Adobe flash player either hangs or crashes in Firefox

[Stingray99]

Adobe flash player either hangs up the web browser Firefox or crashes within Firefox.  This has been occurring for about a year even though Firefox and the adobe flash player have been updated and upgraded many times over the last year.  Multiple crash reports have been sent to either Adobe or Firefox (I am not sure which one actually gets the crash report) but it appears someone knows about this issue since I seem to be getting more pop up boxes from Firefox now when the Windows 7 system seems to hang (no response from mouse when I try to close the Firefox browser window).  The pop up box states that Adobe flash player is not responding or in a loop so when I respond to the pop up window to cancel the task all the flash player displays in all of the open Firefox browser sessions crash.  However, if I use google chrome and the same ESPN videos that use Adobe flash player so far I have not seen the same issue of hangs or crashes.  So, is this a known issue with Adobe flash player and/or Firefox or has it just never been fixed correctly?

Configuration:

Sony VPCF2390X - I7-2760QM - 8 GB - GEForce GT 540M - 1920 X  1200 Resolution

Windows 7 Home  Premium Service Pack 1 -  7.1.13.1088   64-bit

Firefox 23.0.1

Adobe Flash Player 11,8,800,115

Message was edited by: Stingray99

[Carm01]

OK, so i have been tinkering with disabling the Firefox Plugin container where all the plugins are run be drfault.

Yes, it can be done, and I have tested Flash, silverlight, Java, and Adobe PDF and all seem to work just fine. I have been testing for a almost 3 days now and not found any issues with disabling the plugin container.

Here is the article that I found:

http://www.fluxbytes.com/software-tips/how-to-disable-plugin-container-exe/

I would see if creating a new enviromental variable for the current user ( yourself ) as shown in the post above will help.

Once again this will prevent the plugin-container.exe from running all together. So the plugins will run within the broswer not that plugin container that the browser calls when a plugin is needed.

I am hopeing this solves it

Best Regards

[Troudhyl]

Nice try, I successfully disabled the plugin container (firefox directly launched the two FlashPlayerPlugin_11_9_900_170.exe) but from an external link it still crashed.

So it isn't linked to the plugin container...

[Carm01]

How about trying a new windows profile to see if it is a machine profile related issue? That is really that last thing i can think of.

I also made a blog to assist in some flash crashes, as what i have talked about here has been helpful to some.

Anyone can give this a try, i cannot say it will fix everyones issue, but it has for some successsfully:

http://firefoxcrash.blogspot.com/2013/12/firefox-crashes-adobe-flash-player.html

[Salt The Fries]

I know this problem persists in 99.9% of users of Firefox on Windows machines. And I also happen to know that behind the scenes, it is a result of a dispute between Adobe and Firefox, and it pains to see that every tech rep suggests some generic troubleshooting which has nothing to do with the problem at hand. It is quite frankly pathetic. As if having a Windows-based computer and Firefox was SUCH AN EXOTIC combination. Shame on you, Adobe! This problem first occured ever since Flash application is run via two separate processes and there is also a seperate process called plugin-container. Basically the problem is, whenever you open a page containing any elements in Flash, it'd use up 99% of your processor and freeze your system, leaving it unresponsive, until you open up a task manager and kill these flash processes or plugin container. And imagine what happens if you are really fast with computers and can open like 10 tabs within 3 seconds...  ONLY REVERTING TO THE LEGACY VERSION OF ADOBE FLASH SOLVED THE PROBLEM PERMANENTLY. There is simply no other viable solution. And there won't be any, ever.

[C_F_McBlob]

Salt The Fries wrote:

I know this problem persists in 99.9% of users of Firefox on Windows machines. And I also happen to know that behind the scenes, it is a result of a dispute between Adobe and Firefox, and it pains to see that every tech rep suggests some generic troubleshooting which has nothing to do with the problem at hand.

I must  (MUST) be one of the 0.1% then, because Firefox has no problems with Flash Player on my five (5) Windows Machines (XP Professional[SP3], Vista Ultimate[SP2], Win7 Ultimate[SP1], Win8 Home and Win8 Enterprise)

And other than Firefox deploying their own javascript PDF viewer, I'm completely unaware of anything that could even remotely be considered a "dispute" between Firefox and Adobe.

[RankMagic]

What's this "legacy version"? How do I get it? What functionality is lost by going back to what is presumably a much earlier release of Flash?

This has been plaguing me at least as long as this thread's been here and it still is a problem for me.

