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After the upgrade to 3.6, my flash player crashes while I'm trying to play Farmville. I have tried updating the flash player. I have tried restarting the computer. Nothing is working.

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  • 759 have this problem
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  • Last reply by mczama

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Last night, my system was still using Firefox 3.5.8. I was playing Farmville on Facebook and everything was working fine. This morning, I log onto my computer and find that I am upgraded to Firefox 3.6. I have been trying to play Farmville all morning, and the Adobe Flash Player keeps crashing. I have tried to update the Flash Player. I have tried restarting the computer. Nothing is working.

URL of affected sites

http://facebook.com

Last night, my system was still using Firefox 3.5.8. I was playing Farmville on Facebook and everything was working fine. This morning, I log onto my computer and find that I am upgraded to Firefox 3.6. I have been trying to play Farmville all morning, and the Adobe Flash Player keeps crashing. I have tried to update the Flash Player. I have tried restarting the computer. Nothing is working. == URL of affected sites == http://facebook.com

Chosen solution

Another potential cause of this issue is that the hang timeout is set too low:

  1. Select Firefox's location bar (press CTRL+L or click it)
  2. Type about:config and press enter
  3. Click I'll be careful, I promise!
  4. in the Filter box, type dom.ipc.plugins.timeoutSecs
  5. Double click the setting and change the number.

The default number is 10, for a default wait time of 10 seconds. Some Flash games can be slow and require a higher setting. I would recommend changing this to 20 if you are having problems with this.

Also, it would be really helpful if people experiencing this problem let us know which Flash games are slow - and when they become slow. Thanks!

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (20)

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I have same problem with farmville. It works fine on IE8 but not as fast as firefox, which is why I loves to use firefox.

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ZZXC, thanks for your post.

I am a Flex developer and experienced problems while debugging my Flex application. I think this is due to the time-out setting. So I can solve this now. Is there anyway to reset the time-out setting at all? While debugging I don't want a time-out, as I may need to look carefully at variable values.

Cheers, Anton

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It keeps crashing, I tried all suggestions. Actually, when I turn all my add-ons off, my firefox crashes instantly when I try to load it (except I reduce my 8 tabs to 3). With the add-ons turned on, it 'only' crashed when I try to load farmville. It does not crash with frontierville. Also, it worked fine when I updated firefox and just started crashing after updating flash.

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This sucks! Ever since the new Firefox update my Adobe Flash Plugin crashes! Can't play Farm Town or Farmville in FaceBook! I have crops that are going to go to waste....I am very upset that it automatically updates on us without giving us a choice. What are we supposed to do now?

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@ Anonymous If Flash is crashing on your system, you need to contact Adobe for support. Bear in mind that Flash is also an add-on.

@ Ron Please read and answer this previous post of mine. I hope it helps.

@ Anoniem Are you really disabling all add-ons (safe mode will let you do it easily and cleanly) or just extensions? Plugins and themes, as well as extensions, are all add-ons. I remind you that if you are having a problem cause by Flash, you need to contact Adobe for support.

@ nightowl67 If you are having a problem with Adobe Flash Reader, you need to contact Adobe for support. Remember to update Flash too: https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/ That's the first thing Adobe will tell you to do (if you haven't done so already).

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I don't intend to offend or upset anyone, but if there is a problem that I have with several others, why cannot it be fixed by the firefox instead of us doing something? I mean, it can be correct if several of us are having problem? I am just asking.  :)

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The thing is, Ron, this problem is a bit more complex than that. Let me be as clear as possible on what's going on.

Firefox, by and in itself, cannot read Flash objects. No web browser can. Instead, web browsers, Firefox included, rely on a form of software, called "plugins", to read and display content like Flash objects. Adobe Flash Player (called "Shockwave Flash", I think) is one of those plugins, and it is used by billions of people worldwide, in a myriad of different browsers (Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, the lot). Adobe Flash Player has different versions for different browsers. For example, you'll find that you will need to install a specific file to see Flash in Internet Explorer, and you'll need a different file to see Flash in Firefox. This is because different browsers treat plugins in a different way, and Adobe needs to develop specific versions of their plugin for each different browser. For example, you may be able to see Flash in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox, simply because you have Shockwave Flash for Internet Explorer installed, but not Shockwave Flash for Firefox.

I know, it's kind of a nightmare, and that's why Mozilla, among others, is trying to push HTML5 and similar open web technologies to lessen the need for third party plugins in order to browse the internet. You may have heard about this already, but here is a good article that explains what HTML5 is. This, of course, has nothing to do with the change in Firefox 3.6.4.

What Firefox 3.6.4 does now, is due to the fact that the vast majority of Firefox crashes are due to malfunctions in plugins, with Shockwave Flash on top of the list. And Firefox would just crash, if Flash crashed. And people wouldn't know what happened, and they'd get mad and it would be back, because it's back when a browser crashes, even though Firefox will restore your session without problem. So what Mozilla decided to do (a long time ago already, it's just that only now have they released a version that does it), is isolate plugins such as Shockwave Flash from Firefox itself, in a way that, if Shockwave Flash crashes, it won't crash Firefox as a whole.

