This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Is there any way I can prevent Firefox from blocking the Flash Player?

more options

I don't think it's fair that Firefox keeps blocking the Flash Player, how can I block this feature? I'm using the latest Flash Player, yet Firefox is still blocking the player. I use the Flash Player for internal applications including from VMware and a custom application, it's very frustrating!!

Thx!

I don't think it's fair that Firefox keeps blocking the Flash Player, how can I block this feature? I'm using the latest Flash Player, yet Firefox is still blocking the player. I use the Flash Player for internal applications including from VMware and a custom application, it's very frustrating!! Thx!

All Replies (7)

more options

Cruzmiester, can you please provide more information about your problem?

1. What flash player do you use (Examples: Adobe, Pepper, etc)? 2. What is the blocking behavior [A screenshot would be exelent] 3. What is listed in about:preferences?entrypoint=menupanel#applications when you put "flash" in the search bar?

more options

Mozilla is not blocking the current version 23.0.0.207 which has been out since Nov 8.

https://addons.mozilla.org/blocked/ November 16, 2016: Flash Player Plugin 23.0.0.185 to 23.0.0.205 (Win/Mac)

It is Adobe that says their Flash Player Plugins are vulnerable and Mozilla then decides whether it is severe enough to add to blocklist for click to play soft blocking. Not every single Flash player version was added to list though since Dec 2014 and was only blocked when it was in a version range added to list. https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html https://helpx.adobe.com/security.html#flashplayer

The Flash Player plugin is only set to Ask to Activate (click to play) if you have a older version that was added to blocklist due to critical vulnerabilities. Any version (such as current) not in version range on blocklist is not affected and can be set to always activate.

If your Flash Player is being click to play blocked then it is either 23.0.0.205 or older or you have the current 23.0.0.207 and a previous version installed still. https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

more options

I'm not saying it's a Firefox (vr 49.0.2) problem as I don't know where the issue is, but it has happened at least once before. what happens is NO flash content loads, I try our applications and Adobe's Flash Player web page.

in Addons Manager -> Plugins it just says something like, the plug in is being blocked for security reasons. the only options that are selectable are 1. Never Activate or 2. Ask to Activate... but it never asks, nothing shows where the flash content should display.

I don't have a screen shot to backup what I'm saying, but I am including a screen shot to show I had downloaded the latest Flash Plugin version and installed it before today.

I normally use the debug version of the plugin, today just to test, after I made sure there were no instances of Firefox running in the Windows Task Manager, I downloaded and installed the latest "regular" version same issue, I re-downloaded and re-installed the debug version the issue continued. Once I rebooted the computer the option Always Activate was selectable. I can not say whether the previous time I rebooted the computer or not.

The issue is annoying because it happens while we're trying to run internal software and then there's no warning to indicate we have to activate a plugin as some articles seem to indicate.

thx for the input and help!!

more options

@cruzmiester

Unfortunatly, I did not get the information I needed from the screenshot. What I needed to know was:

1. what is in place of the video? Is it a solid box, as if there isn't anything there, or is there an error message of some kind? It could also be a brick or a puzzle piece.

2. In your address bar, to the top left, is there a brick or puzzle piece icon? If there is an icon there, please select it and see if that is where the request is being made.

Firefox is very quiet with this asking for permission to run plugins, and puts them out of the way.

I had asked about your about:preference window because for some linux systems, not everything will run right with the defaults, so occasionally users find themselves importing Chrome's flash player into firefox. From your answer, I believe you have not done anything that complicated.

http://www.addictinggames.com/ has a number of flash games you could use if you need to produce a situation in which flash would be called.

more options

Could you check for possible older versions of Flash detected by Firefox. Type or paste about:plugins in the address bar and press Enter to load a detailed list of plugin data. You can use Find (Ctrl+f) to search for npswf which is unique to the Shockwave Flash plugin file name. If you have more than one version, the older one may be causing the problem. What do you find?

more options

1. when this has happens to me, there's a blank / white solid box as if there is no Flash content.

2. on the address bar there is no brick or puzzle icon

3. the only setting I changed was browser.cache.check_doc_frequency, I set the value to 1.

4. about:plugins reports Shockwave Flash 23.0 r0

the reason I find this a bit frustrating is because it fails so quietly, I only know something is wrong when I go into: plugins->add-ons manager.

unfortunately I do not know the exact reasons why this happens, so I can not replicate it, because I don't know what I do that causes this, and since I'm a boring guy and I don't depend on the Flash Player to play online games but to run plain boring business applications I was hopping there was some sort of flag setting to always override Flash Player version verification

again thx for the help, I really appreciate the time and input!!

more options

It sounds as though Flash is simply not loading. As long as it is not set to "Never Activate" the cause may be in interpreting the code/scripts in the page.

I wonder whether you tried the standard things in your earlier troubleshooting...

When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes. If you do not see the number going down on the page, you can reload it using Ctrl+r to check progress.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, try either:

  • right-click (on Mac Ctrl+click) a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"
  • (menu bar) Tools > Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"
  • click the padlock or "i" icon in the address bar, then the ">" button, then More Information, and finally the "View Cookies" button

In the dialog that opens, the current site should be pre-filled in the search box at the top of the dialog so you can remove that site's cookies individually.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?


Could you test in Firefox's Safe Mode? In Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox.

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
  • Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?