Flash player silent auto update not working

Question

I was glad to read the news about the new feature of silent auto updates of the Adobe Flash player, but unfortunately this is not working on my machine. Has anyone had the same problems and was able to solve them?
Some information on my setup:
I had previously installed Flash player version 11.1.102.63, both ActiveX and Plugin version (installed through the .msi files, deployed via Active Directory/GPO - no further configuration, just plain original .msi files).
To test the auto update feature, I decided to install the new 11.2.202.228 version, but only the ActiveX version. I installed this via the .exe installer (install_flash_player_11_active_x_32bit.exe) manually, choosing "Install updates automatically when available (recommended)" in the last step of the installation, as seen here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/background-updater-windows.html
When I open Control Panel -> Flash Player, under the "Advanced" tab I see:
"Install updates automatically" is chosen, but greyed out (no admin rights with this windows user)
ActiveX version: 11.2.202.228
Plug-In version: 11.1.102.63
The file "mms.cfg" under C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\ contains:
AutoUpdateDisable=0
SilentAutoUpdateEnable=1
The task "Adobe Flash Player Updater" was created and is scheduled to run every 1 hour. I can see that it is started ("last start time"), the result code is 0x0 which means "no error".
So everything as expected. But the auto update is not working, since the plugin version of flash player never gets updated!
I edited the "mms.cfg" and added:
SilentAutoUpdateVerboseLogging=1
After manually starting the task, there are some lines added to "FlashInstall.log" in the same directory:
2012-4-4+7-20-48.814 [info] 1614
2012-4-4+7-20-48.829 [info] 1615
2012-4-4+7-20-48.829 [info] 1618
2012-4-4+7-20-48.829 [info] 1619 1063
2012-4-4+7-20-48.876 [info] 1614
2012-4-4+7-20-48.876 [info] 1615
2012-4-4+7-20-48.876 [info] 1618
2012-4-4+7-20-48.876 [info] 1608
2012-4-4+7-20-48.876 [info] 1604
2012-4-4+7-21-10.425 [warning] 1403 12029
2012-4-4+7-21-10.425 [warning] 1407 183
2012-4-4+7-21-10.425 [warning] 1408
2012-4-4+7-21-10.456 [info] 1624
2012-4-4+7-21-10.456 [info] 1612
2012-4-4+7-21-10.456 [info] 1621
What does this mean?
Some more information:
Windows XP SP3, all windows updates installed, german
Avira Professional Security anti-virus software
Machine is behind a proxy server, but this is set up in Control Panel -> Internet Options
I suppose this is a problem with our proxy server. Does the auto updater not use the proxy information from the Windows Control Panel settings?
Kind Regards,
Martin

Answer 1

Hey Hans,
After reading of your sucsess I attempted to replicate it.
I am happy to say that I managed to update from Adobe Flash 11.2.202.228 to 11.2.202.233 on serveral different windows 7 notebooks and desktops sliently.
I went into the windows task scedular and ran the Adobe Flash Player Updater task (I didn't need to change anything in the task or the service for it to work).
The only issue I found was that if I ran the task again without restarting the computer no requests from the client would show up in the logs from my web server but if I restarted my computer and then reran the task it would work again. I'm assuming that it will only sent requests out every 24hours is talked about in page 18 of the Flash Player 11.2 Administration Guide. 
My Web Servers logs look like this:
2012-04-27 05:45:01 W3SVC1967680676 10.135.12.38 GET /pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/11/xml/version.xml - 443 - 10.135.13.17 Get+Flash+Player+version+xml/1.0 200 0 0
2012-04-27 05:45:05 W3SVC1967680676 10.135.12.38 GET /pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/11/install/install_all_win_ax_sgn.z - 80 - 10.135.13.17 Download+Flash+Player+Installer/1.0 200 0 0
My mms.cfg looks like this:
AutoUpdateDisable=0
SilentAutoUpdateEnable=1
SilentAutoUpdateServerDomain=proxy.tallangatta-sc.vic.edu.au
I think the biggest issue I had during testing was that I forgot to my web servers certificate into the windows certificate stores trusts root certs of my notebooks/desktops. EG: http://blogs.adobe.com/livecycle/2012/04/rights-management-how-to-get-windows-7-to-trust-a -self-signed-server-certificate.html
I have since deployed the mms.cfg file and added my web servers certificate into the trusted root certs via group policy to all my clients and it is working very well. I have also writen a batch file to download the needed files from adobe for that backgroup updater and to put them on my web server. I created a daily task on my web server to run the batch file. If anyone wants the batch file or shell script please email me and I'll forward it on.
My batch file pretty much looks like this:
@echo off
:::::::::: INFOMATION ABOUT SCRIPT ::::::::::
:: This Script Titled  adobe-flash-background-updates and was written by Tyrone Wyatt of www.cloudportal.org.
:: This Script is open to use by everyone and is not under any licence.
:: See flash_player_11_2_admin_guide.pdf for more infomation on how this script is required to function.
:::::::::: SCRIPT CONFIG ::::::::::
:: The TITLE option is the scripts name
set TITLE=adobe-flash-background-updates
:: The LOG option is the log file.
set LOG=./%TITLE%.log
:: The SOURCE option is the mirror on which you would like to download the flash files from.
set SOURCE=http://fpdownload2.macromedia.com
:: The DESTINATION option is where you would like your downloaded files to go so they are accessable by your web service.
set DESTINATION=d:\wwwroot\Proxy
:: The VERSION option is the current major version of Flash Player (for Flash Player 11.2, the major version is 11).
set VERSION=11
:: The Proxy settings for wget to use
set HTTP_PROXY=http://edupass.tallangatta-sc.vic.edu.au:8080
:::::::::: SCRIPT CORE ::::::::::
echo Welcome to %TITLE% Script!
echo =O====== %date% %time% ======== >> %LOG% 2>&1
if exist %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\xml (
echo Skipping destination folder structure creation.
) else (
echo Creating destination folder structure.
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION% >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\xml >> %LOG% 2>&1
mkdir %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\install >> %LOG% 2>&1
echo Downloading files...
wget.exe -nv %SOURCE%/pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/%VERSION%/xml/version.xml -O %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\xml\version.xml >> %LOG% 2>&1
wget.exe -nv %SOURCE%/pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/%VERSION%/install/install_all_win_ax_sgn.z -O %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\install\install_all_win_ax_sgn .z >> %LOG% 2>&1
wget.exe -nv %SOURCE%/pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/%VERSION%/install/install_all_win_pl_sgn.z -O %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\install\install_all_win_pl_sgn .z >> %LOG% 2>&1
wget.exe -nv %SOURCE%/pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/%VERSION%/install/install_all_win_64_ax_sgn.z -O %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\install\install_all_win_64_ax_ sgn.z >> %LOG% 2>&1
wget.exe -nv %SOURCE%/pub/flashplayer/update/current/sau/%VERSION%/install/install_all_win_64_pl_sgn.z -O %DESTINATION%\pub\flashplayer\update\current\sau\%VERSION%\install\install_all_win_64_pl_ sgn.z >> %LOG% 2>&1
echo Script complete! See log file for more infomation %LOG%
echo =X====== %date% %time% ======== >> %LOG% 2>&1
echo. >> %LOG% 2>&1
:::::::::: END OF SCRIPT ::::::::::
Thanks for your help,
Tyrone Wyatt.