This is a relatively big change in the architecture of the browser, and even though Mozilla has worked for many months in conjunction with plugin developers to provide as much of a bug-free experience as possible, problems may arise (and have arisen). But the thing is, as I said in the beginning, plugins are made for the browser, not the other way around. And although Mozilla has done its best to keep bugs outside of the equation, if you are having a problem with a specific add-on, be it an extension, a theme or a plugin, you really need to contact its author for support. So if Adobe Flash Player is crashing in Firefox 3.6.4, even if it wasn't crashing in Firefox 3.6.3, you need to tell Adobe to fix this problem, and make Adobe Flash Player fully compatible with Firefox 3.6.4.

I can also tell you, right now, the first thing Adobe will tell you once you contact them for support: make sure your Adobe Flash Player is up to date. Firefox 3.6.4 has been released with a warning for users of outdated Flash players, so that everything updates their Flash players to version 10.1, because that's the version Firefox 3.6.4 has been developed to support, and version 10.1 is the version of Flash that has been developed to support Firefox 3.6.4.

I will also remind you, as will Adobe, probably, that Flash 10.1, in and by itself, may cause problems on some computers. That really is Adobe's responsibility to fix, but Flash 10.1 has hardware acceleration, which may not be supported by some hardware and may cause problems. All in all, and as I said, you need to contact Adobe if your Adobe Flash Player is not behaving as it should.

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Thanks that worked

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This fix did not work. I am unable to get mlb to work today after 4 months of working perfectly. I tested both flash and shockwave. Both had failed somehow but reinstalling them got them working again. Ideas??? It is very annoying when I just want to watch the game as I have all season.

I'm using 3.6.8

Modified by Caladan607

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i cant get the flash player to work either, it works on some sites, but for example it wont work on ESPN site. I am sick of download and trouble shooting. How can I go back to the previous version of firefox .

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Ok, the problem here seems to be the same as here:

https://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?forumId=1&comments_threshold=0&comments_parentId=563521

(I was going to reply there, but I can't and what up with that by the way?)

So, it seems to me it's a problem in both Firefox and that Flash player as it happens with Flash content BUT (at least in my experience) the hang up detection doesn't actually work at all.

When I surf Youtube videos randomly hang up at the beginning and I can't interact with Firefox at all. Firefox won't start working again on its own. Even if I waited for minutes. I have to kill the plugin-container manually.

Unlike in the last reply in the thread I pasted above I find this actually affecting IE8 too, but not Opera.

In IE8 I get similar behavior (at least on cold start). However on IE8 the hang up detection actually works and I get an error message after which the browser is working again (no need to kill anything manually). Windows is reporting something that data execution prevention did something, but I think that if that was the problem it shouldn't affect the Firefox, because data execution prevention is enabled for just essential Windows programs.

Also I haven't had any similar freezing with Opera.

I have disabled Flash player's hardware acceleration and these problems I only encounter with my dual core laptop but never with my single core desktop.

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now am PISSED! nothing to do and they need to fix it asap!!!! and this makes them look sooo bad them and adobe D: cant do nuthing not even youtube or even listen to music!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH y even pay for internet! D:

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I use Firefox 3.6.10 and still have the same hangups in farmville. As soon as I go back to Internet Explorer it all works fine.. Sure hope Mozilla finds the answer quickly.

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Well hate to say this cause i hate explorer.. but it works fine with it.

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OK Farmville, Cafeworld are a couple of them.. both on facebook.. they lock up.

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Has anyone had success with this issue changing the hang timeout? I wanted to know before I embark down that path.. thanks!

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i have tryed everyone of these fix's and none of them have worked my flash crashs every time i try and load farmville. i have a very large farm and i have set the number in about:config to 60 (it was on 45) and i have tried renaming and also i went down the list of add ons turning them off then checking farmville..nothing has worked...i am getting so flustered. I cant harvest and am losing money everyday..what can i do...please help!

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Open up computer case, unplug and take out the processor fan cooler and wipe out all the dust, speccially in the heatsink, with a soft little brush and compressed air spray (also check power supply fan). I discovered this solution after weeks of trying all software related recommended steps and nothing worked, adobe flash player was still crashing in firefox, chrome and opera even after completely uninstalling flash and installing latest version 10.2.152.26 of the plugin. I realized this was the problem when pc started to crash unexepectedly when not playing flash videos. So, EUREKA, that did the trick for me. Hope it does for you.

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I agree with you, and I am in the process of reverting to an older version of firefox. When the new version came out, Pogo games didn't work for me either till I did this on my other PC. Still having flash issues with the new firefox and both frontierville and cityville. Only with those games.

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I downloaded Firefox version 3.6.13 (version I had before the upgrade) and reinstalled it. I have had no issues with Adobe or FarmVille since I have done this. When the computer did updates it downloaded the newer version again, so I had to do this a second time and it still works.

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