[Guest]

I'm confused -- what's the difference between Adobe Flash Player and Shockwave Flash?  When my computer hangs and crashes (and this can happen when I'm in Word, Outlook or when I'm simply navigating the web -- the criteria is that I need to be online, I need to have my browser open: things do not hang and crash when I'm simply using Word) -- when my computer hangs and crashes, I get the message: Warning: Unresponsive plugin. Shockwave Flash may be busy or may have stopped responding.  This happens all day long. It's been like this for about four months. I've tried everything that I find at forums. I've got the most current version of the Flash Player installed, I've disabled the Flash Player hardware acceleration, I've uninstalled Real Player just to avoid problems, I've disabled all extensions and enabled them one-by-one to troubleshoot, I've updated Windows components, I've uninstalled Firefox and tried Chrome, I uninstalled Chrome and reinstalled Firefox, I don't know what else to do.

[Guest]

It still happens in Rel 14.0 and 15.0 with XP Pro and Firefox, which I use. So it is inherent in all releases.

[dealmaster00]

If Flash crashes in Firefox for you, but not other browsers, try disabling Flash's Protected Mode for Firefox. I am running Win 8 64bit with latest Firefox and Flash and was encountering this issue. Disabling Protected Mode fixed it for me:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Disabling_Protected_Mode_in_Flash_11.3

(these instructions work fine for Flash 15.x)

[Guest]

I am most appreciative for your email. The fix you recommended, apparently works for me also, as I have been online for sometime now, and have not encountered a single stall, or unresponsive message. Going online for the past month or so has been agonizing to say the least, as I have an older system, and the delays between responses was intolerable, not to mention the time spent in numerous forums, only to come away with no solution.

Thank you, again !.

[Guest]

Just installed the newest version of Adobe Flash Player, 11.8.800.168. ADOBE CRASH. Why can't the developers make this product run? Why do forums keep telling people to check this and that to fix their computer? This is not a problem with my computer. It's a problem with Flash. There are YEARS' WORTH of complaints at different Adobe pages and Firefox pages and Chrome pages. It looks like we're in for YEARS' MORE of a hanging, crashing product that affects internet accessibility. It's the height of irresponsibility that Adobe does nothing about this.

[C_F_McBlob]

TalkBack101 wrote:

Just installed the newest version of Adobe Flash Player, 11.8.800.168. ADOBE CRASH. Why can't the developers make this product run? Why do forums keep telling people to check this and that to fix their computer? This is not a problem with my computer. It's a problem with Flash. There are YEARS' WORTH of complaints at different Adobe pages and Firefox pages and Chrome pages. It looks like we're in for YEARS' MORE of a hanging, crashing product that affects internet accessibility. It's the height of irresponsibility that Adobe does nothing about this.

Because 9999 times out of 10,000 it's SOMETHING ELSE they have installed on their system that is screwing it up and since Adobe DOESN'T run EVERY LAST SOFTWARE COMPANY ON EARTH.... the incompatibility problem ISN'T their responsibility.

There are no less than two dozen browsers that people use with more than half a million plugins from several thousand developers, and god knows how many combinations of c-r-a-p that they put on their computer. Perhaps YOU could come up with ONE plugin that will work in ALL of that, and if you do, you DESERVE to be the number one video plugin maker on earth.

[Guest]

I use Firefox, which is a leading browser, I think we'd say, and I think I had far fewer plug-ins until I updated to the new Adobe Flash Player today.  As for your challenge to come up with a plugin, I'm a poor sucker who's developed nothing more in my lifetime that Word and Excel docs. I'm totally at the mercy of what all software developers throw at the public.  As for crap on my computer, I've tried to get rid of everything I can, crap or not, just in case it could affect Adobe Crash. Do you see anything here that looks suspicious?

Unknown Plugins

Plugin	Status	Action
Microsoft® DRMDRM Netscape Network Object	unknown	Research
Windows Presentation FoundationWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF) plug-in for Mozilla browsers	unknown	Research
Microsoft Office 2010The plug-in allows you to open and edit files using Microsoft Office applications	unknown	Research
DivX VOD Helper Plug-inDivX VOD Helper Plug-in	unknown	Research
npFFApinpFFApi	unknown	Research
DivX Plus Web PlayerDivX Plus Web Player version 2.3.1.51	unknown	Research

These plugins are up to date

Plugin	Status	Action
Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link LibraryNpdsplay dll	3.0.2.629	Up to Date
Java(TM) Platform SE 7 U25Next Generation Java Plug-in 10.25.2 for Mozilla browsers	10.25.2.17	Up to Date
Adobe AcrobatAdobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape 11.0.04	11.0.4.63	Up to Date
Shockwave FlashShockwave Flash 11.8 r800	11.8.800.168	Up to Date

Back to Top

[C_F_McBlob]

The DivX plugins can cause major heartaches with video playback in Firefox. Ever since I discovered VLC media Player, I've had NOTHING to do with DivX or its counterpart XVid. If you download and install VLC, and enalble the Mozilla plugin (during install), you DON'T need the DivX plugins.

