flash player videos do not load properly about 80% of the time

[Kougeru]

Using 64 bit W7

Firefox 12, latest version of Chrome

latest version of FP as of yesterday (11.2.202.233)..reinstalled about 6 times trying to fix this in the past week.

Ever since I updated flash player about a week and a half ago (I dont know what version I was using before...the auto-updater told me to upgrade so I did ..big mistake I guess), every video site, every video has had issues loading unless I get extremely lucky. I usually have to refresh the videos about 4 or 5 times to get them to fully load. When they DO finally load they usually do so at a snail pace.  Most of the time the videos will load 40-70% and then just freeze their buffer forever until I refresh a bunch. I know this is a flash issue because it happens on both FF and Chrome, and I switched to the HMTL5 trial on Youtube and have had ZERO issues with HMTL5 videos. Unforutnately, youtube is the only big website that seems to support HMTL5 right now so that's not a solution. And of course, the biggest factor in me knowing this is a flash issue is because it happened the very day I upgraded to this version.

Any help at all would be appreicaited...I've tried all the things listed on the FAQs such as disabling HMTL5, clearing cache, completely installation. deleting Flash's cache completey, ect ect....no changes at all.

[pwillener]

Does it improve if you disable Hardware Acceleration?

What is your display adapter, driver version & date?

P.S. the latest Flash Player as of yesterday is 11.2.202.235

[Kougeru]

By yesterday I meant Thursday afternoon, I didnt realize I posted after midnight. Whenever 235 came out that day, It wasnt available when I updated. I tried updating to that today but then all the flash videos said "you need to install Flash Player to view this" and what not...I guess bad installation or something...the flashplayer plugin download (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_64bit.exe) worked though, and apparently that (as of 3 hours ago when I tried the latest reinstall) was still 233.

Hardware Acceleration off or on, no change.

Diplay driver is NVIDIA 296.10, which was released in March and is the latest stable version. FP was working fine most of April and all of March.

[pwillener]

Sorry, I have no other ideas, except: can you try if Flash Player behaves the same way with Waterfox?

I have been using Waterfox since the 64-bit Flash Player was released, and I never had any problems with it.

P.S. you don't need to uninstall Firefox; FF & WF can coexist peacefully.

[Kougeru]

I did actually try Watefox for about an hour and the problem existed there as well. Along what entire browser scoring half as high on every single browser speed test I performed....

I appreciate your help even though you did not know the answer. Thak you for trying.

[Guest]

Could do the following please.

1. Download the Flash player uninstaller first of all and save it somewhere you can find it again easily.
2. Download the Flash player installer next and save that to the same place. 
3. Disable your antivirus scanners next. If you use AVAST, right click the orange icon in systray, go to "Avast Shields Control" and choose to disable all shields for one hour. If you're not using AVAST, consult this list for instructions on how to disable it: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic114351.html Particularly, if you're using AVG, open Firefox, press CTRL+SHIFT+A to open the Add-ons manager, go to the Extensions submenu and disable "AVG Linkscanner" and "AVG Safe Search". Both of these will interfere with the download process otherwise.
4. If Firefox is open, close it.
5. If you're running any apps which use Flash like AIM or any games, close them before proceeding with the next step.
6. Next, run the Flash uninstaller which will also remove the the program from Firefox and from Internet Explorer (but not from Chrome).
7. Next, run the Flash installer. This will only install Flash in Firefox. Do not open Firefox before you run it though.
8. Next, open Firefox, hit CTRL+SHIFT+A to open the Firefox Add-ons manager, go to the Plugins menu and confirm that Shockwave Flash 11.2.202.235 is visible.
9. Go to a site where you were unable to play videos before and see if these troubleshooting steps made any difference.

If everything works properly, open Internet Explorer, go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?promoid=BUIGP and download Flash for IE. Uncheck the optional McAfee installer because you don't want that. When you see the option to Run, or Save, choose "Run" to install it immediately.

As regards Google Chrome, the Flash player is intergrated in the browser and updates automatically in the background. You cannot update it manually. If Chrome continues to exhibit problems, consult this page for possible solutions: Google Chrome Issues

AVAST will re-enable itself automatically after an hour, but you may need to re-enable other AV apps manually.

