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Adobe Flash player is up to date, but it continues to crash every time we open Firefox.

  • 7 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by finitarry

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Each time we access the internet Fire Fox and it begins connecting to YAHOO, we experience a delay and then get the message that Adobe Flash player plugin has crashed. I checked and we are up to date with flash player. We end up continuing without having the plugin working, which means we cannot access some things and it seems to slow down our computer. How do we fix this problem?

Each time we access the internet Fire Fox and it begins connecting to YAHOO, we experience a delay and then get the message that Adobe Flash player plugin has crashed. I checked and we are up to date with flash player. We end up continuing without having the plugin working, which means we cannot access some things and it seems to slow down our computer. How do we fix this problem?

All Replies (7)

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Is it the plugin that crashed, or the plugin container?

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When the Flash plugins crashes, Firefox usually records information about what was happening at that moment. This might be fairly generic, but in some cases it might be helpful. Please check the last section of the support article "Firefox Crashes" for steps to find the report IDs for those crashes, and then post some of the recent ones here.


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:

"3-bar" menu 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 the protected mode feature. That feature has security benefits, but seems to have compatibility issues on some systems. This involves creating or editing a settings file. The following pages/posts provide different approaches for that:

Flash needs to completely unload from memory (exiting and starting Firefox up again might help) before this takes effect.

Any improvement?

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"Firefox crashes - Troubleshoot, prevent and get help fixing crashes" is about Firefox crashing. The question was about a plugin crashing and Firefox working but without Flash. I thought that the plugin container crashes if a plugin causes problems, and that keeps the browser itself from crashing. Do plugins crash by themselves without taking down the plugin container?

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Hi finitarry, I don't know whether Flash can crash without causing plugin-container.exe to crash. I just know that sometimes earlier this year, Flash crashes started getting included in the list on about:crashes.

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Some added toolbar and anti-virus add-ons are known to cause Firefox issues. Disable All of them.

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Thanks for all of the feedback. I have not yet tried any of the suggestions, but will do so and respond. FYI - the message does not mention the plugin container. It just states "adobe flash plugin has crashed". We are going to take a look at our anti-virus software and install something else to see if that helps us.

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I have never seen any good reason why an antivirus has to add toolbars to browser windows. Maybe just getting rid of the added toolbar would be enough.