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Flash 18.0.0.232 crashes repeatedly after Windows 10 upgrade

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  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by geraa48

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Toshiba laptop: I just upgraded to Windows 10 and Flash 18.0.0.232 crashes repeatedly. Switched hardware acceleration off in Flash settings but no improvement. Having to use Edge to get Duolingo to work. Help please?

Toshiba laptop: I just upgraded to Windows 10 and Flash 18.0.0.232 crashes repeatedly. Switched hardware acceleration off in Flash settings but no improvement. Having to use Edge to get Duolingo to work. Help please?

All Replies (12)

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Sorry to hear about the crashes. Are you getting the Mozilla Crash Reporter dialog, or the Windows crash dialog? If you are getting the Mozilla Crash Reporter form, your Firefox may have logged some data that would help track down the cause of the problem. You can submit that data to Mozilla and share it with forum volunteers to see whether it points to the solution. Please check the last section of the support article "Firefox Crashes" for steps to get those crash report IDs from the about:crashes page, and then post some of the recent ones here.


Could you try disabling protected mode? The protected mode feature of the Flash player plugin has security benefits, but seems to have compatibility issues on some systems. You can disable it using the Add-ons page. Either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. On the right side, find "Shockwave Flash" and click the More link. Then uncheck the box for "Enable Adobe Flash protected mode" and try that for a day to see whether it helps.

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When I entered about:crashes at the address bar the list of crashes appeared. I right clicked on the most recent and selected 'Open link in new tab'. I got a 'Page not Found' screen with the following address: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/about/throttling.

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You might need to try a few times. Throttling refers to the server rejecting some requests/submissions due to heavy load.

For any crash report IDs that start a lower case bp- you can paste the ID into your reply without revisiting it. Although, you might be interested to see what is included.

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Turning Flash protected mode off seems to have fixed the problem........but isn't that exposing me to a security risk that I would not be exposed to if I were using another browser that didn't have this plug-in issue?

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I left-clicked on the crash report id and it appearted to me that the 'bp' prefix was appended.

Here's the report id: https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/index/bp-3c52c853-3e17-416e-9dd7-78db22150821

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I'm puzzled by the crash report; it seems partially blank like the crash happened so fast there wasn't a full data capture.

Turning Flash protected mode off seems to have fixed the problem........but isn't that exposing me to a security risk that I would not be exposed to if I were using another browser that didn't have this plug-in issue?

Protected mode is useful because it lowers the privilege level of Flash content and therefore limits what the media is allowed to do on the system. The big Flash exploits that make the news are bypassing protected mode in all browsers, but nevertheless, it's still a worthwhile feature for more run-of-the-mill content.

With the feature off, it should be your goal only to run Flash media you can trust. This is where click-to-play could be useful ("Ask to Activate" permission for Flash). This delays Flash from starting on a page until you approve it.

To set "Ask to Activate", open the Add-ons page using either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

With this setting, when you visit a site that wants to use Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and usually (but not always) one of the following: a link in a black rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.

The plugin notification icon in the address bar typically looks like a small, dark gray Lego block. When the page wants to use a blocked plugin, the icon turns red to alert you to the concern.

If you see a good reason to use Flash, and the site looks trustworthy, you can go ahead and click the notification icon in the address bar to allow Flash. You can trust the site for the time being or permanently.

But some pages use Flash only for tracking or playing ads, so if you don't see an immediate need for Flash, feel free to ignore the notification! It will just sit there in case you want to use it later.

If you want finer control: This extension addresses the issue of only wanting some videos on a page to play: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/click-to-play-per-element/ (I haven't tried it myself)

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Thanks. Sounds fine as a temporary fix, but as Flash ran fine in protected mode under Win 8.x presumably a fix will be in the offing to address this soon?

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Just tried the "Ask to Activate" feature. I like that and will see how it works day to day. Flash isn't the best software citizen anyway so having some discretion over its behavior may not be a bad thing.

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The two latest Flash crashes are linked to a bug that seems to affect sites where Flash gains access to the camera and/or microphone such as chat sites or audio recording sites. The bug report is specific to Windows 10, but the issue affects older versions of Firefox as well as current, so it could have been triggered by a Flash update or a Microsoft change.

Adobe is aware of it, but I couldn't find their bug report on it. In Mozilla's bug report, I didn't see any workaround for this issue. You might to use a different browser for sites where you use your webcam and/or microphone for the time being.

Regarding a protected mode fix, I really have no idea. (sad face here)

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I'm not sure how Norton works with Flash or with plugin-container.exe. There is a free program (free for home use) that claims to block exploits from escaping your browsers. I haven't tried it myself: https://www.malwarebytes.org/antiexploit/

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I saw a reply somewhere that I can't find again now which suggested TURNING OFF PROTECTED MODE in flash settings on firefox flash plugin, HAVE DONE SO AND IT SEEMS TO HAVE WORKED !!!!!!! :-)