Firefox keeps telling me my Shockwave Player is "unresponsive"?

[heavywulf]

So for the last several months my Firefox browser (running Windows 8) keeps crashing on me everytime I try to watch an embedded video on YouTube or anywhere else.

Everytime I try to watch a video, everything just freezes and this message pops up that says:

"Warning: Unresponsive Plugin"

"Shockwave Flash may be busy or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the plugin now, or you can continue to see if the plugin will complete.

[Continue] [Stop plugin]

This message pops up at least three or four times before my video finally loads or it crashes. Clicking either option makes no difference.

I've tried updating my Firefox browser, my Adobe Flash, my Adobe Shockwave and nothing ever changes! I'm seriously at my wits end! Has anyone else here had this problem before? Did you actually fix it?

[chris.campbell]

Could you try the steps outline in this FAQ?  In particular, could you try temporarily disabling the protected mode to see if that makes a difference (instructions for this step can be found at the bottom of the FAQ)

How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?

[noahw60649262]

I had the exact same issue.

Disabling protected mode solved the problem. (Thank you)

It appears that compatibility issues between Mozilla browsers and Flash Protected Mode have been a recurring problem for quite some time (Flash 11.3 and above). (Although I only started experiencing them after recent updates)

Several "workarounds" have been suggested:

Flash - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Since Adobe strongly recommends running with Protected Mode enabled...

What is the current status for resolving this incompatibility with Firefox?

[chris.campbell]

We're working closely with Mozilla to resolve this.  Having lived through the release of 11.3 and working very closely with the community, I totally get the frustration that this issue can cause.

Do you have a sense for when this started occurring again?

[noahw60649262]

It is difficult to say with 100% confidence exactly when this problem started since many updates were occurring within the same time period (Adobe, Firefox, Windows).  However, to my recollection, it seemed that the problem began after upgrading to Windows 8.1 in January 2015.

Hope this helps.

[jeromiec83223024]

There are some known stability issues affecting Flash Player when running in Firefox on Win8 and higher.  We're working closely with Mozilla to resolve those and hope to provide improvements in forthcoming releases.

In the meantime, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome will provide a much more tuned and stable experience for that platform.

[wolfie138]

this problem is seriously getting on my goddamn nerves. i don't get it at home, but on the work laptop it's horrendous, i don't do YouTube but the ADVFN site locks up all the time. so according to this thread the wonderful Adobe people have been "working closely" for over 4 months and got nowhere, and the post above seems to be be "go and get something different because we can't be bothered to fix the item you like.

[jeromiec83223024]

It's unfortunate that the specific issue you're experiencing wasn't fixed by the work that landed in Firefox 39.  That said, the Firefox fixes that just landed in Firefox 39 *did* cut the aggregate Flash hang rate by about 50% for all Windows Firefox users, which is a tremendously successful outcome for an initial engagement, and we look forward to Firefox's active participation in identifying and resolving the other 50%.  We have always been and continue to be more than happy to support and prioritize these kinds of direct, collaborative engineering engagements, especially where the undertakings so clearly benefit our mutual users.

If you have a set of steps that leads to a reproducible hang, including a direct link to something, I'm always happy to take a look.  I can't do much with "it crashes sometimes on some random stuff" in general, which is why those types of problems frequently linger without resolution, but problems with discrete steps and consistent outcomes are very straightforward.

Also, if you haven't already, please run through the video troubleshooting guide, in particular, to see if disabling hardware acceleration makes the hang go away.

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html

[wolfie138]

i have no steps, other than going to ADVFN - FTSE 100 Share Prices, LSE stock Quotes, Forex & Financial News and looking at some of the shares - the pages lock up on about 80% of the time at least as i'm browsing, either opening a particular share's page or clicking to go to a forum etc. as i say, i don't have this issue in the house. FF is not telling me Shockwave or Shockwave for Director needs updating etc. so what else do i need to look at to see why things aren't working?

[Guest]

Check out this link: Adobe Flash protected mode in Firefox | Firefox Help

Esp: Remove the check mark next to Enable Adobe Flash protected mode.

Solved the problem for me

[jeromiec83223024]

It will definitely simplify the configuration, but that approach leaves you at a much higher risk for contracting malware.  You'd be better off switching to a browser with a modern sandbox implementation (Chrome, IE on Win8.1+, Opera PPAPI, etc).

[mskumar]

We are facing similar issue, in few workstations Flash on Firefox works fine with Flash Protection Mode Enabled, but on few machines Flash on Firefox is not working if the protected mode is on, but when uncheck it works fine. As per understanding the Protection Mode just reduces the performance but not sure why flash itself not working when the Protect Mode is Enabled and on few machines.

[wtsmith1020]

I have the same issue, and none of the suggested workarounds mentioned above has removed it (and I tried them all).  With Shockwave Flash 19.0.0.185 activated for general browsing, Firefox freezes up and I get "Plugin Container for Firefox has stopped working".  This is extremely annoying and until this version of Shockwave Flash was installed, I had not noticed it at all.  When I deactivated this plugin, the issue immediately disappeared, but obviously this is not a solution, as so many sites require Shockwave Flash to work properly.  The only workaround I've found which works (in a lame fashion) is to select "always ask" as the default activation permission mode and to selectively approve SF for the sites I visit which require it.  Am still not sure this workaround will work when I have multiple windows open, but it's the best I have for now.  I really think the folks at Adobe have changed their code in such a way as to make more problems for the Firefox community and the onus is on them to find a universal fix.  I've also noticed that this seems to happen most often when I have multiple browser windows open.  Is there a 'crosstalk' issue at work?

