - 32.2G - tank/Users/scollins 36.8G 43.0G 34.2G /Users/scollins tank/Users/scollins@0728 1.12G - 31.8G -

I believe that Adobe uses Carbon for filesystem operations, so the problem where Carbon paths are broken with ZFS filesystems rears its’ ugly head.

Because of my ZFS layout Adobe stores preferences in /Users/Library rather than in ~/Library since the Carbon paths don’t really work with ZFS.

Carbon would use this path to access the library located in my home directory: :tank:Library

Which is not correct. As I have blogged before, Carbon is built on the assumption that there is no root path and that each block device is its’ own global namespace. Carbon doesn’t understand the UNIX concept of a root path from which all files and devices are attached.

The immediate work around is to create a Library directory in the /Users directory for Adobe to store its’ preferences. However this will only allow the user who owns the /Users/Library directory to have a functioning Flash player. Everyone else will still have issues.