Can't watch Flash vids in Firefox? It's not just you

The latest update to Adobe's Flash has been crashing Mozilla Firefox users on Windows since last week, but the firms behind the products are still searching for a fix. "We are aware that some users of Firefox on Windows updating to Flash 11.3 encounter issues watching videos ... We are working with Adobe on a fix," a Mozilla …

[Hayden Clark]

Windows 7/Vista? XP FTW!

See? Told you!

[Zombie Womble]

Re: Windows 7/Vista? XP FTW!

Because it's Microsoft's fault that Adobe software is crashing a Mozilla browser

[Nigel 11]

Re: Windows 7/Vista? XP FTW!

Read the linked help document, and Real player is implicated in some way - the first things to try are turning it off and un-installing it.

I'm no fan of Microsoft but I'd put them a fairly long way down the suspects list on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bad Job(s)

If only a certain flash-basher was still alive - he'd love this!

[bazza]

Re: That's a bad Job(s)

Hmm, it seems difficult to pin the problem on Adobe/Flash.

All seems to be working fine in Chrome, and that uses the very same plugin AFAIK. So if Chrome+Flash = OK, and Firefox+Flash = not OK, one would start looking at Firefox first I should think.

I think you're right though. I don't think any of that would have stopped that certain flash-basher dishing out an additional opportunistic bashing, despite the fact that no one seems to be saying about Safari+Flash which presumably means all is well there too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's a bad Job(s)

I thought that Chrome didn't use a Flash plugin, but actually had the Flash runtime code built into it?

[Craig 12]

The article with helpful tips is essentially: uninstall realplayer, downgrade flash... pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

People use the spyware filled Realplayer?

Although, to be fair, it was a long time ago that I stopped using it and moved to realalternative, so they may have cleaned up their act.

[Darryl]

I think any help article that suggests the user uninstall Realplayer is extremely helpful.

[C Yates]

Indeed

I can still remember realplayer being first released, then gradually turning into a bloated piece of crap...

Then again, I can still remember Flash being released... oh and Firefox... :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is Crap

I have lost count of the number of times the various frequently updated versions of Flash have crashed on my PC. Adobe are quite capable of writing software that works, and works well, yet for some reason they are unable to fix the steaming pile of putrid dingo droppings that they call Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flash is Crap

"Adobe are quite capable of writing software that works, and works well"

Do you have anything to back up this unsubstantiated claim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flash is Crap

I was being generous. You'll notice that I didn't claim they had written software that "works, and works well" - just that they were capable of it. Something that is difficult to prove or disprove.

[Nigel 11]

Adobe quality software

"Adobe quality software" has replaced "Microsoft quality software" in my lexicon. This is because for about two years now, the latest Adobe Acrobats have been incapable of printing some Adobe pdf files generated by Adobe's own software to a Postscript printer (possibly even an Adobe Postscript printer). The same pdf files printed to the same printer using Foxit or Evince work just fine. The same files printed using ancient versions of Acrobat reader also work fine.

Capable of writing software that works and works well? You decide.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Flash is Crap

Well Lightroom and Photoshop to name just two products, seem to be working OK for a huge number of Windows and Mac users the world over. Using CS6 for my professional photo editing I'd have to say it's one of the best versions I've used since I started digital editing back around 1998.

[Elmer Phud]

Re: Flash is Crap

That's 'cos you is a (possibly) paying (through the nose) customer.

[Steven Roper]

@Elmer Phud

No, more likely he's a pirate, because the officially licensed paid-for version of Photoshop would, in the grand tradition of treating one's customers as criminals, likely be so encumbered with DRM, product activation and usage enforcement measures, as to be practically unusable. Contrast that with the cracked and pirated version, which has no DRM or phone-home crap, and is eminently faster, more efficient, stable, reliable and less bloated as a result.

[asdf]

Re: Flash is Crap

>"Firefox and/or Flash Player may crash or not load videos using Flash Player, or videos may not display correctly.

Wow since when is this news? Been par for the course for a long time.

[Thomas Whipp]

Thought I'd messed something up over the weekend - reinstalled firefox twice and still wasnt working so removed it.

