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I have firefox I put in flash player17.0.0 and I can not see vidios on utube or play games on facebook or zynga. Why not? What do I do?

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I was playing farm ville 2 on Zynga when I was prompted to update my flash player, so I did. When I did, I went back to play my game and the picture would not come back. The site came up, but the game would not fully load so that I could play the game. I went to You tube to play some music videos and the videos would not play. I went to my WWE network to see if I could watch it and I could not watch anything there either. I can not even play any of my face book games. I have loaded and unloaded flash player at least a dozen times or more and I still can not get anywhere. I also can not reload any older version of flash player. What do I do?

I was playing farm ville 2 on Zynga when I was prompted to update my flash player, so I did. When I did, I went back to play my game and the picture would not come back. The site came up, but the game would not fully load so that I could play the game. I went to You tube to play some music videos and the videos would not play. I went to my WWE network to see if I could watch it and I could not watch anything there either. I can not even play any of my face book games. I have loaded and unloaded flash player at least a dozen times or more and I still can not get anywhere. I also can not reload any older version of flash player. What do I do?

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First, unfortunately, pop-up message about Flash updates while you're visiting websites can many times install malware. If you notice any other strange behavior then please supplement your regular security regimen with some of the free scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

Second, your "More System Details" does not show the "Shockwave Flash" plugin so it might be disabled. You can check on the Add-ons page, either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and if you find it, change the permission from "Never Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

If the plugin is not there, can you check the following folder to see whether you find this file on the system:

Folder: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash File: NPSWF32_17_0_0_188.dll


I also noticed something odd: you indicated Windows 7, but your Firefox is saying Windows XP. Could you clear out any backwards-compatibility setting on your Firefox shortcut. Here's how, either:

  • right-click your Firefox desktop shortcut > properties
  • right-click your pinned Firefox taskbar icon > right-click Mozilla Firefox > Properties

In this dialog, switch to the Compatibility tab and make sure nothing is set here so Firefox can take full advantage of Windows 7.

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Chosen Solution

First, unfortunately, pop-up message about Flash updates while you're visiting websites can many times install malware. If you notice any other strange behavior then please supplement your regular security regimen with some of the free scanning/cleaning tools listed in our support article: Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware.

Second, your "More System Details" does not show the "Shockwave Flash" plugin so it might be disabled. You can check on the Add-ons page, either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and if you find it, change the permission from "Never Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

If the plugin is not there, can you check the following folder to see whether you find this file on the system:

Folder: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash File: NPSWF32_17_0_0_188.dll


I also noticed something odd: you indicated Windows 7, but your Firefox is saying Windows XP. Could you clear out any backwards-compatibility setting on your Firefox shortcut. Here's how, either:

  • right-click your Firefox desktop shortcut > properties
  • right-click your pinned Firefox taskbar icon > right-click Mozilla Firefox > Properties

In this dialog, switch to the Compatibility tab and make sure nothing is set here so Firefox can take full advantage of Windows 7.

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Flash doesn't even appear in your More System Details in the column to the right of your posting.

Is the "Plugin" version of Flash installed? Check your Control Panel > Programs and Features

The ActiveX version of Flash is for Internet Explorer; plus the Pepper version is for Chrome - you need the Plugin version for Firefox.

If it is installed, check the Addons Manager > Plugins to see if it is disabled.