Thousands of YouTube player products on IMVU are now broken and will never work again. These products are still in the IMVU catalog for people to buy. IMVU staff have reacted by begging developers to hide their YouTube player products while blaming YouTube in the process. Users react by condemning IMVU staff, but is IMVU staff to blame?

IMVU YouTube player products work by running code that visits YouTube's ActionScript application program interface (AS API). This interface was a link on YouTube's website, but the link is no longer there on YouTube's website. Where did it go? In January of 2015, YouTube announced that they would be depreciating their AS API in favor of newer technology and would be removing the AS API from their site completely. Removal and shutdown was slated for January of 2016, but when January 2016 rolled around, the AS API remained. YouTube left the API up for another year and on April 2017 finally removed the link from their website, effectively breaking all programs and code that use it. These programs and code include the 1000's of YouTube player products built by IMVU developers.



Developers are still searching for an alternative to AS API, so they can fix their products. In the mean time, IMVU users are understandably upset as products they paid for are now broken and useless. So, who is at fault here? YouTube for shutting down their AS API? IMVU developers for continuing to develop and sell products that use the AS API after YouTube warned everyone that it would be shut down? IMVU staff for allowing developers to continue this practice of selling depreciated technology while at the same time not patching the IMVU client to embed HTML5 widgets instead of Flash? (Most browsers have replaced Flash support with HTML5) Or is it the fault of IMVU users who continue to buy Flash based products 2 years after Adobe (the company that maintains Flash) announced that Flash is now obsolete and that people should stop buying / using Flash products. Maybe it is everyone's and nobody's fault. Post your thoughts and feelings down below.

So if IMVU modified the client to use HTML5 instead of flash, I wonder how difficult it would be for developers to modify their existing products to use the iframe api instead.

D.M wrote:

So if IMVU modified the client to use HTML5 instead of flash, I wonder how difficult it would be for developers to modify their existing products to use the iframe api instead.

That was my thought exactly. IMVU staff should have added support for HTML5 and the iframe API 2 years ago when Adobe announced that people should stop using Flash and YouTube announced they would be shutting down the AS API. That way IMVU Developers/Creators would have an alternative to turn to and we would not be in this mess. IMVU staff really dropped the ball in that area. You have to wonder though, why didn't they? Probably because they were too busy developing IMVU Next to properly maintain the classic client.

Couldnt the creators just switch it to Vimeo??? I mean it seems pretty simple to me. Unless that uses html5 too

Hokage wrote:

Couldnt the creators just switch it to Vimeo??? I mean it seems pretty simple to me. Unless that uses html5 too

Does Vimeo use flash? If so then I hope not. The sooner flash dies the better.

So that's what caused the Youtube chaos recently. An interesting read, Thanks Don.

Hokage wrote:

Couldnt the creators just switch it to Vimeo??? I mean it seems pretty simple to me. Unless that uses html5 too

The questions to ask is not "Does Vimeo use HTML5". The question is, "Does Vimeo have an ActionScript API with a supporting library". The answer is no: [Link to Viemo's API libraries]

As you can see on the page I linked to, Vimeo only has API libraries for the following languages: PHP, Python, NodeJS, .NET, and Java

It might be possible to use a third party library to connect to a video site's API's: [Link to github code repository search]

but then you still hit the issue of developers using Flash which is an obsolete technology on its death bed, on its way out: [Link to a 2017 article about the death of Flash]

Any solution you find that allows you to continue using Flash will not work in the long run. You are just putting the system on life support when you should be taking it out back and shooting it. There is a reason Flash is dying. Flash is an insecure rabid technology that leaves your computer vulnerable to exploits: [Link to over 1000 Flash Exploits (security holes that hackers can get into)]

if youtube got tired people using there stuff they telling imvu to stop and they aint taking action it aint our fault its there.... not our ....comon now they took so much shit from us...but they putting blame on us that aint fair... but mean awhile people who sumbiting it not listening to them... its there fault depending on situation mostly like imvu fault :D

These things were so freaking popular, one of them never even died off the first page. Bet that person cried when it was no longer useable to the community a while ago lol.

Imvu is pretty much sinking all its time into catering to the teens with IMVUNext at the moment. I imagine anything thats supposed to be fixed/upgraded in the classic client is going on the back burner until their precious Next is all figured out. Which in my opinion wont be for a very long time.

Flash was/is a very popular thing in IMVU. Main reason? Developers. Why? Banners that link back to their catty's as furniture. They have become dependent on them now. Yes, I'm sure its better some other way, but currently this is the only way. But if they take it away, they will more than likely have all devs crawling up their asses, yet again, as with every other thing IMVU does to them. Thats the reason I think it hasn't died yet. However if they tried now, they might not give a damn about the devs since they took the forums away, and devs can't complain properly enough to make them care at the moment. When you've been at this as long as I have, you tend to realize that most devs hate change regardless if its good or not lol, period. And they defend like rabid dogs.

I honestly hated it and turned it off in the settings, thank gawd for that. Anshe used to be one of the most popular devs and when she got a hold of the technology and started using it, she damn near put it in/on most of her furniture. You couldn't sit without a flash box opening.

Forgot to mention that if they took it away it will effectively break 1000's of products more that aren't Youtube based already in the catty, and if that happens you not only have devs complaining, everyone that bought it will be pissed too. Kinda like now, but different cuz it hurts devs advertising and also games that exist.

Forgot to mention that if they took it away it will effectively break 1000's of products more that aren't Youtube based already in the catty, and if that happens you not only have devs complaining, everyone that bought it will be pissed too. Kinda like now, but different cuz it hurts devs advertising and also games that exist.

True, IMVU staff should not take the technology away by choice, but they should supplement it with newer technology, else eventually the time will come when they are forced to retire Flash ... and there will be nothing to replace it. I am assuming IMVU uses mozilla or some third party engine and Flash player to render the flash widgets. What happens when that stops supporting Flash or is no longer maintained? Flash would stop working and we would have nothing to replace it. Most browsers already block Flash by default.