[tony72]

RealPlayer

The Mozilla workaround linked in the article involves disabling the RealPlayer Browser Record extension. Without wanting to point fingers, RealPlayer has been banned from my Windows PCs for over a decade, IMHO for good reason, so possibly it's not entirely Adobe's fault this time.

[Simon Barnes]

anything using Flash is broken on Firefox

No flash-based operations have been working on my Win 7 Ultimate PC since last Thursday. Even multiple file uploads are affected :(

[Simon Barnes]

Re: anything using Flash is broken on Firefox

and yes I am using RealPlayer record...

[Irongut]

I tried to watch an hour long streamed videos yesterday and it kept hanging every 9 minutes. Initially I thought it was my connection but after resetting my router twice the regularity of the hangs led me to the conclusion that Flash was to blame. As you can imagine watching an hour long video in 9 minute bursts was very annoying and the name Adobe is now a swear word in its own right in my house.

I don't usually have any problems with Flash despite the number of people who claim it crashes their PC all the time but this one is a major screw up on Adobe's part.

[Anonymous Coward]

a one hour programme in 9 minute segments

sounds similar to trying to watch anything on itv2

[TeeCee]

Alternative approach.

Anyone affected could always try using another browser that doesn't have these issues.

Like IE..............

[Efros]

Re: Alternative approach.

Glad to see the joke alert there. I don't think I've used FireFerret in over a year, too slow, annoying interface etc.

[MGJ]

Re: Alternative approach.

If only IE didnt have problems too; some controls in Flash no longer work. For example, in War Commander (surely the only reason anyone goes on Facebook these days), the 'Full Screen' control no longer does anything. Advice in forums is to go back to 11.2, so it looks like some feature was deprecated in this release. Testing, anyone?

[R J Tysoe]

Re: Alternative approach.

Also, it now asks if you really want to go fullscreen when you choose the fullscreen option in Chrome.

[Gene Cash]

Affects Linux too, differently

Firefox on Linux doesn't crash, but it does stop video (while the audio keeps going) or simply skips chunks altogether.

[FreeTard]

Re: Affects Linux too, differently

Not for me, on two different machine flash works fine and dandy - aside from the fact that is is still shit and uses up to o much CPU, but it is stable - no frame losses at all watching motogp.com in HD yesterday.

But on my wn7 machine, I get wierd green bars on the top of the screen... no idea why but this is a new thing for sure, as it worked fine before - shit but still stable.

[moopy]

Re: Affects Linux too, differently

I had the same "weird green" problem on Win7 - I found that turning off hardware acceleration fixed it for me.

(Right-click on flash player in browser, choose "Settings..." and, if you've got "Enable hardware acceleration" checked in the Display tab, try turning it off)

[Andrew Punch]

Re: Affects Linux too, differently

Crashes for me on Linux when kids are watching iview. So I keep on getting "Daaaaaad... it's not working"

[RAMChYLD]

Re: Affects Linux too, differently

Hmmm, I've been having a different problem on Linux - Flash video colors comes out all wrong if hardware acceleration is enabled. Had to turn off hardware acceleration and now every time I watch a video the CPU load shoots up. Thankfully, tho, it's a quad-core Phenom 2, so it's still not too bad.

As for windows- well, I'd think it's probably a potent combination of Firefox 13 and Flash, and probably Aero. I'm using Classic with Seamonkey 2.10.1 and I'm still able to watch flash videos fine.

[Steen Eugen Poulsen]

Re: Affects Linux too, differently

Not really Adobes fault you had kids.

[Gene Cash]

Crap help pages

Since none of the Mozilla pages seem to mention it, you can find older versions of Flash here. That took a lot of digging to find over the weekend:

http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I hate Flash video

This is why I hate Flash video. I have perfectly good video players on my system, many of which can use the hardware I have to best use (e.g. MPlayer) and can play 1080p30 video at a percent CPU load.

But because Macromedia saw fit to use their own "special" MIME type, and to encourage web site designers to force me to use ONE particular plug in to play their oh-so-special content. those players get muscled aside for a bug-ridden, crash-prone, privacy-invading plugin.

