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Anonymous
August 4, 2012
Question

Flash videos all of a sudden stop playing after a few seconds

  • August 4, 2012
  • 14 replies
  • 230469 views

Hello Adobe Community,

As of this morning I have been unable to play flash videos, through youtube for example, as they stop playing after a few seconds. This seems to be random as in 2-3 seconds, 5 seconds, or up to 11. Not sure why it is this morning that I am having issues and I can't explain it. It's not just Youtube either.

I have tried resetting the router, checking to make sure it's on it's latest firmware (it is), disabling hardware exceleration, and other things. Do you guys have any suggestions? This happened on another computer of mine at work and I thought i fixed the problem there by disabling hardware excelleration.

Thanks for your help!

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    14 replies

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    waynec444
    Participant
    March 23, 2014

    The problem is obviously with Flash. But I have a problem with videos on other sites, not YouTube.

    A video will play for a few minutes, up to 20 minutes or so, then go into an endless buffering mode (with the circle). Then eventually Flash crashes.

    With some videos I have to restart twice to watch a 30 minute video.

    Happens in Firefox, Safari for Windows, Opera, IE (ugh of a browser), Chrome. All the same.

    With live video, it keeps going into buffering every minute or so, or the audio constantly cuts out for a split second every few seconds or less.

    Have tried ALL the supposed fixes without success.

    Cannot someone come out with a superior player? Adobe obviously does not care to (or cannot) fix this. I suspect it is both. Flash needs to go.

    W
    waynec444
    Participant
    March 23, 2014

    Oh yeah, another problem.

    Video and audio do not keep in sync. It starts out fine, then over time the audio and video become increasingly out of sync. Ugh!

    A
    Anonymous
    February 11, 2014

    There is no doubt that this problem has been around for a long time. However I never really took much notice as to what may be causing this issue. There have been many reasons put forward as to the possible cause but none seem to be very effective. You would think that Adobe would have an answer/resolution...! None the less I now have to find a resolution as we are deploying many new desktop to one of our clients and were are using the new Intel Next Unit Computer (Intel NUC) which has 3 * USB ports, HDMI port, 2 * Mini display ports, Ethernet.

    Everything was working fine, even Flash was working, but what we discovered that Flash works fine when there was a USB head set plugged in and the problem only surfaced when we deployed the machines without the head set.

    After much head scratching we realized that without the head set plugged in there is no "Audio playback device" installed. So we tested the scenario that if there is no "Audio Playback Device" or if the only available audio device is disabled on several different types of hardware, then Flash will run for about 5-7seconds and display the message "An error occurred, please try again later. Learn More" on a black and white snowy background.

    But to confuse the issue, we would remote into the test computers with an RDP client (MSTSC) and this would install a "Remote audio" device and Flash would play fine and the audio would be redirected to the workstation from which the RDP session was running.

    This just reinforced the fact that if there is no audio playback device available, Flash will stop running after 5-7 seconds.

    The resolution to this issue is to install a virtual (software) sound card or audio cable. This will create an audio playback device that allows Flash to work correctly.

    For those of you who do have an audio device installed, the same issue may arise due to a compatibility issue, so a virtual/software audio device may resolve your issue.

    This solution would also get around those devices like servers that need flash, but do not have a built in audio playback device.

    Question for Adobe - Why is the player unable to play flash content if there is no audio playback device available?

    Apologies for the loooong post.

    W
    weavtastic
    Participant
    March 23, 2014

    Thank you so much for your solution, Groots. I couldn't figure out a way to fix this problem for the life of me, but who knew it would be something as simple as plugging in headphones. I haven't had my speakers hooked up for a while and did not consider that it could have anything to do with my youtube problem. I would like to point out though that I was only having the problem on youtube. All other flash video sites that I tried worked fine. On youtube the video would skip forward after 2 seconds in a playlist. If it was not a playlist, after 2 seconds I would get a background like old tv static and a message that says "Video not available. Click here to read more." or something similar. None of their solutions did anything and nothing else I've been able to find on google helped either. Thanks again, Groots!

    M
    Magic_Colin
    Participant
    August 10, 2012

    Not sure if anyone else had found the answer, but after a little tinkering, i found that in Chrome (i assume the same can be done with Firefox), type chrome:plugins in the address bar, expand the options for plugins at the top (its says Plugins followed by the number you have installed in brackets), find version 11.3.31.225 and disable. Worked like a charm for me.

    Now to figure out how to role this out to hundreds of users in a corporate enviroment with either GPO or reg hack...

    A
    Anonymous
    August 10, 2012

    Also, Magic Colin, if you disable version 11.3.31.225, you will pestered at every site using Flash: Adobe Flash Player is blocked bcause it is out of date. Update Plugin. 

    Clicking on THAT leads you to this .....

    If you are using the Google Chrome browser, Adobe® Flash® Player is built-in but has been disabled. To enable Flash Player, follow the steps in this TechNote


    To learn more about the enhanced support for Flash Player in Chrome, including information for developers, see this TechNote.

    Thus, back to sqaure one.

    B
    Balero98
    Participant
    November 5, 2013

    EDIT Oct 20 2013. Nup , still does it - seems to be intermittent now!

    EDIT Oct 17 2013 - : I have updated Flash to V 11.9, and the problem appears to have been resolved!

    BUMP:

    Also striking this problem on both my PCs (Windows 7 32 and 64 bit). Youtube videos start playing then stop after 10-15 seconds. Sound is OK. Worse still, all access to the www is blocked until a reboot is done, though ping and DNS are OK.

    Experienced with FF21 & 24 and IE9.

    Yes, I have latest Flash everything! Tried the workaround from the previous poster.

    I have also just reinstalled Windows from scratch on one PC (for other reasons), and the problem is still the same.

    ANNOYING!


    I think it's outlandish that this thread was started over a year ago and this problem still persists. We spend way too much money on Adobe products to be ignored. Has anyone found a solid and permanent solution to this, since there's zero help coming from Adobe?

      S
      Sigma6987
      Participant
      August 4, 2012

      I have a similiar problem as of yesterday or the day before. I can only watch SOME videos on youtube. Audio will only play out of right side of headset with stereo mode on while attempting to watch these videos, and surround sound mode is obnoxious. Pandora either doesn't play and keeps skipping to new tracks or only plays out of the right side of my headset. And this a month after I first fixed my sound problems with flash. Except the fix doesn't work for me this time around.

      If you're using chrome, try typing "chrome://plugins" in your address bar without the quotations. Disable flash there and then enable it. It worked for me last month.

      A
      Anonymous
      August 5, 2012

      Thanks for the advice Sigma but that unfortunately did not work. I definitely tried with no success

      A
      Anonymous
      August 7, 2012

      So after further research into my issue it appears that it appears to be Chrome that is having the issue with Flash. I downloaded Firefox and have been using that for the past few days without issue playing flash videos. Even tried reinstalling Chrome with no success. So is there anyway to get Flash to work with Chrome?

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