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Seth Weintraub's picture
Seth Weintraub

Apple Ink

More posts | Read bio

March 10, 2008 - 7:41 A.M.

Adobe Flash now crashing Mac browsers?

22 comments

Over the weekend a lot of Macintosh users (myself included) noticed that certain sites crashed their browsers. ESPN, Walmart.com, Forbes, YouTube, Facebook, etc. What was the culprit?

Adobe's Flash.

I don't want to speculate that this has something to do with Apple forbidding Flash to be available on the iPhone - nor would I hesitate from ruling it out completely, however, there is a serious problem here. And as of Monday morning there is no official fix from Adobe or Apple.

The problem for me was on Camino, Safari, Firefox and Opera - using the latest versions on all of them. I did update my Adobe Flash CS3 Application last week via the automated installer - so maybe Adobe slipped me an application "mickey".

To "fix" I used Adobe's slightly archaic but effective Flash uninstaller. Once uninstalled, I could access the sites fine - no freezes or crashes. However, a fresh install of the latest version of Flash left my browser in the beach ball of death mode, again. Other people on the boards had some success with disabling Javascript (this isn't a fix) or uninstalling and reinstalling and restarting. Most however, including myself are currently without Flash until a fix becomes available.

Some forum members also suggested reinstalling Quicktime would help. It also appears that not all Flash content causes the crash - as some Flash banner ads work on the effected browsers.

From the support forums at Apple and Adobe, I don't appear to be the only one having this problem. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people seem to be having this same issue.

Adobe? Apple? Real? Perian? Anyone home?

 

What People Are Saying

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Flash/safari problem

Submitted by SteveC on May 14, 2009 - 11:09 P.M.

I had the same thing happen on my iMac. As soon as Safari opened, it closed, and the dialog box said it probably had a problem with the Flash Player that I had needed to download in order to watch a youtube vid.
Not knowing much about the computer, I went to Finder, found the plug-in, and moved to Trash. Now my browser works fine. But now apparently I can't watch youtube vids.

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WTF, Flash still crashing

Submitted by paige on April 28, 2009 - 11:21 P.M.

It's April 29th and still no resolve. I basically can't use my Mac. Makes me want to throw it out a window. Flash shuts down everywhere; Vespa, Hulu, Pandora, My oddball friend's site. I can't even see my own site (usability tester in me sees this as a flaw to fix).

WTF. Any solutions in sight? I've even tried installing older versions of Flash but so far have found all of them a useless waste of time (for Mac).

It's not just a Firefox relationship problem. Same thing with Safari.

Grumble.

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MLB Flash Crashes Mac

Submitted by Peter Michas on April 13, 2009 - 10:44 A.M.

I have run Permissions, my anti Virus, uninstalled Flash and reinstalled, run Disc Warrior, and tried to disable one section of Libraries at a time and still Flash crashes Safari and FireFox no matter what I try. Any ideas?

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I was having the same

Submitted by a black on February 25, 2009 - 2:11 A.M.

I was having the same problem. Certain flash ads [specifically a Dominos Pizza ad] were crashing my browser apps [Safari, Firefox]. I went ahead and updated to the latest flash player 10 plugin [I was previously running 9] and all appears to be well now.

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Adobe Flash Now Crashing Mac Browsers

Submitted by bomi13 on February 24, 2009 - 1:59 P.M.

Just wanted to say that I had similar problems. Camino and Firefox crashed with the slightest sign of flash on any website. I followed the idea to install one of the previous flash versions, the 47er build but had to choose the Universal one, since the other one only runs on PowerMacs. This alone didn´t do it. But after I then updated my OSX 10.4.7 to the latest 10.4.11 version everything mysteriously worked fine. Thanks for all your advice. Happy to enjoy my UB browser.

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Ive had the same problem

Submitted by monkey_chops on November 12, 2008 - 11:09 A.M.

Ive had the same problem myself and its driving me insane. What makes it worse is that i'm a web developer and it affects my work Mac. I'm running OSX 10.4.7 and flash 10.

I found a fix on the adbobe forums that suggests the issue is with incorrect file permissions. The Fix: run disk utility -> verify disk permissions the repair disk permissions.

It identified that flash had incorrect permissions and corrected these. Randomly i have had some success with websites such as amazon.co.uk and ebay.co.uk not crashing on me anymore however no dice with facebook.

let me know how you get on :)

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no crash using flashblock add on

Submitted by Hans Peder on April 11, 2008 - 4:42 P.M.

since updating to 9.0.0.115 and increasing with 9.0.0.124 my ff (linux) crashes frequently too. Using firefox 'flashblock' add on no crash occured until now. With flashblock you can activate flash elements with a click

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Flashblock works!

Submitted by Anonymous on April 22, 2009 - 10:26 P.M.

So far so good. I've frustrated like so many others. It took 4 starts to get Firefox running, then it would crash depending what site I clicked to.

Now FF loads with no problem.

This has been weeks...Thanks!

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Thanks! Totally worked! You

Submitted by jomesy on August 19, 2008 - 10:48 P.M.

Thanks! Totally worked! You are a cyber-genius.

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no crash using flashblock add on

Submitted by mahony on August 2, 2008 - 12:26 P.M.

Thanks so much for the tip. I was searching for this tip. I tought my new linux install was corrupt but it is defintely the flash that is rotten.

your tip has made my all week!

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