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why2processes
Participant
June 10, 2012
Question

2 processes + stealing focus from Firefox

  • June 10, 2012
  • 4 replies
  • 10413 views

Everything worked great.. no extra processes except plug-in container.. then all the sudden another unauthorized update check sneakily done at startup before it could even be blocked by a firewall and this 11.3 or whatever it was (gone now). Suddenly I noticed when browsing in Firefox, the window would randomly become inactive.. making scrolling difficult and causing fears of a virus/malicious background process, so I check and wtf do I see? Not just one unnecessary process from Adobe, but TWO. Hmm, these were never here before. I turn them off in task manager, browse around a bit and my focus-stealing problem is solved, until I get to YouTube.. window becomes inactive again so I look and what a surprise! Adobe crap has started up TWICE again in my tasks.

Thanks for completely ruining my browsing experience.

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4 replies

Q
Quatrix0
Participating Frequently
June 17, 2012

Reverting to an old version is a work-around, not a fix.

A
Ar-Pharazon
Participant
June 17, 2012

I coudn't agree more.

But when a version of something is this buggy, the workaround is all we have until version 11.4 (hopefully OK) comes along.

I've had problems with other quick release versions of Firefox (not sure which ones anymore) and had to downgrade until a newer version was released.

Maybe part of the problem with quick release versions is the lack of testing time.

P
pinkISH_ro
Participant
June 16, 2012

I fixed this problem by going back to version 11.2:

- uninstalled current flash plugin: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html#main_Download_the_Adobe_Flash_Player_uninstaller

- found the earlier version for 64-bit systems (you can look for the 32-bit version as well) here: http://www.bergfiles.com/i/bf50aa3604h32i0

- installed version 11.2.202.233 , which I believe it's the last one before the 11.3 fiasco

And now I can enjoy focus-stealing-free surfing again

A
Ar-Pharazon
Participant
June 17, 2012

I did what you did pinkISH.ro, getting rid of 11.3 and installing 11.2.  Hope that fixes the problem.

I thought since I just did a clean installation of Firefox 13, that was why it kept losing focus.

I even re-re-installed FFx 13 thinking that would fix it.

Q
Quatrix0
Participating Frequently
June 15, 2012

Firefox keeps losing focus here too.

A
Anonymous
June 10, 2012

Hi Why2processes:

Are you saying that when Flash Player was upgraded to 11.3 you saw two instances of FlashPlayerPlugin_11_300_257.exe running in your task manager?   That's actually supposed to be the case, and is part of the new security feature,  according to everything I've read.  For instance -- http://techdows.com/2012/06/flash-player-11-3-protected-mode-sandboxing-for-firefox.html

What you might want to do is check to see if there have been any crashes reported.  Do this by simply typing  about:crashes  in your Fire Fox address bar. (You can also access this by clicking on Troubleshooting Information, which is listed under your Fire Fox  "Help" menu.)  A new screen will open showing if there have been any crashes.  If you scroll down, you'll see a lot of posts about this.  For instance, see -- http://forums.adobe.com/message/4480477#4480477  If you seen any crashes listed, please let Adobe know.

----------------------------------------

By the way, you can set Adobe Flash Player to NOT automatically  check for updates when you start Fire Fox by going to this page, http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html

Click on the "Globe with the checkmark" tab, and then remove the check in the box next to Notify Me when an update is available.   You can then manually check for updates by going to this page -- http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/   You can tweak Flash Player even more by calling up the program from your Windows Task Manager screen.

HTH,

Ortho_Fan

W
why2processesAuthor
Participant
June 10, 2012

I suppose I can live with seeing the running processes, that's not the major issue. It's Adobe taking focus away from the browser window.. making it a shaded out inactive window, when it actually was active, that disturbs and annoys me. I do not consider this to be a 'crash' as the only thing that ceases to function is active window commands such as scrolling. I have to click the window again to make it active, which I shouldn't have to do when I'm running Firefox full screen to begin with. Adobe is in effect 'popping up' in front of the active window, although it's invisible.

I did check for crashes and found 5 in the last two days since I installed the flash update. So far two of them have been the same type of thing (ID: 25347551-0f9d-43de-9875-4e69a2120610

Signature: LdrShutdownProcess) and while I don't see specific mention of Adobe or flash in these reports, they do mention this 'related bug':

747683 NEW  [adbe 3172259] Crash Report [@ LdrShutdownProcess ] with Flash 11.3 "Protected Mode for Firefox"

As for disabling checking for updates, yes I'm aware of that after the fact. However I was raised that it's proper to ask permission BEFORE doing something, not sneak around like that.

A
Anonymous
June 11, 2012

Same thing happening with me. When Flash is running in Protected Mode, the first time I go to page with Flash content, the browser looses focus. I'm also getting these silent crash reports as well pointing to that same related bug. While I'm in the browser, videos and everything play fine.  Windows 7 Pro 64bit here.

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