Flash9d.ocx Registry Error

[Allen_M]

Ever since upgrading to the latest Flash player (9.0.115.0) there are references in the System Registry to Flash9d.ocx. I use Norton Systemworks Premier to monitor my registry and this error refuses to go away - the error basically states that Flash9d.ocx cannot be found. AND unlike most registry problems which Norton is able to fix, there is some strange problem where Norton cannot delete this offending key from the registry. When I do a manual search in the registry I find TWO hits for flash9d.ocx and I cannot delete them manually either!

Now I know from research that I've done that the current version of Flash player changed the name to "Flash9e.ocx" and sure enough I find SEVERAL hits for this file in the registry (more than I find with flash9d.ocx).

It is clear to me that the flash player UPGRADE is NOT cleaning the registry of prior entries correctly and this is one thing that upsets me about a LOT of software that you uninstall - most simply do NOT clean ALL of the entries from the Registry!

I am a software developer myself so I know this to be a bug in Adobe's upgrade program but it appears that they do NOT offer any support whatsoever for "free" software to address something like this which they NEED TO RESOLVE. Granted this error does not adversely affect Windows operations per se but it IS a real problem and over time software leaving these kinds of entries in the Registry WILL cause problems at some point.

I have used Adobe's own tool for REMOVING Flash Player and even that option does NOT remove these offending registry keys.

It might be helpful if others will search their registries for "flash9d.ocx" because the more people that complain about this the more likely they will FIX this issue.

I have found through Knowledge base searches that Adobe now changes the name of this OCX file with every upgrade so THEY NEED TO CLEAN REFERENCES TO THE OLD NAME FROM THE REGISTRY during upgrade.

Sorry to be so long winded but this kind of problem is so avoidable if software vendors would just fully test their software.

Thanks so much
Allen

[Guest]

I have similar problem - can't get rid of registry reference to Flash9.ocx - been struggling for several days with Adobe tech support with no success.
For now, I have just uninstalled Flash Player and not reinstalled (but of coruse the registry reference remains).
Did you find a solution?? I'd sure hate to have to re-install my whole system to get rid of this

[Allen_M]

No I'm sorry to say I have not gotten anything from them on this. It appears that Adobe just wants to totally ignore this issue.

Being a software engineer I was able to manually fix the registry but I can't just put the procedure here as the system registry is very dangerous to mess around with if you are not familiar with it. A simple mistake there could cause your system to become unbootable in worst case.

Even though Adobe should fix this problem, by the same token it is NOT serious enough to warrant reinstalling your whole system - I would seriously recommend that you NOT do that for this one issue. In and of itself the error is harmless enough and won't impact your system functionally. It more becomes a problem over time because old references which are no longer used do build up over time and "eventually" can slow the system down, etc. But certainly not just from one entry like this.

Understand too that Adobe is NOT the only one which is guilty of leaving old/unused registry keys lying around when you upgrade or uninstall an application - most companies in fact are guilty of this sadly enough. This is one thing I have tried to PUSH Microsoft into doing something about but they don't want to seem to get involved for whatever reason.

What makes THIS issue more serious is that utilities like Norton SystemWorks and many others that scan the registry for errors are able to DETECT this problem but due to registry key permissions the utility is NOT able to fix it automatically whereas most errors can be corrected. This makes Adobe's issue more serious because your being constantly reminded by the utility that you have a REGISTRY ERROR every time you run a scan which is incredibly annoying!


The reality is that Microsoft could solve this ENTIRE problem by simply making this a condition of CERTIFICATION. E.g., if you (meaning software vendor) want MS certification then you MUST clean up all appropriate registry keys upon uninstall or upgrade. This ONE simple rule would solve 95% of these issues globally because the reality is that ALL software vendors desire to have MS certification because it helps SELL their product.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I would highly recommend that everyone viewing this topic PLEASE LOG A BUG with Adobe at the following link:
https://bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer/. You will probably have to create another user account if you have not already done so - it appears that the user account that you logged on with to post in this forum is no longer recognized at the above link. I just had to create another one myself.

The point is that if as many people as possible log a FORMAL bug, sooner or later the sheer volume of bugs will get big enough that they will HAVE to listen and do something about this.

I consider this a really sad thing to have to recommend this but it is apparent to me that they do NOT care about customer service. I logged a bug in the past and they never even had the courtesy to respond let alone do anything about it.

I am working with a guy from Microsoft Research team on a completely non-related issue this weekend. I am going to mention this to him and see if he can give me some contact information so that MS themselves can put some pressure on Adobe to FIX this issue.

So seriously folks, PLEASE LOG A BUG with Adobe. It's quite obvious to me that they will NEVER fix this problem until we (as in the end user) make it MORE painful to ignore than to fix. Trust me when the volume of reports on this issue get high enough they will not have a choice but to fix this annoying problem!

[Guest]

Thanks for your attention and concern. In my case my computer Hangs frequently (like several times a day) unless I leave Flash Player uninstalled. (i.e. even if I run uninstaller and then install again, I get frequent Hangs). I have tried running uninstaller and just leaving it uninstalled and my computer has not Hung since. Yes, I know that one registry garbage entry shouldn't be causing this ... but as far as I can tell, it is. I'd sure like to be able to reinstall Flash Player because there are some sites using it that I want to use (for instance one site that I went to today to book a hotel room)
YES, to all you other folks out there, please take the time to let Adobe know if you are having this problem. I'm not sure if my formal support dialogue with Adobe counts as "reporting a bug", will check into bug-reporting process to find out.