[Guest]

I haven't installed this because when I began the download at CNET, I picked up some damned toolbar that I don't see any way of getting rid of.  According to View, Toolbars, it's called "Install Converter Community Toolbar." I've tried Add/Remove Programs, I've done a Search and an Explore looking for this bastard, I've googled looking for help, and I've still got this leech.

[C_F_McBlob]

Remove Video Converter Toolbar

[Guest]

I got rid of the unwanted toolbar, installed the VLC media player and uninstalled all the DivX components I could access. Thank you.  I'm at work on the deepclean.  Thank you.

[Guest]

Sorry, I must insist that abobe software has always been a resource hog from day one.  I do think it's an adobe issue, not everything else.  Every thing else I have installed works fine with everything but adobe stuff.

[Guest]

Is there anyone who has seen this site before -- /http://shockwaveflashcrash.com/  I'm wondering if there's someone with a technical background who can modify this information for a Windows/Firefox environment.  It looks more promising than anything I've seen elsewhere, but there's sometimes no directions given for Firefox. 

[revmrf]

I've had a similar problem for months.  shockwave orflash hangs on the initial [first] media display of, let's say a clip from mlb.com.  Usually, if I wait [sometimes for a few minutes] it frees up and then doesn't hang again.  I've dealt with this issue for months.  I've reset Firefox to no avail. 

[dabidumda146]

I have the same problem. Since the 11.8 r800 update, Flash content brings Firefox to freeze immediately. I can't access Google News or Youtube any more. The only way to get Firefox working again is to disable Flash. I tried disabeling several other Plugins and Extensions, but nothing helped.

[Guest]

I followed the procedures described at http://shockwaveflashcrash.com and they made not one bit of difference.  I also did a clean install of 10.3.183.90, a version thought to be one of the more stable, and again, no difference.  Within 30 seconds of being online this morning Outlook got hung up, as did Firefox, and I was spammed by that message: "Warning: Unresponsive plugin. Shockwave Flash may be busy or may have stopped responding."  

If you go to the Adobe Flash Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/flashplatform?hc_location=timeline , you find out the whole world is having the same kind of problem with the same kind of results when trying fixes.  There don't seem to be any.

[chris.campbell]

Has anyone tried disabling Flash Player's protected mode to see if that makes a difference?  You can find instructions for this procedure at the end of this FAQ:

How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?

If you continue to have problems, the best route to take would be to enter new bug reports and include the data requested in this FAQ:

How do I report a Flash Player crash to Adobe?

[dabidumda146]

The FAQ is mostly dedicated to Windows. I'm running OS X. The bug report site tells me:

We're sorry but we weren't able to process this request due to an unforeseen error.

If there were any code tags, I could paste the latest crash report here.

[Stingray99]

Chris, it seems to me that a few updates back in Flash Player, everytime I got a Flash Player crash in Firefox I would get a pop up box that gave me the option to send a crash report to Adobe (which I always did).  However, either that option was removed from the code in Flash Player or the issues I have encountered lately must be bypassing that code.  This feature seemed a lot easier for us folks who prefer not spending a lot of time on debugging components or sub-components on a pc during their busy day.

Along those same lines, my latest issues with Flash Player have been more with hangs or slow or non-responsive Firefox sessions than crashes.  These hangs appear to be some kind of waiting on a locked resource rather than looping since the  Windows Task manager normally does not show CPU usage greater than 15% on an I7 processor complex.  The Firefox task plugin-container.exe*32 always has "I/O Other" in the millions or tens of millions so my thought is that mechanism may be having a locking mechanism issue.  I noticed that Google chrome does not use the same architecture as Firefox for plug-ins (no plugin-container)  and starts up a lot of chrome.exe *32 tasks (8 or more).  I do not see any session hangs or slow or non-responsive sessions using Google chrome for the same web sites that fail with Firefox but sadly in  the last couple of days I have gotten several shockwave crashes in Google chrome that kill all the flash player boxes in all the Google chrome sessions running at that time.  Also why do all of these tasks indicate running in 32 bit mode on a 64 bit processor?  Doesn't that limit these tasks to only using the first 2 or 3 GB's of storage within the 8 GB's the system has?  Is Windows 7 paging involved in the session hangs or slow downs due to all the tasks running in 32 bit mode?

Finally, I would be very surprised if a developer or QA person or tester could not use the following url "http://espn.go.com/blog/acc"

propogated across multiple sessions of Firefox and/or Google Chrome and not get some of the problems I have mentioned above over a days time of testing.