Unable to Install Latest Flash Player - Failed to Initialize

Report · Sep 08, 2011

From what I have seen here and on Google there are serious issues with your latest version.

Most of them prior to 10,3.xxxxxxxxxx (the latest) installed flawlessly, but the latest one will not.

I am running Win XP Pro and have tried everything including uninstalling the earlier working version. This failed and I had to do a short term system restore to regain at least a version which will show You Tube videos.

I am however getting tired of all these notices about my Flash Player being out of date.

Adobe should not launch a product out which will not even install.

Hundreds yea Thousands of us are having the same issue.

Just Google "failed to initialize" and see the hits.

Well outside this forum.

PLEASE give us step by step marching orders to fix this.

Or upgrade the version. I can't even quote the version number becasue it disappeared from my Download folder after the last failed attempt.

Thanks

Report · Sep 09, 2011

Could you try downloading and installing the installers located in this FAQ post?

Where can I find direct downloads of Flash Player for Windows or Macintosh?

Thanks,

Chris

Report · Sep 10, 2011

Report · Sep 10, 2011

Hi, I have a problem too, I don't know what failed to initialize means exactly. When I try to install the programe freezes,

in task manager I can see the process that seems to replicate itself indefinitely install_reader10_en_air_gtbd_aih_1_1_1_1_ ........ exe

and I can't delete it, I need to restart the computer.

Report · Sep 10, 2011

I'm sorry, what I show it the task manager is for Reader but I have the same problem for Flash.

What I did, I de installed Reader to see it that could help the Flash installation but it did not. Then I realized that I could'nt install Reader 10, so I tried to installed Reader 9 and it works, I de-installed it and installed Reader 10 with succes. I tried installing Flash and it stills fails.

Report · Sep 10, 2011

Chris, using this link I was able to install it !

Report · Sep 11, 2011

Hi again folks:

Please refer to Chris Campbell's post above and follow the link. I used the link for Flash Players for "Other Browsers" because I mainly use Firefox.

It was a different filecalled

Install_Flash_Player10.exe at 3016K

and this file stayed in my download folder after use (the way it should be).

The other version 10.3 installers from Adobe not only crashed ("failed to initialize"), but the file disappeared too.

Don't know what's going on here or where Chris located the two links in that FAQ, but it certainly worked for me.

All I can add now.

Report · Sep 11, 2011

Jonesy24H wrote:
Don't know what's going on here or where Chris located the two links in that FAQ

The direct download links are originally published here http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/alternates/

Report · Apr 25, 2012

i have the same problem like Jonesy24H what can i do help me

Report · Apr 25, 2012

Have you tried the solution that I posted on March 28 in this topic?

Report · May 22, 2012

I'm sorry... Adobe, could you please explain why the place to which you direct everyone to update the program HAS BEEN BUSTED... FOR MONTHS???

Is it really not possible for you to fix this?

Thank you.

Report · May 22, 2012

dmulliganx wrote:
I'm sorry... Adobe, could you please explain why the place to which you direct everyone to update the program HAS BEEN BUSTED... FOR MONTHS???
Is it really not possible for you to fix this?
Thank you.

When you check a link on a forum. you need to look at the date it was posted. The original download links in this particular thread refer to the download link to the Flash player which was available at that particular time.

We're now one year on from that date and the download links has changed.

If you want to run the web installer go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

If you want to run the full installers, go here instead: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

If you decide to run the full installers, be sure to uninstall the current installation first. You can download the uninstaller from here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

With regard to the "Failed to initialize" error, there can be any number of reasons why that appears and here are some of them.

Trying to install Flash with a non-administrative account. Solution: login with an administrative account.
Flagged by antivirus as 'Infected' and quarantined. Every subsequent attempt will be treated the same way. Solution: Add Flash player installation file to the AV's whitelist.
Blocked by firewall. Firewalls also function to protect system integrity. Solution: view the firewall's Event Log first. If found to be blocking Flash, add to the "Trusted Application" list.

If you see a "Failed to initialize" error in Windows at least, the first place to check is Event Viewer. See this Microsoft article on how to use it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427

Report · May 23, 2012

This topic is one year old, and any new posts to this topic have no relevance to the original post (regarding Flash Player 10).

This topic is now closed.

Report · Oct 05, 2011

I experienced the same problem, it is a bug of the installer itself, regardless you're trying to install Flash or Reader (I am posting this also as a reply to the other question of yours concerning Reader). In my case, it triggers when the user environment variable TMP starts with the disk selector in lower case (it was 'c:\temp' for me). A working workaround was to change it to 'C:\temp'. Just to add - with precisely the same value for TMP in Windows XP SP3, the bug doesn't appear.

