Flash installer freaking out since Mojave update - flash not working properly

[atremp]

• Operating system version - Mac OS 10.14 Mojave
• Web browser and version Safari 12.0 and Firefox
• Flash Player version​  - 31.0.0.122

After updating to Mojave yesterday, Flash has been going crazy and has broken at least one app that I rely daily on for teaching. The installer keeps popping up hourly or so, telling me to update. When I go to update, it is always the same version I have - listed above. When I finish the install, and use the tool for checking my version, Adobe says I am up to date.

I rely on an app called Camtwist which is a video switcher, for my online classroom in Safari. The app works just fine, it can access the camera just fine outside of Safari, but then when I enter my classroom (which runs on Flash), it cannot communicate with the camera app any longer.

When I use the app with Chrome - which uses a different type of Flash - I am able to access the camera. Unfortunately this is not an option as Chrome is not compatible with my online classroom.

The developer of CamTwist examined my logs and my system and determined that this is a problem with Flash and Apple states this may be a problem with how Flash is communicating with their new graphics - Metal.  They changed from Open GL to Metal with the Mojave update.

Any insight that could be provided would be extremely helpful. I have run the gamut of troubleshooting, installing, uninstalling, rebooting, and changing settings with both Apple and with the software developer and the problem seems to lie with the Flash version that Safari runs on.

I tried to find a support phone or chat as I do pay monthly for CC as well, but for a  Flash issue my only option seems to be this forum.

Thank you!

[jeromiec83223024]

Let me recap and make sure I understand:

• You upgraded to MacOS 10.14 and now experience problematic behavior with regard to Flash Player
• You now get a regular, erroneous prompt to update
  • It's unclear to me if this prompt is coming from pages you visit (in which case, you may need to take some steps to re-enable Flash Player in Safari), or if this prompt is coming from our automatic updater, which has been set to a non-default setting of "Always Notify".
  • It's also possible that you have more than one variant of Flash Player installed (each major browser vendor provides a plug-in interface, to which Flash Player needs to conform), and while the one that Safari is using is updated, the other one (probably Chrome or Opera) also needs an update. 
    • If that's the case, you can go to System Preference > Flash Player > Updates and do Check Now or Install Now as appropriate. 
  • It's also possible this has something to do with mangled filesystem permissions, which probably happened during the upgrade.  The updater needs to be able to read and write to a file on the machine, which tells it when the last time it checked for an update was.  It's supposed to check daily.  That it's checking hourly hints to me that we might not be able to store or retrieve that timestamp, which is why the updater doesn't know that you were prompted recently. Uninstalling and Reinstalling Flash Player is probably the easiest approach to fixing that.  If uninstalling fails, that would support the theory, but we'll probably need to do some manual stuff to correct the underlying problem (and/or it's a good time to get your local IT person involved).
• Flash Player no longer detects your camera
  • Is this the built-in webcam on your mac, an external camera, or a "virtual" camera that CamTwist creates?  CamTwist isn't our software, and their marketing is a little hand-wavy.  I lost interest in trying to decipher it after the tenth marketing buzzword.
  • I'm pretty the CamTwist support folks were either talking about dropping their own support for OpenGL (it's still supported in MacOS and used in Flash for the foreseeable future), or they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.  If it's a virtual camera like I'm thinking, and they need help getting it working with Flash and MacOS 10.14, please forward this to them.  They can shoot me a PM (just click my username), and I'd be happy to get an engineering conversation going with the appropriate parties.
  • If this is the built-in or external USB camera, have you restarted the computer since the symptoms started?  If not, that was  probably step one.  Actually power it down, give it 15-30 seconds, just so that any hardware that might be freaked out can fully discharge, and then restart it. 
  • You might actually try resetting the Mac's NVRAM.  It's non-destructive and not a bad thing to do after an OS upgrade.  The machine caches some information about the machine's hardware in order to speed up boot times.  Clearing it will force the OS to refresh all of that information.  It's worth a shot, and occasionally solves some of the more mysterious hardware problems like this.

[jeromiec83223024]

Almost forgot, here are the links for the uninstaller and the installer.

Uninstall Flash Player - Mac:

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

Install Flash Player:

https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer