Adobe Flash Player Crashing Repeatedly - macOS 10.12.6 w/FP 27.0.0.183 on Safari 11.0.1 & Firefox 56.0.2 (64-bit)

[nbawek]

[moderator: added os and browser versions to title]

I have uninstalled, reinstalled, checked all settings, restarted the computer and browsers about 7 times today alone trying to fix this issue. Adobe check says it is installed and functioning but when we try to use it for my daughter's online classes it continues to say "Adobe Flash Player has Crashed"

If someone could please explain what I am supposed to do to fix this I would really appreciate it. I have another MacBook Air with the exact same programming and settings which is working perfectly fine.

Everything is up to date. I am at a complete loss.

[jeromiec83223024]

To give you any useful advice, I'm going to need to know more about the affected computer and browser:

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

Report a Flash Player crash or error

[nbawek]

It is a MacBook Air running macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6

Flash Player 27.0.0.183

and is happening on both Safari 11.0.1 (12604.3.5.1.1) and Firefox 56.0.2 (64-bit)

It functions for about a minute and then pops up a notice that says "Adobe Flash Player has crashed"

[jeromiec83223024]

Can you give our beta a try? There's a good chance that it's already fixed.

http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayerbeta/

You'll probably need to uninstall Flash Player first before installing the beta version.

Uninstall Flash Player - Mac:

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

If that doesn't help, please do the following:

• In firefox, type about:crashes in the address bar
• Click the first couple links to submit them
• Post the links to the resulting pages here

[nbawek]

Tried uninstalling and then installing the beta version. That didn't work either.

Here are the first three links for the crashes

[@ FlashPlayer-10.6@0x4c4cc9] - Firefox 56.0.2 Crash Report - Report ID: 573ade29-6f57-479a-b06d-56a...

[@ FlashPlayer-10.6@0x4c5589] - Firefox 56.0.2 Crash Report - Report ID: 916f0044-4c45-4a6f-a98d-d0e...

[@ FlashPlayer-10.6@0x4c5589] - Firefox 56.0.2 Crash Report - Report ID: b8d4951b-6bb3-451d-b7f8-c27...

[jeromiec83223024]

Ugh, this is odd.  You're the only person ever to report those crashes, and they look like the machine is just freaked out.

Have you rebooted the machine since this started?  You might just power it down for ~5-10 seconds, then power it back up.  Don't do a soft reboot.

[nbawek]

That is just my luck lately.

I turned it off, let it sit for one minute and turned it back on but the issue is still the same. Should I contact Apple and see if they have a solution?

[jeromiec83223024]

Okay, weird.

I can think of a couple things to try:

1.) Do you have the same problem with Google Chrome?  It has it's own built-in Flash Player that's very different than what Firefox and Safari use.

2.) Try disabling hardware acceleration:

You can find instructions in the video troubleshooting guide here:

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

3.) Is this specific to just this one website, or do you see it on other stuff, like:

Adobe - Flash Player

or

http://www.homestarrunner.com/

[nbawek]

Ok. I uninstalled the beta version and shut down the computer then reinstalled the newest version and it seems to be working on Safari (for now) but on Firefox it is still having issues. I don't have Chrome installed. And I have tried disabling the acceleration.

[jeromiec83223024]

Safari and Firefox share the same Flash Player.  All of the signs point towards something wrong underneath us.  You're already on the latest Firefox version, so it's not a big version mismatch between Flash and Firefox or something..

It sounds like disabling hardware acceleration didn't make a difference, so feel free to turn it back on.  Flash Player performs better and uses less battery when we can use the GPU, particularly when video and 3D graphics are in play.

I'm thinking that there's either a third piece of software attempting to hook into us, or there's something whacky with the Firefox installation.

It's annoying to lose your bookmarks and history.  If you don't care, just removing and reinstalling Firefox is the easiest way.