I filed the bug, so they can correct it soon as the problem is quite pinpointed. Let's see if the Company is worth something ... I am a bit angry on them as they have such bugs in the sole way of installing all their free stuff (which they managed to have sort of monopoly of and we users have to use it liking it or not), sorry!

To chris.campbell: the links are to Flash 10, the current version is 11 ... as it seems to me, full installers are no longer available for the recent versions of Adobe free software. I recommended them to offer them again after seeing this bug though 😉

Report · Oct 05, 2011

Sorry, my mistake: the question about Adobe Reader is not by you, but Leventfou ...

Report · Oct 05, 2011

Last update (new here ;-):

1. I hope I actually didn't confuse Leventfou's case with yours completely ... sorry. So, my problem was that after running the installer, about a dozen of seconds it tried to do something silently, deleted itself in the course, and finally quit with no message at all. I experienced the same behavior for both the installers for Flash and Reader (they appear to be only slight modifications of the same program) and noticed leftover files install_reader10_en_air_gtbd_aih_1_1_1_1_ ........exe (or 'flashplayer11x32' instead of 'reader10', respectively) in the temporary folder, actually just copies of the original installer. This led me to the cause (at least in my case) as I knew I redirected all the temporary folders from within the depths of user profile and Windows installation folder out to a common directory 'c:\temp' precisely by editing TMP and TEMP variables (both user and system ones).

As I see it - the installer would start by moving itself to a standard temp folder (it uses user TMP to get it) and then run. However, most probably they have a bug in their code regarding file and path names and the moving phase fails when the temp folder path/name is of particular form.

2. the bug is at https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=2993268

Report · Oct 05, 2011

You can download offline installers from the links in...

Flash Player 10: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/889580
Flash Player 11: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/909550

P.S. moving this topic to the Installation section of the forum.

Report · Mar 27, 2012

I'm having problems with this upgrade as well. Everything was fine until the upgrade a few days ago and then Poof - no Flash.

The new download is getting all the way to the end of the installation - and then it tells me "it failed" to install - the end.

Report · Mar 27, 2012

bcr8tive2: you need to provide more information:

what is your operating system, version & edition?
what is your web browser?
what is the name of the installer you downloaded?

Report · Mar 27, 2012

I read someone say that the executable mysteriously deleted itself and I

also experienced that.

Windows 7 up to date - using Firefox - I didn't memorize the name of the

installer - just the one that is on Adobe's site when it prompted me to

upgrade.

I've now run the uninstaller and removed it completely,

When the issue began 2 days ago, every time I tried to view a video on

Youtube it crashed.

Report · Mar 28, 2012

Download the installer(s)

for Windows 7, 64-bit
- for Internet Explorer: http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_11_activ...
- for other browsers: http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_11_plugi...
for Windows 7, 32-bit
- for Internet Explorer: http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_11_activ...
- for other browsers: http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/licensing/win/install_flash_player_11_plugi...

Report · Mar 28, 2012

bcr8tive2 wrote:
I read someone say that the executable mysteriously deleted itself and I
also experienced that.

It actually moves itself to the Windows temp folder, deletes itself from wherever you ran it, and then deletes itself from the temp folder when it's done -- even when it fails to install. It's very bad behavior regardless. With the installer problems yesterday, I made about 20 copies so I wouldn't have to keep downloading it again when it failed.

Report · Mar 28, 2012

Quatrix0 wrote:
bcr8tive2 wrote:
I read someone say that the executable mysteriously deleted itself and I
also experienced that.
It actually moves itself to the Windows temp folder, deletes itself from wherever you ran it, and then deletes itself from the temp folder when it's done -- even when it fails to install. It's very bad behavior regardless. With the installer problems yesterday, I made about 20 copies so I wouldn't have to keep downloading it again when it failed.

The reason it deletes itself is because it's a helper file, not the main installer. Your system downloads the latter after you run the helper.

If you want to retain the full installer locally, download that instead. Here's the link: Download Flash Player full installer

Report · Mar 28, 2012

The fact remains that once it deletes itself (even when the installation fails), the installer is gone and has to be downloaded again.

Report · Mar 28, 2012

Quatrix0 wrote:
The fact remains that once it deletes itself (even when the installation fails), the installer is gone and has to be downloaded again.

Respectfully, you're missing the point. When you download the helper file to your own machine, the size of the file is 780KB. The full installer is currently 3.94MB. I've attached a screenshot for you to show the difference between the two. The naming convention also differs.

Since the helper file only initiates a download of the full installer, it's no longer needed and therefore it deletes itself. The full installer doesn't do that and will remain on your machine after the installation completes.

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Unable to Install Latest Flash Player - Failed to Initialize

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