What have you tried so far?

This is some standard guidance that addresses the most common issues with the Flash Player plugin. I'm sure you've seen some of it before, but just in case:

(1) If you have any recorders/downloaders that interact with Flash media make sure they are as up-to-date as possible, or disable them temporarily.

(2) Disable hardware graphics acceleration in Firefox and in Flash

(A) In Firefox, un-check the box here and restart:

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced > General > "Use hardware acceleration when available"

(B) In Flash, see this support article from Adobe: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html#main_Solve_video_playback_issues

(3) Disable protected mode (Windows Vista and higher)

See this support article from Adobe under the heading "Last Resort": Adobe Forums: How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?

Any luck?

Dear jscher2000

I am a novice computer person and have done some of the things you now mention, i.e. 2 (a) untick "use hardware acceleration when available"

I don now tunderstand what you mean by disable protected mode in Windows Vista and higher - I have Windows 7 on my computer.

I am not a computer expert but I hope that by doing 2(a) it may solve the problem.

I have closed off Firfeox and reloaded it as the instuction told me to do.

Thank you for your help. Firefox is so great but this problem has been annoying me for ages.

Thanks

Anthony

Hi Anthony, the protected mode feature of the Flash Player plugin is active on Windows 7. It is one of the more challenging things to deactivate because you need to create or edit a file in a protected location that Microsoft makes hard to change. So try the other things first and come back to this one if needed.

Dear jscher2000

Thanks so much. I will keep you informed how things go. But if I need to deactivate the protected mode feature and you say it is challenging, then I am not the man as it would be beyond me. I was lucky to be able to do 2(A).

Again I thank you and I will keep you informed.

Regards and thanks, Anthony

@avwood

I made an automated script to disable flash player protected mode here:

http://firefoxcrash.blogspot.com/2013/12/disable-protected-mode-in-adobe-flash.html

You can read my blog, i also created a step by step walk though video that thoroughly explains how to disable protective mode the easy way. That is also on my blog.

Best Regards

The Mozilla Support article is here: Adobe Flash plugin has crashed - Prevent it from happening again

Detailed manual instructions to disable or re-enable Flash protected mode are here, if the other suggested solutions don't help:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Disabling_Protected_Mode_in_Flash_11.3 (applies for Flash 11.3 and above)

adobe flash is enabled on facebook.com how can i fix thios i have tried everything and nothing works what i have tried

Hi karenhurt44, could you describe the problem you're having in more detail?

If you are getting a large blank area in the page where you normally expect to find a Flash game, it could be due to "mixed content": the embedding of non-secure content in a secure page. If you see a gray "shield" icon in the address bar to the left of the address, please check out this article for more information: Mixed content blocking in Firefox

I too have this frustrating problem. I downgraded my flash and that worked great for most videos (ie- youtube). But some videos and sites need an upgraded flash, which of course crashes in firefox. I've updated everything, removed all add-ons, disabled hardware acceleration, and all the KB suggestions.

If I close firefox and re-open it, the same tab/video will work. Later that day its crashing again on the same video/tab. Yet, all these video's, sites, work fine in IE with the same version of flash.

Very frustrating and while I've been a long time fan of FF, I think this will be the last straw. Time to give Torch a try or Chrome maybe.

Hi Raf99, did you try disabling the protected mode feature of the Flash Player plugin? This would be for Windows 8, 7, or Vista, not relevant to XP.

The following pages provide different ways to disable it:

• Adobe support article under the heading "Last Resort": Adobe Forums: How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?

• Manual steps: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/968190?page=5#answer-509209

• Batch file to automate the manual steps: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/982093#answer-518078

Alright Jscher2000. Can you tell me why one would have to use protected mode?

Hi Raf99, the protected mode feature splits up Flash media into multiple processes with reduced privileges to make it harder for malicious media to attack Windows. Great in theory, but unfortunately buggy in practice.

Well that seemed to solve my issue although I tried this before and it did not. Kind of ironic that the "buggy in practice" method works and the normal method is buggy.

This from Halofromsue copied here:

Okay like I said in my last post, Yesterday I disabled Shockwave in Plugins. However, as you all know, you need shockwave and flash for most things....so I went back and set it to say "ASK TO ACTIVATE" so when a web page loads and needs it, it will ask me and then I'll either say "yes" or "no" and that seems to be working. So far, after three hours it hasn't crashed and shockwave/flash all work fine when it needs it.

From me: It works!

That could certainly help with some FlashPlayer related issues.

.... managing plugins and set the flash player to "ask to activate". ....

It is a relatively new feature of Firefox and likely to help because FlashPlayer is not running as often in as many tabs.

• see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_related_to_plugins#Click_to_Play_in_Mozilla_browser_versions_23_and_above

It certainly is not a cure all solution. I am not sure Halofromsue even got to the bottom of the specific problem causing Crashes. A user.js file was reported to exist and that may have been a symptom of further issues possibly malware related.

The original thread was apparently

• MARCH 18, 2014 NEW UPDATE CRASHES /questions/990511

For general advice see these articles

• Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems
• This article is worth reading, advice may be applicable to later Firefox versions also Flash 11.3 doesn't load video in Firefox

Until there is an update fix from firefox or adobe, this work-around gives the user the ability to function. And really, what ever works in the interim beats frustration.