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A
Anonymous
March 20, 2012
Question

Mac lion 10.7.3 Flash Streaming Stuttering

  • March 20, 2012
  • 2 replies
  • 10645 views

System

Mac Mini

OS Version: 10.7.3

2.3 GHZ  i5

8gb ram

firefox 11

Flash player version: 11.1.102.64

I subscribe to CBS College "All Access" to watch live streaming video of my schools athletics. After upgrading to Lion the video began to stutter. I have another mac mini that is a core 2 duo with lion installed (same versions flash and firefox) and the problem exists as well. I also have a MacBook pro using the same version of Firefox and flash player version running Snow Leopard and the video runs fine. Any ideas?

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    2 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    August 12, 2012

    SOLUTION TO FLASH VIDEO NOT RUNNING SMOOTHLY ON MACS

    It seems that some versions of the Flash player cause stuttering / juddering / freezing of video on a Mac, but other versions of the Flash player are compelely fine.

    By video stuttering / juddering / freezing, I mean when you play the Flash video, it freezes for up to a second between image updates, making the video look like a series of still shots displayed in succession, rather than a smoothly-flowing video.

    SOLUTION: I find version Flash version 11.1.102.63 (174 MB) works very well on my Mac: all Flash video runs smoothly. (I have a Mac Mini).

    You can download this Flash version (and various other archived versions of the Flash player) at the Abobe website here (see under the section "Release and Content Debugger archives"):

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

    Each archived version on this page contains installers for Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris. I installed the 32 bit version (the Mac installer file name is: flashplayer11_1r102_63_mac.dmg).

    I found that the lastest version of flash, currently 11.3.300.268, causes video stuttering. So it seems that in this newer version, the stuttering problem is back, even though, as I say, version 11.1.102.63 is fine. Originally I had the stuttering video problem with one of the version 10 flash installations.

    chris.campbell
    chris.campbell
    Legend
    August 14, 2012

    Thanks for posting the solution that worked for you.  I'd like to encourage you to help others out by filing a bug report with your system specs and the workaround with 11.1.102.63, I suspect that our multi threaded video change in 11.2 might have introduced a problem specific to your system.   Full details and an explanation on how to enter the bug can be found here:

    http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html

    A
    Anonymous
    August 14, 2012

    OK, Chris, I will fill out the bug report.

    But what of the video stuttering that occured on my system in version 10 of the the Flash player? I cannot remember which specific release of version 10 caused video stuttering; but this stuttering is certainly it is not a new problem; it existed before.

    Though perhaps the new multi threaded video change you mentioned is a new cause that precipiates the same proplem?

    chris.campbell
    chris.campbell
    Legend
    March 22, 2012

    Can you describe the stuttering?  Do you feel like it's pausing due to the buffer being lost and playback starts again once the buffer has been filled?  Usually this type of behavior is network related, but I'm assuming the MacBook Pro is also on the same network so it might be something else.  Have you tried any browser besides Firefox?  Could you give Chrome a try and see if it also reproduces there?

    Thanks,

    Chris

    A
    Anonymous
    March 23, 2012

    The stuttering is very jerky and not a buffering issue. After playing several frames forward (second or two) it will skip backwards a few frames - this continues throughout the broadcast. This only happens on live streams - works fine with any flash content that is not live. I have tried safari and chrome - both are the latest versions same problems. This issue is not network related because I used my MacBook pro (snow leopard) to watch the streaming game with no problems when my Mac mini was having the issue. Both were connected wirelessly. I have another streaming game coming on tomorrow (Friday) any suggestions on what else I can try?

    chris.campbell
    chris.campbell
    Legend
    March 23, 2012

    I guess the first thing I'd try is to do a clean install of the Player to make sure you're starting with a fresh slate.  Pay close attention to the section that describes manually deleting folders so that your Flash settings and cache are reset.

    How do I do a clean install of Flash Player?

    Next, you might want to try temporarily disabling hardware acceleration in Flash.  I don't think this is your issue but it can't hurt to try.

    How do I disable or enable hardware acceleration?

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