If you'd like to be a little more surgical, you could first check to see if the problem reproduces in a clean Firefox profile:

Use the Profile Manager to create and remove Firefox profiles | Firefox Help

If everything is happy in the new profile, then you know that it's time to export all of your bookmarks and data, refresh/reinstall Firefox, and then import your settings.

Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings | Firefox Help​

Hopefully that gets you back things back to normal.

Also, have you run a malware or antivirus scan on that machine recently?  It might not be a bad idea.  Any of the major reputable vendors will usually offer a free trial, and a lot of times (at least in the US), your internet service provider has already licensed antivirus for their customers to use as part of their subscription.  It will typically be on their customer-facing website in the downloads.

[nbawek]

I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, no luck.

I cleared the hard drive (like you would before selling) then reloaded, no luck.

Ran antivirus scan (Bitdefender), no luck.

[jeromiec83223024]

Did we figure out if it was specific to this one website or to all Flash sites?

[nbawek]

It appears to be on all sites that run Flash

[jeromiec83223024]

Okay, thanks.  This is definitely a weird one.  Thanks for sticking this out.

I need an actual crash dump so that I can look at it in a proper debugger.

Could you please do the following:

Go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder

Enter the following:

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Crash Reports/pending

You should see some files in there.  Could you share those with me?

[nbawek]

0B8A4CEC-2743-4086-B67C-F96ACB860508.dmp

0B8A4CEC-2743-4086-B67C-F96ACB860508.extra

32F5767B-8865-4165-9F72-5290DE0C602C.dmp

32F5767B-8865-4165-9F72-5290DE0C602C.extra

2546737B-5E32-4E28-8D28-98DAB55FDB62.dmp

2546737B-5E32-4E28-8D28-98DAB55FDB62.extra

BA805DCD-F40A-4602-9D86-4BCBF110FDCF.dmp

BA805DCD-F40A-4602-9D86-4BCBF110FDCF.extra

I will try just about anything to get this fixed. Is this what you need? I am having a difficult time getting the files to move from the folder here.

[jeromiec83223024]

Yeah, that looks right.  I sent you a private message with a link to a writable google drive folder.  You should be able to just drag and drop those into the browser window.

[nbawek]

Ok. I loaded the files. And now just to make it even more fun my son's computer (exact same as this one) is having the same issues. Although, his lets us reload the page and keep working where her's just shuts down.

[jeromiec83223024]

Ugh, thanks.  This is just going to tell us where our bug is.  I'm not sure why you're hitting it so consistently, but it's not something that's super common.  

I'd really recommend trying Chrome out as a workaround.  The Flash Player that's built into Chrome is significantly different, so there's a good chance that you won't hit whatever condition it is that's causing the crash in the NPAPI plug-in used by Safari and Firefox.

[nbawek]

Ok. I will try it.

[nbawek]

Chrome is working for Flash on other sites. However, their class pages will not load in Chrome because it says that "Flat is not fully supported in Chrome"

[jeromiec83223024]

You might try this:

Use or fix Flash audio & video - Computer - Google Chrome Help

[nbawek]

I followed that link. However, the class pages will not load properly in Chrome because the Flash Player does not support all of the graphics/videos they are given.

[jeromiec83223024]

We released a new beta today.  I'm not sure if it fixes the issue you're running into, but it might be worth a look.  I don't have a lot of good suggestions at this point.

http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayerbeta/

If there are problems with Flash Player in Chrome, I'd love to talk to the courseware provider about it.  My suspicion is that they're probably running afoul of Chrome's more restrictive security policies and not encountering actual Flash Player bugs.  If they wanted to drop me a test account and point me to some problems, I'd be more than happy to have a look.  Feel free to forward this thread.  They can send me a private message by clicking on my name.  I'll be happy to get a conversation going at the engineering level.

[nbawek · Accepted solution]

Thank you for all of your help! I called Apple today and they had me install the new macOS High Sierra and that seems to have fixed the issue. I am hopeful that whatever gap/glitch was occurring has been taken care of by that install but only time will tell.

[jeromiec83223024]

Awesome, that's great news.