A plugin (Shockwave Flash) isn't responding.

Report · May 22, 2015

OS & version: Windows 8.1
Web browser & version: Google Chrome version 43.0.2357.65
Flash Player version: 17.0.0.188
Shockwave Flash version: 17.0 r0
Problem:

Shockwave Flash will crash at any given point during the time that I'm using my computer. I don't necessarily have to have a browser open for it to crash. I could be on Skype with nothing else open and Shockwave will still crash; I know it's shockwave because if i open a browser after the crash happens, the message above will show up on pages like Youtube. I know when Skype stops working properly because people will no longer be able to hear me and i won't be able to type on the chat, however I will still be able to hear other people. I could also be playing any game and it will crash. However in this case I won't know until i have to load something like going from the champion select screen to the pre-game loading screen on League of Legends, at that point the client will freeze up.

Solutions I've tried:

I have tried disabling the second flash version that is installed on my computer through Chrome://plugins->Flash(2)->disable. I have tried disabling each one individually, enabling both, and disabling both. I have also tried uninstalling the Shockwave Flash plugin and just leaving the one that Chrome comes with. Restarting my computer is the only way to temporary fix the problem, as there is no way that I have found for the plugin to respond again. I have run registry clean up programs and the system defrag. program the computer comes with. I've made sure that shockwave isn't being blocked by my firewall. I have looked into possible problems with Adblock but that didn't fix it either. Finally I have RESTORED MY COMPUTER TO FACTORY SETTINGS and the problem still persists.

I still have my suspitions that it might be some sort of issue with Adblock interfering with Shockwave but I don't know what it is, as the problem began sometime after I installed Adblock; though I really, really, really hope it's not the case. At this point I'm open to any suggestions as this problem has been driving me insane for the past 5 months+ or so.

Report · Sep 21, 2015

Oh, that's certainly no good. It's probably not going to help then.

If you haven't rebooted since you've started having this problem, start there. If it's still persisting after the reboot, please make sure you have everything up-to-date with Windows Update and Chrome Update (go to Chrome > About Chrome) and make sure you have the latest version running.

Report · Sep 21, 2015

aha! I had restarted Chrome but not rebooted. I've done that now and it's looking good. I managed to get into the picture of the tree and disabled hardware acceleration. Facebook seems to be running ok in Chrome now.

I'm off to test the other browsers.

Report · Sep 21, 2015

Looks like you've cracked it Jeromie, for me at least! Following your advice, I turned off hardware acceleration in Chrome and via the Adobe instructions you posted. It works now in Chrome, Firefox, IE and Edge.

Thank you so much!

Report · Sep 21, 2015

suet81185115‌

That's good news. At least in your instance, this is related to a buggy graphics driver. My hope would be that you get a fixed driver delivered automatically through Windows Update at some point in the future.

We always see an uptick in driver bugs at inflection points like the recent Win10 deployment in the market (writing stable graphics drivers is extremely difficult), and those kinds of stability problems generally shake out as the new platforms mature and the respective engineering teams have the time to work through all of the crash telemetry and fix bugs.

For folks that aren't seeing relief from disabling hardware acceleration, we may want to start splitting your issues out into separate threads to give you more personalized advice.

Report · Sep 21, 2015

Hi Jeromie,

I will test disabling hardware acceleration from the Flash website (I've already tried doing that in Chrome using the settings about two weeks ago, but it made no difference). I've also uninstalled both my audio and graphics drivers and reinstalled them completely using those from the Lenovo website as well. Will get back to you about the results.

Thanks for the help!

Report · Sep 21, 2015

Sane Issue.

Yoga 13 Model Number 20175. I upgraded to Windows 10. I have installed all available updated drivers from Lenovo. I have uninstalled Shockwave player, and am only using player provided by chome. I have tried acceleration recommendations from above. Everything is fine after restart for variable amount of time, but once I get that shockwave message in chrome I have to restart computer or else all browsers start crashing.