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Flash 20 won't update in Firefox

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My Firefox crashes about once a day. I was told it's because the Flash plugin needs to be updated. I did this a couple months ago and Firefox worked perfectly. Until....

Adobe Flash came out with the Flash 20 plugin, up from Flash 18. Everytime I uninstall/reinstall Flash, I'm using the latest download from Adobe which is Flash 20, but Firefox plugin (File > Add-ons> plugins> Check to see if plugins are upto date) keeps saying 18 is installed and I should update to 20. When I go on Adobe's website, it says 20 is installed. Which it is!

How can I force Firefox to install and acknowledge that Flash 20 is installed to prevent it from constantly crashing again?

My Firefox crashes about once a day. I was told it's because the Flash plugin needs to be updated. I did this a couple months ago and Firefox worked perfectly. Until.... Adobe Flash came out with the Flash 20 plugin, up from Flash 18. Everytime I uninstall/reinstall Flash, I'm using the latest download from Adobe which is Flash 20, but Firefox plugin (File > Add-ons> plugins> Check to see if plugins are upto date) keeps saying 18 is installed and I should update to 20. When I go on Adobe's website, it says 20 is installed. Which it is! How can I force Firefox to install and acknowledge that Flash 20 is installed to prevent it from constantly crashing again?

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Adobe Flash is notorious for not always removing old Flash Plugin DLL files as part of a Flash program update. Sometimes the user needs to uninstall Flash completely and get a clean start. You're showing two plugins for Firefox. Shockwave Flash 18.0 r0 Shockwave Flash 20.0 r0

First, grab the Adobe uninstaller from here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

Then download the latest Flash Plugin version from here: Select the Windows > Plugin-based browsers - the EXE version. https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html Don't worry about the March 1st message there, it still works - just checked it for you.

Run the Flash uninstaller program, then reboot your PC. Then install the Plugin version of Flash. So you'll have a clean installation of Flash for Firefox.

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You can find the installation path of all plugins on the about:plugins page.

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the-edmeister said

Adobe Flash is notorious for not always removing old Flash Plugin DLL files as part of a Flash program update. Sometimes the user needs to uninstall Flash completely and get a clean start. You're showing two plugins for Firefox. Shockwave Flash 18.0 r0 Shockwave Flash 20.0 r0 First, grab the Adobe uninstaller from here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html Then download the latest Flash Plugin version from here: Select the Windows > Plugin-based browsers - the EXE version. https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html Don't worry about the March 1st message there, it still works - just checked it for you. Run the Flash uninstaller program, then reboot your PC. Then install the Plugin version of Flash. So you'll have a clean installation of Flash for Firefox.



I tried that twice already and again a few moments ago. Firefox still only sees Flash 18 as the plugin awhile the Adobe website says Flash 20 is installed.

Any other possible solutions asides from throwing my browser out the window and switching to Chrome?

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Did you check the about:plugins page?

Try to delete the pluginreg.dat file in the Firefox Profile Folder and maybe addons.sqlite as well to reset the plugin registry databases.

See Re-initializing the plugins database:

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder: