Comments on: Problems updating the Flash player in Firefox? Here's help

If you can't get Firefox to use the new version of the Flash player, you've come to the right place. I just got finished fighting with Flash and Firefox. It was a long fight, but I won.

[RicABlair]

Chap, I'm a tad puzxzled at why you would accept at face value the statement by Adobe that the update is "critical," since you accept little else they say. Microsoft has stated often enough that many of its updates are "critical" too. And we know Microsoft is not one to be believed. Why not let the masses suffer through some crises before jumping ? There are enough 3rd parties (eg security software companies, pc user organizations, governmental entities, etc.) out there to give true and more accurate warnings about realistic threats.

OK, you ask why would a company label an update as "critical?" It's an admission against interest. Maybe, it's a marketing ploy to get unwary users to download unnecessary programs with the necessary. Bloatware can be found in updates too; in fact, what better place than updates where no one thinks to look and where no security or defensive blog has called attention to.

I'm a simple user. Your trials and tribulations on unistalling and installing to avoid "what we don't know" makes me stay with what I have. If a major problem arises there'll be many others before me and there'll be many chances to rectify the crisis before it actually hits me. I think the lesson to be learned from all of this is that there is NO such thing as mature software.

[A_N_Onymous]

I suspect that Firefox loads ANY dlls from that directory, so renaming it that way would have prevented your problem. Whenever I rename files to prevent their use, I change the extension (e.g. NPSWF32.dll.DON'T_USE).

Also, FWIW, my copy of the DLL (I'm running XP Pro*) is here: C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\NPSWF32.dll ... you must have a really old install of Firefox. Try removing Firefox, deleting the program directory, and re-installing from scratch and let us know where your Flash plugin ends up. If you need to save all your extensions and reload them in one fell swoop, get the FEBE extension. Works like a champ ...

* you don't say what OS you're running, and these days that could be Win2k, XP Home, XP Pro, or one of the 37 flavours of Vista ;-) [I see above you say "Windows XP Control Panel Add/Remove applet" so I ass*u*me you're using XP on at least one of the machines you run, but you also say "The first three machines ..." without mentioned their OSes.

[skyzyk]

Thank you very much. The reason why I came here was because I have just installed Secunia PSI and I also freaked out, as you did. You guys are lways my first choice when I have a problem. Thanks for not letting me down. :-)

[mhinnewyork]

To:RicABlair
This blog is about defensive computing which means preventing problems, not waiting until the masses suffer a crisis. Others have confirmed the bugs in the Flash player are critical, it's not something I'm qualified to judge.
To: A_N_Onymous
Sorry if I wasn't clear about the OS, it was Windows XP. Almost all the machines I deal with are running XP, I'm avoiding Vista. There is documentation from Mozilla on how Firefox finds plugins. It appears there is an old way and a new way, at least for Flash.
Michael Horowitz

[mhinnewyork]

To:skyzyk
The Secunia Software Inspector is a great service, don't take my comments here to in any way infer that you shouldn't use it or it's offline sibling. Any computer that gets a clean bill of health from Secunia is safer than one that doesn't. Even if the software is not perfect.
Michael Horowitz

[BobSal]

I agree, it's helpful when someone else finds the bugs first. Thanks!

[sschuc1]

Please help. I have tried over and over to install Flash's video service on firefox. also, flashchat won't work on firefox. On trying to get in chat on IE7, i get a blank page with a red 'x' in a box at the top left and a tab that indicates 'flashchat v4.7.8' only. Only Opera will play flash video or chat. I get as far as flash's installation Wizard, which finally tells me installation failed or was illegal. What can I do?

[USAautoworker]

To sschuc1 of 12/25 Me too - every site I get to that says "install plug-ins" I click but only get another icon on desktop. I don't understand the computer lingo. I don't know if I'm supposed to "open file" or what ever else it asks. I don't know what SO or DLL means. I certainly don't understand how any one can FIND anything... One time I took a computer class and tried to clean out all the temporary stuff. The instructor of the class couldn't even get my computer to work again.
I've been hiring someone to do all this but can no longer afford that. Where can I go to START learning all this. I know "mouse" and "keyboard", what's next?

[FrankTurd]

Major thanks for posting all this. I didn't even realize there was a critical update out for Adobe's Flash player. I followed most of what you did and was able to upgrade without a problem.

Thanks again for the information. ~ Frank

[morlamweb]

Another way to check the plugin files loaded by Firefox would be to load the about:plugins address in the browser.

And why is it a surprise to anyone (the blog author, Secunia, or Adobe) that Firefox stores it's plugin DLLs in ... C:\Program files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins? FF is an open source browser, right? Details like this would be in the documentation. It has been around for about 3 years now. You don't even need to know that much about FF to realize that "Program Files\Mozilla firex\plugins" folder is where the browser keeps plugin files.

