Firefox Flash Player Black Screen (or just nothing there)

[Bellaneph]

I have never had a problem before yesterday with viewing flash [spam link removed]. Then yesterday, I tried to watch CBS online Criminal Minds and I got audio, but the screen was black and you couldn't access "settings." Then today, I tried to access the viewing feature of documents on Ancestry.com and same problem - black screen instead of a picture.  When I go to the Global Settings page for Flash Player, I CAN'T EVEN SEE THE BOX.  Even on the "test" flash player website when it say's if you see an error in the box it's not working properly, I CANT EVEN SEE THAT BOX!  Anyone?

Attached are pictures of the error logs from the ancestry page.

I have tried EVERYTHING from installing all kinds of different versions of flash player and Firefox and starting Firefox in Safe Mode.  I even manually disabled all extensions and add-on's at one point.  Nothing works. 

I also tried disabling hardware acceleration on Firefox and from Flash player on pages that did work properly.  It seems to only be isolated to Firefox, because the Criminal Minds stream and Ancestry docs view fine on Chrome and IE.  Today I completely uninstalled Firefox (including add ons, my profile, my bookmarks - everything) and Flash (even used the flash uninstall program) and then reinstalled with completely new updated versions of both and still nothing.  I am using Windows 7 64 bit.

Anyone know what those error messages mean and what I can do about them?

Thanks

[chris.campbell]

Hi,

Could you try creating a new Firefox profile to see if that helps resolve the problem?

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Basic%20Troubleshooting#w_8-make-a-new-profile

Thanks,

Chris

[Bellaneph]

I tried deleting all my mozilla files a few days ago before I posted here and it didn't work.  When I saw your suggestion, I created a new profile using the firefox instructions on creating new profiles and it still didn't work.  I can't play any flash videos at all on firefox; been using chrome for the past few days, but I'd much rather use Firefox.  From my troubleshooting, I can tell you it's NOT caused by 1) add on or extensions 2) installing or reinstalling firefox or flash player 3) user profiles.  Any other suggestions?  There has to be a fix for this.

All I ses is a black box (or sometimes it's white), but you can tell the content is there because the Audio still plays and if you click on the right spots in the alleged box, you can click your way to other links.  You can also right click settings and I'm almost positive it brings up the settings box; I just can't see where it is or what it says.  I know it's there though.  When I click on global settings, I get a webpage for Flash player and not the same global settings box I get on other browsers. So, there's content there, I just can't see it.

[Carl_E__Myers_Jr_]

Have you tried turning off hardware acceleration in Firefox?

[Bellaneph]

yes, I tried that. I stated in my original post the things I already did which didn't work. It's gotta be something out of the ordinary. 

[Bellaneph]

I did some more digging and found someone with a webpage who had the same problem and apparently, the problem has something to do with the css coding on the webpages.  If this is the case, how did my computer change code on many websites I visit?  I'm not a programmer.  I don't have my own website. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to fix this problem with this additional information.  Something must be acting on the webpages so that the code isn't reading correctly (or something like that) in Firefox.  Anyone have any ideas? 

[jrozek]

I had the same problem listed in this thread and tried everything--drivers, BIOS, other updates, you name it--and it FINALLY was fixed when I did what's described above. Hope it helps you guys too.

[TwichTred]

I know very little about software, however, I did notice three things: 1) sometimes videos play (and do not play) on the very same website; 2) a second computer I have with the same OS and Firefox installed works perfectly (the only difference is Windows 7 is 32bit on one and 64 on the other); 3) when I right click on the black box and click on Inspect Element, it says: div#watch-player.flash-player; 4) On TED.com, on those videos that play back properly, right clicking does not yield the same menu.  What comes up is an Adobe Flash Plauyer menu.  I had recently installed and uninstalled DIVX player on one computer, but not the other. Could this be related?

[chris.campbell]

Twich,

You might want to start your own thread for you problem so it doesn't get lost.  What websites are you seeing these black boxes on?  Can you give me a specific URL?

Given your statement that right clicking on them gives the normal browser context menu, that leads me to believe that Flash isn't active in this area as you expect it to be (otherwise we'd see the flash player context menu.)

Chris

[TwichTred]

Hi Chris. Thank you for responding. Here are some specific URLs that do not work: http://grupohalcon.wordpress.com/    and     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaZtsCwrfxY&context=C35d7c40ADOEgsToPDskKVGsDrR1sQ24iQ9CtIjZTg. Nothing on Youtube seems to work. This video on Vimeo does: http://vimeo.com/groups/f3kdlg/videos/14338970.    Strangely enough, some websites have both working and non-working vidoes.  This one on the TED website works: http://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice.html    while this one does not:   http://www.ted.com/talks/jeffrey_kluger_the_sibling_bond.html. 

I have attached two screenshots of what happens when I right click on the grupohalcon website and then what I see when I right click on one of the videos on the TED site.

I would be very appreciative of your insights.

[chris.campbell]

Twich,

On the system with problems displaying Flash content, is the user a standard user or Administrator?  Do you notice any difference if you disable UAC?

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404888.html

Thanks,

Chris

[TwichTred]

On both systems the user is an administrator.  UAC is disabled on both. 

[chris.campbell]

Twich,

Did you try creating a new Firefox profile to see if it helped?

Chris

[TwichTred]

I hadn't originally tried that because Bellaneph in his comment above said it didn't work. 

But, it did work for me! Thanks Chris.

I have two further questions:

1) Do you now know what  caused the problem?

2) How do you suggest I continue?  Should I continue using the new profile, and reinstall all my bookmarks and addons to see what it was that caused the problem?

Best regards,

[chris.campbell]

Not sure what caused the problem.  I'd definitely recommend reinstalling your bookmarks.  Addons, I'd suggest doing half at a time and check between attempts to see if you run into problems viewing the streams.

Glad to hear you got it to work though!

Chris

[TwichTred]

Sounds smart. Thank you.

[Guest]

Hi,

I tried jrozek's solution but it didn't work. I still have black screens for flash based games. Initially had problems when I tried to maximise a game (http://armorgames.com/swords-potions-2-game/15176), then gradually got worse till the screen was black. I noticed about a week or so early, other people commenting on another game also hosted by armor games: http://armorgames.com/wartune-game/14063 they had experienced black screen. At one stage this also caused my system to crash. Appreciate if anyone can suggest some solution to this, thankyou.

[newengland]

jrozek's solution worked for me.

In the case of my machine (win 7), I could not watch video in any browser (chrome, ff or ie)  Strangely, youtube videos would play correctly but all other browser-embedded video loaded but just showed a blank, black screen.

I would encourage all to test in more than one browser so you can pinpoint/eliminate a specific browser as the cause of the issue.

[xojasberry90]

I reinstalled Flash Player, deleted local files in AppData, Fumbled with some settings,

nothing worked, but then i refreshed Firefox and also deactivated some other Plugins

namely: "OpenH264 Videocodec" and "Widevine Content Decryption", that helped!

I don't know if it were the Plugins or the refreshing, i'm just happy that it worked.

Reset can be done by using "Help" in the Menu and entering "Troubleshooting Information",
then a window opens with the title "about:support" where you can use "Refresh Firefox".

If you have a synchronised Firefox Profile, your previous settings will be restored afterwards.

If you need to deactivate Plugins, open "Extras" and "Add-Ons" or go to "about:addons".