[Guest]

OK - I found the BUG reporting site and submitted.
I also have tried to edit my registry, got so far as to look at the permissions, but it looked like "Full Control" was assigned to everything other than a xxx/Users account, which was Read only. But, I only have one User on my machine (double checked by trying to switch users ... thought maybe the xxx/Administrator would be there as a separate User ... not)
So, I couldn't even figure out what I was supposed to change.
I had been totally unwilling to edit the registry while my computer kept hanging out ... decided today I'd try it now that it hasn't hung in over a day (since I left FlashPlayer uninstalled).

[Marimight]

what was it???

[Guest]

BUG report :
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

in case they move it, the way I found it was to use the search box for the adobe website, searched for "bug report"

Good, I'm hoping that you're asking because you too will go out there and fill in a report. It has been waaay too long for this problem still be there. Thanks

[CHAOS__nc_]

Why don't you just use registry mechanic again?

[Allen_M]

I know NSW Premier 2008 is NOT able to write to the registry for this one error in particular - there may be some registry cleaners out there that can - don't know.

But the better question is why doesn't Adobe fix this OBVIOIUS bug? They just don't seem to care that they are leaving references to a NO LONGER used file in the registry - that is simply WRONG!

I will be talking to someone from Microsoft Research team in the morning on a non-related issue and I will discuss this with him also. I SERIOUSLY want MS to start putting pressure on them to fix this bug and I'm going to keep pushing MS on the more "global" issue that proper cleaning of the registry keys by 3rd party software vendors absolutely SHOULD be enforced before MS will put their "seal of approval" on the software!

To me this is such a no-brainer - MS absolutely has a right to do this, after all they certify the software as being certified for Windows X. They are NOT compelled to grant this certification if the software vendor does not properly clean up their registry keys when you upgrade/uninstall the program!

It really gets me, MS has controls over so many other things before they grant certification - even in some cases where in my opinion they have no legitimate reason to do so. YET, on something like this that they know good and well can functionally impact the system over time they REFUSE to do anything about it. It's pretty obvious that MS does not put their priorities in the right places sometimes!

Ok, I'll get off my soap-box for now. 🙂

[Allen_M]

DyeAnnB:

Forgot to respond to you in my last reply. Honestly it has been so long since I fixed the registry after the last Flash upgrade I can't remember off-hand exactly what I had to do. But I do recall that it had to do with permissions not just on that one registry key but going further up in the tree and setting permissions appropriately for the parent key + all sub-keys. Again the caution is be "careful" because you really can make your computer unbootable if you make a mistake in the registry. If you are going to do this make absolutely sure you create a manual restore point before you touch anything and to be REALLY cautious it wouldn't hurt to back up your system. By the way, don't know what you use for backups but IMAGING software is always better than file based backups if you want true disaster recovery. File based backups will rarely if ever restore your system in the event of a true catastrophe. Sorry, off topic a bit. :)

Regarding your computer hangs: this sounds like some possible conflict between Flash and something else on your system or some other registry problem or something. You stated that your computer does not hang after you uninstall Flash even with this registry key still there. So this errant registry key is NOT the cause of your computer hangs. Something else is going on. What did Adobe say about this issue? A couple of suggestions here if you decide to install Flash Player again: 1) If your computer still hangs, then boot up into Safe Mode with Network (so you can still use IE). You should be able to get a menu allowing you to select Safe Mode by hitting <F8> shortly after POST and before you get the screen where Windows starts loading. 2) If SAFE mode does not result in hangs try this: If your on XP type 'msconfig' after selecting run then hit <Return>. If on Vista you can type 'msconfig' in the search box from the start menu. This will bring up "System Configuration". Select the 'Services" tab and click on "Hide all Microsoft services". Now click "Disable all". Go into "Startup" tab and click "Disable all" there as well. After this you will have to reboot your PC. Test again and see if your computer hangs still occurs. If this is good then you have a likely conflict between Flash player and something else which loads at startup. At this point you could start re-enabling things in Service and Startup tab a few at a time until you find the one which causes the conflict. At least at that point you would have narrowed down the source of the conflict which is a big part of the battle to find an ultimate solution to the problem.

Let me know how it goes.

[Guest]

Allen M - just realized I never responded to your detailed and well-written suggestions. I never had to follow them, because the problem "went away" after all the things I was trying. Of course, I remain frustrated because I never was actually able to identify exactly which issue caused the problem even though I carefully documented each step. One reason is that there seem to be multiple problems. Even now I have what appears to be a random failure causing system hang (but doesn't seem related to Adobe so won't get into it here, has to do with inconsistent account specified for Upload Manager Service, and it only happens every day or two - I'll work on that "later").
But, thank you very much; I have saved your reply because there is such good information there for troubleshooting in general.

[phicoolbreeze]

You should be able to solve your problem with a decent registry cleaner.

[Allen_M]

I use Norton Systemworks Premier 2008 and it has what I consider to be a good registry cleaner and it was not able to solve it the last time I did a Flash upgrade. Even if it were able to clean it really does not change the fact that Adobe has a responsibility to fix their bug and they really could seem to care less. I think we should continue to put pressure on them until they wake up and do their job.

DyeAnne: You are welcome and thank you for the kind words.

[Big_T_the_Legend]

I have tried many registry repair systems and have eventualy found one that works... TuneUp Utilities 2008, all registry files are now correct so hopefully this will work and I shall keep you all posted. Chin up folks

[Yzeguy]

Let me help you fix this problem easily

Download and Install UNLOCKER 1.8.7 from

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/#download

Right click each file in explorer -> Unlocker (Magic Wand) Icon

Select [Delete] from the drop down menu.

Done.

Enjoy!