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A
Anonymous
March 30, 2017
Answered

Flash Player not working in IE11 with Win10 on some sites, but is fine on most.

  • March 30, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 2160 views

Hi,

Flash Player is not working on some websites, but is fine on most others. I noticed it last night in a forum. The post (and all Quoted Relies) showed only the user's text about what the posted YouTube video was about, but there was a large totally blank space were the video should have been, with no link or video at all. Nothing to click or right-clink on.

I have been away from forums since November of 2105, but never had a problem in this forum back then. However, I was using IE11 in Win7 then. I have since upgraded to Win10. I started up in forums again 2 days ago. I've had some issues with Windows 10 since the Anniversary Updates, but so far, have been able to find resolutions for all them. While researching this problem, I came across a website with an embedded video that had the same issue... absolutely nothing shown in the space where the video should have been. So it's not just that particular forum. Someone finally posted the YouTube link with spaces to be removed (https: // youtu.be / KKkr2pX8IWI) and I was able to watch it. Also, I did not have this issue when I tried the forum using Edge. It has something to do with IE11 and/or Win10.

Google searches and Microsoft searches have been no help this time. I went through the troubleshooting tips on Flash Player Issues | Windows 10 | Internet Explorer with no resolution. I searched the posts here, but the only one I found that related had to do with a black dot where the video should have been. I went through those steps anyway and did all the things listed there, but they did not help. I also did everything listed in Flash Player video playback issues. One suggestion was to run dxdiag.exe and save the log file, so I did that. The NVIDIA website says that I have the latest Driver for my Quadro FX 570 (which is an older card, but works fine for everything else). My system is fully updated with all Windows Updates, including Drivers, and works perfectly otherwise. I tested both HTML5 and non-HTML5, which both worked perfectly. This seems to be website dependent.

The DxDiag.txt file is quite long, but I can copy and paste it if you'd like to see it. Or upload it if there's a way to do that here.

I'm willing to go through any and all troubleshooting help offered.

Thanks in advance,

Craig

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer jeromiec83223024

    The developer console thing isn't going to help you out.  I wouldn't sweat it.

    Flash Player is a built-in component of IE and Edge on Windows 10.  There is nothing separate to download or install.  There is no plug-in interface for the Microsoft browsers in Windows 10, and Flash is baked directly in.  Effectively, we're the last browser plug-in standing.  It's not a scaled back version, but it is a massive rewrite to target those specific configurations.

    It's common practice for web developers to write IE-specific code to get things to work like they should in the rest of the browsers.  Without actually being able to inspect it, I have to assume that the usual pattern holds, and the forums software would need to make changes to get IE working right.  That's not something you're going to accomplish on your end.  That Chrome and Edge both work says to me that when the browser behaves like it's supposed to, the forum software is working as intended.

    1 reply

    jeromiec83223024
    jeromiec83223024
    Inspiring
    April 3, 2017

    My guess is that this is specific to how IE is interpreting the HTML and JavaScript used to embed the Flash content on the page.  The absence of a right-click context menu indicates that we probably weren't instantiated by the browser.

    You might get some clues by looking in the console of the developer tools, but Edge is very focused on behaving just like Chrome when processing content, and IE maintains it's "unique" perspective on the world.  It's present in Win10 primarily to satisfy the needs of Enterprise organizations that have dependencies on IE.  Targeting IE frequently requires specific IE-only code, and it's not surprising that you're seeing the variation in behavior there and not in Edge.

    A
    Anonymous
    April 4, 2017

    Jeromie,

    Thanks for the reply, but this did not help me because I wouldn't know what to look for in "the console of the developer tools." If you can be specific about what to try, how to get there, and what to do, then I'll do those steps. Are these "developer tools" something I need to download and install? I did not see them in Control Panel under Flash Player (32 bit).

    The larger problem seems to be that, in Windows 10, Microsoft has taken away the ability to download and install Adobe Flash Player and Shockwave Player from your available Downloads.  While I don't know this for certain, it seems that they now only include a scaled down version of Shockwave Player called Shockwave Player Object (in Manage add-ons) that is now included in IE, which supplies only the features they have decided to allow. It is my feeling that they have crippled IE (in this case and in other ways) to force people to use Edge instead. I have found workarounds, registry hacks, and/or group policy hacks for all other issues but this one.

    I've tried Edge on several occasions and hated it. I tried Chrome the other day and hated it. I haven't tried other bowsers yet, but I doubt that I will after Chrome. While Edge and Chrome will let me see videos that are posted to forums, I hate the browsers themselves. They don't offer a similar menu bar or a status bar, tab controls cannot be found, and many other common IE settings configurations cannot be found. Plus, the browsers themselves are quite different in other ways. I've been using IE since Windows 95 and I am used to it.  I am familiar with using all its settings and I consistently find it easier to work with than all competing browsers. That's why I have stayed with it for all these years. The big difference these days seems to be Microsoft's newly imposed limitations in IE under Windows 10.

    If you can offer any specific things to try, I would welcome the help.

    Thanks,

    Craig

    jeromiec83223024
    jeromiec83223024Correct answer
    Inspiring
    April 4, 2017

    The developer console thing isn't going to help you out.  I wouldn't sweat it.

    Flash Player is a built-in component of IE and Edge on Windows 10.  There is nothing separate to download or install.  There is no plug-in interface for the Microsoft browsers in Windows 10, and Flash is baked directly in.  Effectively, we're the last browser plug-in standing.  It's not a scaled back version, but it is a massive rewrite to target those specific configurations.

    It's common practice for web developers to write IE-specific code to get things to work like they should in the rest of the browsers.  Without actually being able to inspect it, I have to assume that the usual pattern holds, and the forums software would need to make changes to get IE working right.  That's not something you're going to accomplish on your end.  That Chrome and Edge both work says to me that when the browser behaves like it's supposed to, the forum software is working as intended.

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