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Seth Weintraub's picture
Seth Weintraub

Apple versus Google

Adobe Flash now crashing Mac browsers?

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

Flash freezing browser - Renaming home folder / hard drive

DO NOT RENAME YOUR HARD DRIVE OR HOME FOLDER!!!

I suppose these two numb nuts think it's funny but you will not.
Renaming your home folder will not fix the problem with Flash (it is TOTALLY unrelated). It will however hide everything previously on your desktop and all of your settings.

Still haven't found the fix to some flash pages (specifically for me; Google Finance charts) but do not add the headache of restoring all of your settings.

flash crash mac

I renamed hard drive and clickflash and the problem went away??????

flash crashing safari

if your internal hard drive is still named the default Macintosh HD, change it to anything else. This was an applecare rec that worked for me. No other fix worked.

I've searched all over the

I've searched all over the internet - forums, adobe support, etc. Spoke to Adobe reps - they have no clue. They just told me to reinstall. Duh. But renaming the Mac HD from the default name resolved the issue. Genius. Can't imagine why these things are connected but it worked.

Thanks worked great

Thanks worked great

Go here

Go here http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html and download an older version of the Flash installer. Make sure you remove the new flash player.

You may be "at risk" per the vulnerabilities discussed elsewhere...but at least Flash works now.

ugh is there any way i can

ugh is there any way i can play flash games?

Flash/safari problem

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.

WTF, Flash still crashing

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.

MLB Flash Crashes Mac

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?