How about you look at the damn "accepts:" header, and feed my browser a damn MP4 file, and let my BROWSER and I decide what to do with it?

I anxiously await HTML5 becoming dominant.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it stops that damned Microsoft Cloud expanding banner ad...

on every Register page, then I'm all for it.

Have they really paid El Reg enough to keep the fekking there there for what feels like more than a week? Grrrrrrrr....

[corrodedmonkee]

Re: If it stops that damned Microsoft Cloud expanding banner ad...

Almost as good as those adverts on the page background that activate if you have the audacity to click somewhere on the page at all.

[Chemist]

Re: If it stops that damned Microsoft Cloud expanding banner ad...

There are ADVERTS on The Register pages - I didn't know that.

[404]

LMAO @Chemist

yeah, that's my reaction to hearing that at times - another forum I visit wants money via a paid membership to remove ads, my question was, "what ads?"

;)

[BristolBachelor]

Re: If it stops that damned Microsoft Cloud expanding banner ad...

Ah, so that's what the blue lego brick is for? I did wonder.

It's not such a good advert; it's not convinced me to buy anything.

[Dave Gomm]

Other problems abound

I've had flash problems with Youtube on all browsers for a while now, problem is a crackling noise in the background on all videos.

This is definitely a flash problem as when I use the HTML5 version (available for all videos without ads), the problem goes away.

Dave

[Anonymous Coward]

The fix.

www.opera.com

Opera 12 has a plugin wrapper that runs flash as a separate process, it also allows 64bit browsers to use 32bit plugins...

[Robert Carnegie]

Re: Opera is fine then?

Someone here (if the link works) was having trouble, apparently by playing multiple videos at once in Opera 12 - paused. Probably in Belgian. I do have an urge to say "What a fool", but, why shouldn't he?

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/opera.general/-IymXd-EHi4

I only have Flash installed in Internet Explorer, because both of them feel like living dangerously. Do remember that IE Flash and Other-Browser Flash are to be updated separately - and I think Chrome has its own Flash built-in, and its own arcane updates.

[Anonymous Coward]

My workaround

Chrome

[phlashbios]

Re: My workaround

Chrome for me too. With Adblock Plus and the Google Analytics Opt-Out plugins, it is a fine and fast experience.

[vagabondo]

Re: My workaround -- @phlashbios

(my experience is with 32bit google-chrome-beta on 64bit Linux)

AdBlock is better than AdBlockPlus -- strips adverts out of playback itvPlayer etc.

NotScripts is the other must-have extension.

[JeffyPooh]

So...

...just like Apple's iOS then?

LOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since both Mozilla and Adobe decided

to treat Linux users as second class citizens and focus on Windows experience, I was expecting to see some positive impact on quality for tneir Windows apps.

[Anonymous Coward]

3.6 is fine

I have no plans to move beyond Firefox 3.6 on Windows. On my Android tablet, I run the nightlies, which are currently on 16.0! That also runs Flash with no probs.

[Nigel 11]

10.0.5esr is better

You'd do better to ditch 3.6 and switch to the long-term-support Firefox based on 10. (Currently at 10.0.5) http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html

I'm quite happily using the latest 13.0.1 but it's well worth knowing that there is an official version that's getting only bugfixes, if you're supporting an organisation or allergic to new features being dropped on you. (I am allergic that way, but so far Firefox hasn't done anything bad enough to annoy me back to 10).

[Anonymous Coward]

Quality Control Department?

So ... How many browsers do Adobe test with each Flash release?

[DanceMan]

Thread Hijack

No flash problems here but FF 13.0 and 13.0.1 on two different laptops running XP and 7 Ent will not let me bookmark a single tab (all tabs works). Stop pissing around with the too-frequent updates and rediscover that quality named stability.

[Nigel 11]

Re: Thread Hijack

See my previous post about 10.0.5esr. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html if you value stable more than new features.

[DanceMan]

Conflict found

My bookmark problem is due to a conflict with the Compact Menu extension. But your point is well taken, and I'll try the ESR release.