Cannot download and install 18.0.0.209

[Guest]

It's decently infuriating to have to result to signing up and using these forums for an issue I cannot seem to troubleshoot. All forms of default help pages from Adobe and Firefox are about as useful as garbage that's been collecting and sitting around for years. For whatever reason, my Flash Player has decided to stop working. Within Firefox, the plug-in is being forced to not run because it's out-of-date. Within Firefox's plug-in manager, the Ask To Activate and Never Activate options are only available to me. Always Activate is permanently grayed out, I don't know why. When I try to update Flash Player via Adobe's website, the installation setup for 18.0.0.209 begins to download the update, but stops around 40 - 50% of the download and claims an installation failure occurred and leaves me with trying to troubleshoot the issue or start over. I have removed all versions of Flash Player, Shockwave, and even AIR from my PC. I am running on Windows XP. I am now unable to even put Flash Player back on my PC.

[pwillener]

I have no problems downloading & installing Flash Player 18.0.0.209 from https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/installation-problems-flash-player-windows.html#main-pars_te...

[_maria_]

Hi lahku,

I can understand your frustration.  The difficulty you're having is with the online installer that downloads and installs Flash Player silently in the background.  We are ware that some WindowsXP users are having problems with the online installer and are working to resolve the issue.  I'd like to get some verbose log files from you.  If you have a few minutes, please do the following:

1. Create an empty text file named ADM.trace inside your %temp% directory (usually C:\Documents and Settings\<YourUserID>\Local Settings\Temp\).  The file extension itself is .trace, not .txt or anything else.
   1. To create the empty text file, navigate to the %temp% directory, right-click in an empty area and select New > Text Document
   2. Rename the new file to ADM.trace
   • Note: make sure file extensions are visible so that the extension is .trace and not .txt.  See Show or hide file name extensions - Windows Help
2. Run the online installer again until it stops
3. When it stops, go to C:\Documents and Settings\<YourUserID>\Local Settings\Temp\Adobe_ADMLogs and upload the two files, Adobe_ADM.log and Adobe_GDE.log using the instructions How to share a document‌.
4. Post the URL to the uploaded files in your reply.

Also, what Service Pack version do you have installed on your XP system?

Thank you.

--

Maria

[Guest]

Shared Files - Acrobat.com

I am running XP service pack 3.

[_maria_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Lahku,

Thank you very much for providing the verbose log file.  I do see an error and have forwarded the log files to the team that handles the online installer.  If you used the installer pwillener linked to in their post you should have the latest version (18.0.0.209) of Flash Player installed on your system.  If you don't have 18.0.0.209 installed (it was released earlier this morning and it's possible 18.0.0.203 was still posted when you downloaded the installer) download the installer again (using the link pwillener provided) and update to 18.0.0.209.

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Maria

[Guest]

Where from within that web page do I find the installation for flash? I just see a bunch of troubleshooting tips.

[_maria_]

Hi Lahku,

Bottom of the page in the 'Still having problems' section.

--

Maria

[Guest]

So, I figured I needed Flash in order to view Youtube videos within Firefox. But I'm watching a video just fine without it. So...why do I even need Flash then? I mean, I can't get it back on my pc and it looks like I don't need it anymore. So what's the deal? Flash is dead or what?

[_maria_]

Hi Lahku,

Flash isn't dead.  There are many websites, applications, and games that still use it.  If you find you don't need it, then don't install it.  If you find that you need it, install it.

--

Maria