Clear your cookies also and make sure that your firefox and your addons are up to date.

Did all that - even made sure flash player and javascript were up to date. nothing helps

Try the Firefox Safe Mode to see how it works there. The Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

• You can open the Firefox 4.0+ Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you use the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• Or use the Help menu item and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Don't select anything right now, just use "Continue in Safe Mode." To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before using the Firefox shortcut (without the Shift key) to open it again. If it is good in the Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one.

Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.

Thanks for your time in helping me try to figure this out. Unfortunately, even in safe mode it isn't working....ARGH!!!

You can check for problems caused by a recent Flash 11.3 update and possibly downgrade to Flash 11.2 or 10.3.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/flash-113-doesnt-load-video-firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/flash-113-crashes

• http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-firefox.html