Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems

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  • Revision id: 15502
  • Created:
  • Creator: scoobidiver
  • Comment: added section about Flash HW accel., troubleshooting sections sorted by commonness, removed duplicated keywords
  • Reviewed: Yes
  • Reviewed:
  • Reviewed by: AliceWyman
  • Is approved? Yes
  • Is current revision? No
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The Adobe Flash Player browser plugin lets you view video and animated content in Firefox.

Note: The Firefox Software Update feature does not update installed plugins. See the Adobe Security bulletins and advisories page for information about security and stability issues affecting Adobe Flash Player and other Adobe products.

Testing Flash

Visit Adobe's Test Page to see if the Flash plugin is installed and working properly. If it tells you that Flash is not installed, install Flash using the instructions at Install the Flash plugin to view videos, animations and games.


Updating Flash

To check if your installation of Flash is up to date, visit Mozilla's Plugin Check page. If it says that Flash needs to be updated, install the latest version manually.

  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
    Caution: Adobe's download page may include a checkbox for optional software (such as Google Chrome or McAfee Security Scan) that is selected by default. If you do not clear the checkbox before downloading, that software will be installed on your computer when you open the Flash installer.
  2. When the download has finished, close Firefox. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  3. Open the Flash installer file you downloaded and follow the instructions.
Note: If you are having problems with the Flash installer from Adobe's download page, you can use this Flash Player installer link to directly download the full installer.
  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
  2. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  3. Open the file you downloaded (i.e. install_flash_player_osx_intel.dmg).
  4. In the Finder, open the Install Adobe Flash Player.app to run the installer, then follow the installer's instructions.
  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page.
  2. When prompted, save the file (i.e. install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz).
  3. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  4. Open a Terminal window (in Gnome, click on the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then select Terminal.)
  5. In the Terminal window, change to the directory where you saved the file you downloaded (e.g. cd /home/user/Downloads).
  6. Extract libflashplayer.so from the file you downloaded with the command tar -zxvf install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz.
  7. As the super user, copy the extracted file, libflashplayer.so, to your Firefox installation directory's plugins sub-directory. For example, if Firefox is installed in /usr/lib/mozilla, use the command sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and then enter your super user password when prompted.

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Uninstalling Flash

For instructions on uninstalling Flash, see How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player at Adobe.com.


Troubleshooting

Playing Flash videos makes Firefox hang

Flash hardware acceleration may cause this problem. To disable HW acceleration in Flash:

  1. Make sure you are using the latest version of Flash. To check your version, see Adobe's About page.
  2. Navigate to a page that shows a Flash video.
  3. Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click on the video player and click Settings... in the context menu. The Adobe Flash Player Settings screen will open.
  4. Click on the icon at the bottom-left of the Adobe Flash Player Settings window to open the Display panel.
  5. Remove the check mark from Enable hardware acceleration.

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  6. Click Close to close the Adobe Flash Player Settings Window.

Cannot view full screen Flash videos

See Flash videos won't play full screen.

Flash-based video or audio does not play or stops after a few seconds

See Fix common audio and video issues.

Flash does not work properly and/or will not update

If Flash content does not work, acts strangely, or causes errors, or if you see a notice that you need to update Flash (e.g., at Mozilla's Plugin Check) even after installing the latest Flash version, see Flash does not work properly or will not update.

The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed

If you see this message instead of Flash content in Firefox 3.6.4 or above, see Adobe Flash plugin has crashed - Prevent it from happening again.

Firefox crashes when viewing YouTube videos

If Firefox crashes when viewing YouTube videos or other Flash content in Firefox 3.6.3 or below, see Firefox crashes when viewing Youtube videos.

Pages that use the Flash plugin crash on Mac

See Pages that use the Flash plugin crash on Mac.

Flash does not work in Firefox 4

On Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard", Firefox runs in 64-bit mode by default and requires at least Flash 10.1 for Flash to work. If you have an older version of Flash installed, you should update Flash to the latest version.

Flash works in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox

There are two different types of Flash Players: An ActiveX version for Internet Explorer and a plugin version for Firefox and other browsers. If you want Flash to work in Firefox you must install the plugin version, as explained above.

Flash content shows as question mark

See Flash content shows as question mark.




Based on information from Flash (mozillaZine KB)