[Kougeru]

I have done all those steps that apply to me (I dont use avast or IE) and zero difference at all.it seems like you did not read my posts, I  stated in my original post that I followed all the FAQs and help guides already .  my videos PLAY...they just don't load completely. They load partially..then stop buffering about 40-70% of the way in.. Again, I know it IS a flash issue and not a network issue because HMTL5 videos work 100% of the time, and I have no connection issues in gaming,downloading, and such. My father's computer on the same network also does not have the issues I am having. I appreicate your attempt at helping me.

edit: Just wanted to add the plugin installer has been properly updated to 235 so I'm using that now. Issue still exists.

Message was edited by: Kougeru

[Guest]

Try these Youtube troubleshooting steps: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74662

To clear the browser cache in Firefox 12.0, do the following:

1. If you're using the layout with the oblong orange Firefox button top left, hit ALT to toggle the text links on, otherwise click Tools | Options | Advanced | Network (tab)
2. In the centre menu called "Cached Web Content", click the "Clear Now" button.
3. After you do that, delete the Youtube Cookie, instructions here: Delete Firefox cookies
4. Hit ALT again to toggle the text links off.

[Kougeru]

.I've tried all the things listed on the FAQs such as disabling HMTL5, clearing cache, completely installation. deleting Flash's cache completey, ect ect....no changes at all.

Also, the problem is not isolated to youtube. It's

every video site, every video

like I said in the original post. I've cleared my cache, my history, my cookies, reinstalled flash properly all about 5+ times in the past week with zero differences made. I've tried chrome, waterfox, firefox...zero difference.

[Guest]

If you right click any video and go to "Take Speed Test", what kind of results do you get?

Message was edited by: Xircal

[Kougeru]

That feature seems to ONLY work on youtube...which doesnt help since I use HMTL5 on there anyway. When I switched back to flash and did a speed test on there though, I'm getting 11.04 which is nearly double the USA average, and is double the global average according to their graphics. my connection is not an issue. on speedtest.net I average 2.5 MB/s-4 MB/s which is also higher than most home networks. It really seems like something in  version 233 that was not fixed in 235 is the cause of all this since 233 is when i started having these issues

[chris.campbell]

Have you tried going back to a previous version of the player? 

If you want all of the latest security updates and don't care about the latest functionality, you can grab Flash Player 10.3.183.18

If you need 11.x, you can grab Flash Player 11.1.102.63.  Please be aware though that this version does not contain the security patches available in our latest 11.2 update.

You'll also need to run the stand alone uninstaller first, which you can get here: Uninstall Flash Player

Please let me know if reverting helps.

Thanks,

Chris

[Kougeru]

Thank you Chris Campbell for your reply and support. Unfortutnely reverting to older versions did not solve my problem. It was worth the try though, and I really appreciate any ideas given.

[chris.campbell]

Hmm, the only other thing I can think of related to Flash Player is to try and clear out your cache:

How do I clear my Flash Player cache and settings?

[Guest]

Try starting Firefox in Safe Mode, instructions here: How to start Firefox in Safe Mode

If Flash loads properly with add-ons disabled, then one of those is the culprit.

Firefox Add-ons are not only those which you've installed yourself from the Firefox Add-ons Repository but also those added by programs you've installed such as AV which monitors network traffic.

Also, check this list of problematic extensions: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions

Message was edited by: Xircal

[Kougeru]

This issue is not limited to firefox. It happens on Chrome and IE as well. I've cleared my all caches known to man, cookies, ect ect. I've tried all browsers in safe mode and such, even though I knew it wouldnt make a difference since the issue exists on all browsers even freshly installed.  I may have been using an even older version of flash....before I updated those few weeks ago my flash auto-updater was not working properly, and who knows how long it was like that. So far it seems my best option is waiting for another update that will fix this. It's frustrating trying to watch videos and having them not load fully.

[chris.campbell]

You'll definitely want to add a new bug report on this then.  Please include a copy of your dxdiag report and detailed steps to reproduce.  Without being able to reproduce this, the chances that this will get fixed in a future update are reduced greatly.