I gotta admit, it is pretty funny that FF loaded the renamed plugin DLL. You did retain the .DLL file extension, but I thought that plugins were registered somewhere. Maybe not; maybe it just loads *.DLL in the ..\plugins folder, which smells like a vulnerability to me.

Last point: I'm with you 100% on the broken Flash uninstaller problem. There's no reason for this shoddy programming. Flash has seen nine major versions, and Adobe and Macromedia are big companies. Why the hell can't they get the uninstaller to work? Forcing people to download a separate uninstaller from their support site (which most people won't even know about) is just ridiculous.

[Nightdive199]

Firefox searches always in Appdir/plugins and it loads there np*.dll, that`s the reason why it loaded your wrong renamed .dll. Always change the extension if you rename something that shouldn't load.
Firefox also searches the registry for some installed plugins (Flash, Acrobat, Quicktime,Java) and it also scans fixed folders (AFAIK).
The first plugin found is used, not the one with the highest Version number.

You can see all loaded plugins in "about:plugins" but the path isn`t shown because you can also see the path from a webpage if you enable the showing the path.
You can do this if you set "plugin.expose_full_path" to "true" in about:config.

I see only 2 Firefox problems here:
I should use the highest found plugin version.
It should itself block insecure plugins (there seems to be already a fix for this in CVS)

[golaki]

I followed all the steps that Michael Horowitz had laid out, but noticed that Mozilla Firefox (2.0.11) was still using an older version of the adobe flash player (8.0.22) even though I had ran the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller, rebooted, and installed it again. IE6 displayed the correct version once I clicked on the flash player version check link that Adobe had supplied. I uninstalled firefox and deleted all firefox related folders, but still to no avail. I then found out that I had Netscape Communicator and Netscape 8.1 installed and recalled that it's based on the Mozilla Firefox engine. With a little bit of searching I found the NPSWF32.dll tucked in C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program\Plugins. I renamed it to NPSWF32.old and went back to the Adobe Flash Player version check page and sure enough, I was prompted to install the missing plug-in. I did so and then bam, I have the correct version of flash player 9.0.115.0. I also ran the version check on Netscape 8.1 and the updated version was posted. :)

[mhv13]

thanks Michael. You just made my daughter and her webkinz very happy.

[abhinavkumarin]

He, I found a great solution for this problem.
To update or install. Download only plugin (Firefox) and update it by Running
C:\Win....\Macromed\NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe. It will update both of the flash players or install if the activeX is not installed.

[Cherries-r-us]

If this is so complicated for "tech people" how are ordinary folks like me supposed to do an update like this? I guess I should just leave it alone ?

[cyrana24]

I found a simple fix to get firefox to play flash. Apparently "adblock" was the culprit. Once I disabled it, flash began working again. Have no clue why adblock decided to block flash.

[lucyisadog2000]

That's all well and good, but I managed to read the whole article and I am still not clear at all on what I should DO to fix the problem. I can see you struggled with it for a long time. It would be helpful if at some point you broke it down with some instructions for what others with the problem should DO to FIX IT.

[GeoNOregon]

I've been battling hardware and MS OS's since 286 MS-DOS 2.x days and have hated Adobe since the time the only offensive POS software they has was Type Mgr. Everything they buy they ruin and everything they have their name on is direct evidence of what happen when you are afficted with the Peter Norton syndrome, (that's when developers of software believe their way is the best way even if it means the product doesn't peacefully co-exist with mainstream OS's, video drivers or printer drivers).

I've been have a problem with Flash only working at some sites, depending on where the Flash was coming from (embedded links). I decided to try to fix it today and stumbled across your column - I check my install via the Flash 'tester' page and was told I had the most recent version... but it offered me a link to download the same 'newest' version.

I didn't think anything about the download link until I started looking at where my Flash drivers were installed - I was curious more than anything. I found them in C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash and also saw a file: 'NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe' 231kb with the same date as the driver. Being the curious and adventurous type, I executed the application. A window popped up on the screen telling me the Flash driver was installing and then it was installed, (possible just the install - it was quickly there and gone).

I was rather surprised, it was not a pop-up message I had ever seen before associated with the Flash plug-in or elsewhere. I re-opened Firefox & went to the Flash tester page to check on the version, in case it had changed.

The download link was now replaced with a Flash image telling me I now had Flash successfully installed. I've re-booted, etc, and still cannot get the download link for the new version of Flash.

So... something happened when I ran 'NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe' that the Firefox plug-in liked - what it is may only be known by the wiser and smarter than you and me programmers at Adobe - may a pox be on their crops.

[finnsailor]

About Flash.
I had a lot of problems with that and Firefox.
After many hours and gray hair my wife said
Right click on the Firefox icon.
Why, but
So I did and marked Use as admin.
And Flash was in The Firefox!!!
We men need women or somethinng like that.
Happy New Year!
immo

[anam_024]

i fall in some problem

[jormor1991]

This helped me tremendously! Thank you so much!