Problems with Flash Player on a Mac

[sauljaffe]

    I recently installed the latest version of Flash Player on my Mac.  Now, it's broken.  Every site I go that uses Flash Player either displays a message "Missing plug-in" or "Typeerror: #1009"  (I think that last is correct - the message disappears from the screen after seconds and there's no way to capture it.

    I'm on a Mac running 10.6.8 and the latest Flash Player downloaded today.  I've checked the preferences to make sure everything is set correctly (i.e. plug-ins enabled and Javascript enabled), I've gone into storage and deleted all the stored data in case something in there was corrupt.  I don't know what else I can do.

   This version of Flash Player appears broken somehow.

    Anyone know where I can download older versions that work?

[C_F_McBlob]

Go to: Mac HD/Library/Internet Plugins

Trash the Flash Player.plugin file

Go to: Mac HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe

Trash the ENTIRE Flash Player folder

Empty the Trash

Download the Flash Player installer

Quit your browser

Mount the DMG and run it

Relaunch your brwoser

[sauljaffe]

That did not work.

On several sites I get "Missing Plug-in".  On others it's: "300 : Player initialization faild. Typeerror: error #1009"

[C_F_McBlob]

"300 : Player initialization faild. Type error: error #1009" is a specific error for FlowPlayer content. According to the "gurus" at FlowPlayer, it occurs because of missing code in the page where the content is embedded, and ONLY because of that. Unfortunately, you can't do anything about the code in someone's webpage.

This started with the update, I recommend following the same steps as before, only this time

Download version 10 from OldVersion.com

[sauljaffe]

Except that now I'm constantly getting "reminders" that there's a new version of Flash Player... and several of the sites refuse connections because I have an older version.

Why can't Adobe simply fix the problem with an update?  Obviously, something changed, why can't they fix it?

[C_F_McBlob]

Unfortunately the problem ISN'T 100% Adobe. They make the player... they DON'T write the code for every last website on earth.
I'm unaware of any reason why Flash Player 11 won't work with Snow Leopard.

You can turn off the update notices.
Either:

1. Right click any flash video online and choose "Gloal Settings" 

or

2. Open your System Preferences and select the Flash Player preference pane listed under "Other"

In the Advanced settings, you can turn off the update notices by checking "Never check for updates (not recommended)":

[sauljaffe]

Look at it this way: The websites that incorporate Flash on their sites wrote their code to follow the specs provided by Adobe.  If the new version doesn't work on those sites (where it worked before) then either Adobe changed the specs and didn't tell anyone, or the code they wrote is not backwards compatible.  Yes, I know there's an argument to be made for the sites writing bad code but that would account for a small number of sites, not dozens like I'm seeing.

Either way you look at it, whether I'm running the old version of Flash Player or the new version of Flash Player, there is a subset of websites (different in each case) that I cannot access content on, and that's Adobe's fault for the most part.  I now have to choose which subset of sites I can't access - the ones that won't work with the old version of the software or the ones that won't work with the latest version.

I've always been unhappy with Adobe.  This just makes me more so.  It's one of the reasons why I've vowed NEVER to buy an Adobe product and never to recommend Adobe products to anyone.  I only tolerate Flash and Adobe Reader because they're somewhat necessary.  If there was an alternative to them, I'd use it.  For the most part, I use Preview instead of Adobe Reader on my Mac and get along just fine.  But, I haven't found a good replacement for Flash.

If there's anyone out there from Adobe reading this thread: Fix your damn software!!

[C_F_McBlob]

Well, if it's any consolation, as a web designer I can see that Flash is on it's way out. HTML5, Smartphones, and alternatives are driving the final nails into the coffin.