I finally solved the mystery of broken Flash by downgrading to Flash 10.0.12.36
I'm one of the many users who seems to be having trouble with Flash these days. I solved my issue by downgrading to Flash 10.0.12.36, and I think I figured out why it was happening. I use Firefox 9.0.1, and I believe Flash incorrectly detected this and silently pushed an incompatible new version. Gee, thanks Adobe.
Note: Flash 10.0.12.36 detected my Opera installation but not my Firefox installlation, but manually copying the files from Opera's plugins folder to Firefox's worked fine.
Additional Note: No, I will not upgrade. Stop typing, close your mouth. Don't even start. Take it somewhere else - preferably to another browser's dev team. Firefox has fallen long and hard since the glory days of 1.x, and 9.0.1 is the final usable version of Firefox for me. If you put half as much effort into backporting security fixes to old versions as you put into yelling at people to upgrade, you might have a happy userbase instead of a confused, angry, rapidly shrinking one. It's not the easiest way to build a product, but when was the moral high road ever easy? From my point of view, the browser's job is to unquestioningly enable content. You want to add restrictions and security? That is what addons are for. I have absolutely zero fear of running old versions; between addons and using about:config to excise unwanted Firefox features, nothing suspicious ever gets a chance to become active. I frequent some of the scariest, most infected places on the web and I have not been infected since the 90's. So I do not need to upgrade. You need to downgrade, and get back in touch with your alienated former users, who want a modern browser that looks and acts like Firefox 1.x and would rather scrap a proposed feature entirely than break a single addon.
OK, I feel much, much better now. Time to go watch some Youtube!
All Replies (7)
Is there a specific reason you want to stay on an old and out of date version of a browser, suffering bugs fixed in newer versions, lacking modern web features, slower (significantly slower than Firefox 22) and insecure? I'd like to learn why and see if we can help resolve that issue and get you using a modern browser rather than using something so old.
Thanks for your good attitude, but there is no issue here to resolve, just venting a bit after sharing my Flash solution. I have no bugs, I am missing no features (in fact, I just disabled webm, OOPP, and the html5 parser), and I am not slow. 9 is simply the latest I am willing to touch. I would be running 1 or 2 if my email supported it. I guess the moral of the story is: make sure your version of Firefox and your version of Flash are compatible, because Adobe doesn't seem to check.
Modified by zrbrtr
Why would you want to dissble the HTML5 parser? I can understand OOPP, but the parser is faster and fixes dozens of bugs in the old parser? And why on't you want to update? I don't underdtand your reasons.
Really you don't understand his reasoning he just explained them to you! Myself I update and upgrade everything and I am tired! Everyday something needs updating/upgrading and does not show any changes these companies are just throwing crap in the mix make it more complicated more diverse. first thing when there's a problem are your drivers and whatever up to date. why does'nt the crap work like it did the day before the update. because they are embedding our systems with god knows what. this guy is my hero. but no viruses since the amiga 64 that's hard to swallow. I know it was the 80's but dos was still the main stay until 92 yea the internet!!!
zrbrtr,
The only question I see is about the moral high road, it was and is never easy. I respect your post. If you run for anything you have my vote !
You may wish to note that at least some of the problems on any Windows system after Windows XP could relate to the use of FlashPlayers protected mode.
Some users may wish to employ the most recent version of Flash Player that will work on their sytem. in which case it could be worth trying an up-to-date version of FlashPlayer but with protected mode disabled.
The setting is changeable by editing a file ( adding the line ProtectedMode=0 to the Flash "mms.cfg" file) and instructions may be found in these articles
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Flash_Player_11.3_Protected_Mode_-_Windows
Probably an interesting reference article to scroll through regarding Flash Problems with Firefox - http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1018071#TemporaryWorkaround
Again an article with more Flash Player troubleshooting tips included
Hi John99, thanks for the tip I will follow up on it tomorrow. It is 4:40 am where I live.