Flash Player Issues in Spotify App Development

Other Questions Spotify
1

I’m working on a Spotify application that needs to embed YouTube videos using iframes. The implementation works perfectly when tested in regular web browsers, but I’m running into problems when trying to run it within the Spotify app environment.

The main issue is that I keep getting an error message inside the iframe that says Adobe Flash Player or HTML5 supported browser is required for video playback. I’ve already installed Flash Player separately from Chrome, so I know it’s available on my system.

I’m wondering if there are specific configuration steps needed to enable Flash support in Spotify apps. Maybe there’s something I need to add to the manifest.json file or other settings?

Here’s my video player implementation code:

var scriptElement = document.createElement('script');
scriptElement.src = "https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api";
var existingScript = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
existingScript.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, existingScript);

var videoPlayer;
function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  videoPlayer = new YT.Player('video-container', {
    height: '480',
    width: '720',
    videoId: 'dQw4w9WgXcQ',
    events: {
      'onReady': handlePlayerReady,
      'onStateChange': handleStateChange
    }
  });
}

function handlePlayerReady(evt) {
  evt.target.playVideo();
}

var hasPlayed = false;
function handleStateChange(evt) {
  if (evt.data == YT.PlayerState.PLAYING && !hasPlayed) {
    hasPlayed = true;
  }
}

function pauseVideo() {
  videoPlayer.pauseVideo();
}

Any help would be appreciated!

2

This is a Spotify app environment issue, not Flash. Spotify’s desktop client runs on a restricted Chromium engine that blocks external content loading. YouTube’s iframe API won’t work because Spotify’s sandboxed environment has strict security restrictions. I’ve hit this before - you can’t embed iframes directly. Skip the iframe approach and use Spotify’s Web API for media playback instead. That Flash Player error is misleading - it’s actually iframe security policies blocking everything. Try fetching YouTube metadata through their API and opening videos in the user’s default browser rather than embedding them. Manifest permissions won’t fix this since it’s a core limitation of how Spotify handles third-party content.

3

I’ve encountered this specific problem with Spotify apps previously. The issue is not related to the Flash Player; rather, Spotify runs apps within a sandboxed version of Chromium that does not allow access to plugins like you would have in a standard browser. Since YouTube has transitioned to HTML5, the iframe should not require Flash. The problem lies in how your iframe loads in Spotify’s restricted environment. I recommend adding the YouTube domains to your RequiredPermissions in the manifest file, which resolved the issue for me. Additionally, ensure that your Content Security Policy isn’t preventing iframe resources from loading. The sandboxing in Spotify enforces stricter rules than typical web development.