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Adobe Flash, latest version, is hitting the disk hundreds of times per second with disk reads and writes for no obvious reason. Is this normal? If not, ...

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  • Last reply by cor-el

luniewski
luniewski
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I am running Firefox 18 on Windows 7, all with latest updates. The Adobe Flash plugin (latest version) hits the disk with hundreds of reads and hundreds of writes each second. This seems to start as soon as cnn.com is loaded then as other sites are loaded it just gets worse. Any thoughts on what might be causing this? Is it normal? If not normal, how can I can stop it?

I am running Firefox 18 on Windows 7, all with latest updates. The Adobe Flash plugin (latest version) hits the disk with hundreds of reads and hundreds of writes each second. This seems to start as soon as cnn.com is loaded then as other sites are loaded it just gets worse. Any thoughts on what might be causing this? Is it normal? If not normal, how can I can stop it?

All Replies (4)

John99
John99
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I suppose I would have expected it to try and use ram. I guess you have ruled out that you are out of Memory and the disk is paging.

I know IE uses different software but have you tried and compared that ?

My reply may at least bump the thread and get you an answer.

luniewski
luniewski Question owner
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Memory is not a problem: 16 B of RAM. IE does not exhibit this problem with the same web sites loaded.

It appears as if Firefox is running Adobe Flash continuously based upon some content in the web sites that IE, at least, knows not to run Flash continuously.

BTW, by turning off "Take Advantage of Hardware Acceleration" (or some such) in Firefox, the impact of this misbehavior went from major to annoying.

John99
John99
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I do not really have any solid suggestions for this but

Flash often causes issues with Firefox. From Flash 11.3 some Windows users were needing to disable Flash's protected mode. Rather a longshot but it may be worth experimenting with the protected mode and trying turning it off.

Potential workarounds would be

  1. look at the pageinfo media. Use Ctrl + I -> |Media| to see what is on the pages
  2. If you do not want that content to play automaticaly consider add-ons like http://noscript.net/ &/or Flashblock or one of the related addons.
cor-el
cor-el
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Try to clear the Flash local storage and settings.

  • Windows Control Panel > Flash Player > Storage: Local Storage Settings
    • Remove a specific domain: Local Storage Settings by site
    • Remove all domains: Delete All and Delete Data

Flash Website Storage Settings panel:

Global Storage Settings Panel: