I just installed the most recent Firefox update, and now my flash content is broken. Let me explain:

When I go someplace with any kind of Flash at all, instead of just starting like it normally does, it shows a large, gray Play arrow. When I click on it, the flash starts, but it's jerky and odd.

I tried to install Adobe flash player, but it doesn't seem to recognize that I have it installed. Any help is greatly appreciated.

1) It helps if you tell people what distro you are using.

2) Sounds like swcdec is being used for flash.

3) How did you install Adobe flash?

1) I'm sorry, what is a distro?

2) How do I make that not happen?

3) Once from the "Install Missing Plugins" prompt, and once from the .deb file from the Adobe site.

Nope, that's OK, don't follow up. My problem is still not solved, but I guess I can just watch videos on my other computer.

First off, don't be an asshole, second off you should answer questions about computer specs if people ask.

To fix your problem, though I probably shouldn't tell you, is really simple. If you would have used google like any other noob out there should then I wouldn't have to be taking the time to do this, wait I won't I'll use search and post a link. Oh heck I'll do worse...

To get flash working the proper way, go to the adobe site, download flash for linux. If you need to figure out how to extract the .tar.bz2 GOOGLE IT. If you need to know where to put libflashplayer.so GOOGLE IT. Don't come on to a message board being rude expecting people to answer nice.

Yeah, sorry about me being a dick. This whole situation has me frustrated.

I downloaded the .tar.bz2 and extracted libflashplayer.so to usr/lib/firefox/plugins, and also to .mozilla/plugins. Nothing seemed to change in Firefox...

Any other suggestions?

Thank you for trying to help.

You still havent said what Linux distribution you are using, debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, fedora, etc. Nor whether it is 32bit or 64bit.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2
Shockwave Flash
File name: /usr/lib/flashplayer-mozilla/libflashplayer.so
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r32

works just fine here. Use the package management tools provided by the distro you are using no need to download crap off the web like in windows. Depending on your distro that could be adept, synaptic, apt-get/aptitude, YAST, yum or any number of things.

After restarting firefox go to Tools/Addons and see if it's working.

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Ok... I have Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). Does that help?

Craig: I don't have a /usr/lib/flashplayer-mozilla/. Should I create one and put libflashplayer.so in it?

Mushroomboy: When I go to Tools/Addons, it looks like I've got "Shockwave Flash 10.0" AND "9.0." I'm not sure how two different versions got on there, but maybe that's part of the problem? Come to think of it, there's a bunch of plugins on here that I don't think I installed... I have "Demo Print Plugin for unix/linux," "DixX Web Player," "Helix DNA Plugin," "Java Plugin," "Quicktime Plugin," "Totem Web Browser Plugin," "VLC Multimedia Plugin," and "Windows Media Player Plugin."

Disabling all of my plugins results in no flash working period, and turning on only "Shockwave Flash 9.0" brings flash back, but with the same jerkiness and gray Play arrow as before.

Turning on only "Shockwave Flash 10.0" results in no flash working either.

RestrictedFormats/Flash - Community Ubuntu Documentation The one nice thing about Ubuntu they have great documentation.

AHA!!! That is the culprit I'm betting. Run synaptic and remove ALL packages that pertain to flash player, every one of them and then start over from scratch.

- Grab the proper libflashplayer.so 64bit/32bit from Adobe and put it in ~/.mozilla/plugins

- restart the browser

If that doesn't work then delete the libflashplayer.so file and run synaptic, search for flash and install flashplayer-nonfree I believe it is. But yes finding out how 2 versions of flash are installed would probably do you good... If you can't get both removed disable 9 and see if that helps.

Aaaah, thank you, mushroomboy! Everything works again.

Thank you so much Mushroomboy.

I've been pulling my hair out with this issue for a while now.

I am using the latest ubuntu 9 something I think with firefox.

I followed your instructions, using package manager, and removing all instances of flash filtered through "installed".

I then downloaded the latest flash 10 as a tar.gz ( the .deb never seemed to work for me ).

then I extracted it, and copied the libflashplayer.so from the Desktop to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins folder.

double checking by using "about: plugins" in the browser to see when it was deleted and installed. Restarted browser, and it works.

Thanks again
Ron Guilmet.

Glad to be of help, I always tell people to do it this way first, you could also find out where your plugins folder for the whole system is so every user can have flash.... Though I find this way simple and easy to upgrade per user. I don't know why I like this way better, it just seems to work for me more than the .deb files.