[SabbathFanatic]

I have the same problem. I am using Firefox 41.0.1. Here are the list of things I tried:

Safe Mode

Refreshing Firefox

Disabling hardware acceleration and protected mode

Nothing helped.

[jeromiec83223024]

If you have a consistent set of repro steps, those would be useful.

[SabbathFanatic]

Hello Jeromie Clark, you need to look into Firefox 41.0.1 about the Flash Player crashes.

[TonyGottlieb]

Is it just me or does it seem that the problems with Shockwave Flash are everywhere? Nothing with its use seems to operate consistently.

Attemps I've made to ameliorate the problems seem to work temporarily, but then return within a day or two. If Adobe cannot address these concerns I think it behooves everyone to begin the moves away from its use however painful.

[jeromiec83223024]

Well, you're certainly welcome to do that.  I'd recommend that you try a different browser or two to see if your stability issues go away first.

[Guest]

Exactly, TonyGottlieb. You'd think that with all of the criticisms that Adobe Flash gets, and with so many people looking for a better alternative, that Adobe would get their act together. YouTube is almost unwatchable because of the lag/"not responding" time. It's insulting to tell customers to drop our entire preferred engagement (web browser choice) with the WWW so that Adobe Flash can work. I'm not going to trash my guitar (Firefox) because one string (Adobe) is broken. I will join the growing chorus of folks wanting to get rid of flash, though.

[jeromiec83223024]

It's not a matter of not wanting to support Firefox, but giving you a timely workaround.  There's long-term architecture work happening (primarily on the Firefox side) to address the root-cause of general hang and stability issues, but if the issues you're having are painful enough to drive you to this forum, my assumption is that they're bad enough that you probably don't want to live with them for several months.  Also, Protected Mode is an critical defense against malware on Windows, and you put yourself at significant risk by disabling it. 

In terms of short-term options, using one of the ample available choices that have modern, secure plug-in interfaces (even Opera has one now) is going to give you a significant amount of pain relief.

The reason that Flash works so much better in other browsers at the moment is because those browsers have invested heavily in modern plug-in architectures that provide both security and efficiency.  The NPAPI plug-in interface in Firefox has gone largely unchanged since the '90s, and back in 2012 when we saw the shift in the malware space to state-sponsored hacking and well-funded organized crime, we bolted on a modern security sandbox architecture between Flash and Firefox (Inside Flash Player Protected Mode for Firefox.  At the time, Mozilla wasn't interested in making that kind of investment in plug-ins.

A plugin-side approach to sandboxing is sub-optimal, and because it's a bolt-on solution, the communication between Flash and Firefox is a multiple of what it would be in an efficient implementation.  The general flakiness of the system (and the reason it has persisted for years despite significant engineering effort invested) effectively boils down to the fact that there's so much communication happening that we overwhelm the capacity of the operating system to handle it.  Messages between processes that should arrive predictably and in order 100% of the time, suddenly become nondeterministically flaky, and one side of the conversation or the other hangs waiting for messages that arrived in a nonsensical order, or that didn't arrive at all.

We've been collaborating pretty closely with Mozilla over the last year on holistic solutions to this class of problem, and there's now an active effort to address these fundamental issues.  A native sandboxing solution allows us to drop all of that Protected Mode stuff, it makes it *much* easier to determine where a particular problem lies, and we solve the problem with all of the IPC communication.

So yeah, you're better off with another browser in the short term.

[Guest]

If not for the fact that YouTube is the only place where I have the "not responding" lag time, then I might switch browsers, but I won't switch just for YouTube. Sometimes a script does not respond in Shockwave and it crashes, but more often than not the only flash problems that I have are at YouTube.com, and I always have to wait at YouTube. ALWAYS -- If I enlarge the screen, then I have to wait for the "not responding" lag time. If I scroll down to comment, then I have to wait for the lag time. If I close the YouTube tab or click on another tab, gotta wait.

I always blamed flash because everything I've read says that YouTube's flash videos are the problem. That's how I found this thread, because I was searching for a way to fix my annoying problem that I have with YouTube. I troubleshooted my add-ons and what not, but to no avail. Maybe my problem is with YouTube and not Adobe Flash. I don't know. I'll just have to live with it, I suppose, even though it makes me watch YouTube a lot less than I used to.

[IamaGunslinger]

I fully agree.  I have gotten no useful information from Adobe other than to tell me to update my drivers, which was worthless.  Why don't they just admit that they don't want to support Windows 7, which I think is the case.

[yuvarajmani]

I am having the same issues with all the browsers(Edge, Chrome and Firefox) in windows 10. Disabling the shock wave plugin works in most cases. What is going on?

[jeromiec83223024]

Well, disabling Flash would be one way to deal with it.  Without any specific on your personal situation, I can't really venture any guesses.  Are you also using a Lenovo Yoga laptop?  I've posted a lot of troubleshooting steps and background information on the relevant threads.

Some basics would be really helpful:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1195540

[nemod2403986]

Hello Jeromie. I'm having a very similar problem, the difference being that my flash player crashes. To the best of my recollection, the problem started after updating from Win 7 to Win 10 about 3 weeks ago. I have submitted bug report 4075490 at https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=4075490‌. I have run through all the trouble-shooting steps I'm aware of. The only "solution" is to disable Protected Mode, which is obviously not a proper solution.

Very frustrating!

Is there anything further you can suggest other than disabling Protected Mode or using a different browser?