Flash Player Crashes In ALL Web Browsers

If you suffer regular Adobe Flash Player crashes in all web browsers, here are a few fixes that may help. Important: if you only experience Flash Player problems in Google Chrome then go to our separate article on Shockwave Flash Crashes in Chrome.

[Chrome is different from other web browsers because it includes its own integrated version of Flash Player – this can cause Flash crashes which are unique to Chrome].

1. Disable Flash hardware acceleration – The aim is to eliminate hardware or driver incompatibility issues with Flash Player. Right click on the video picture during playback of any Flash video in your browser and, from the context menu, select ‘Settings’ to open the Flash Player Settings window.

The Display panel is the first panel (tab) shown at the bottom of the Settings window. Untick ‘Enable hardware acceleration’ in the Display panel then press Close. Now see if Flash Player works ok.

If the problem is fixed and Flash does not crash, you probably had a driver (software) issue with your graphics card. [If you ever want to try enabling hardware acceleration again (by re-ticking the option you just un-ticked above) you should first update yours graphics card drivers. Driver updates can fix issues with how Windows or programs like Flash Player work with a graphics card, or enable new features for it].

If the problem is not fixed and Flash still crashes, proceed to Step 2.

2. Custom Full Uninstall of Flash Player – Visit Adobe’s website here and carefully follow all the instructions to download and run the special Flash uninstaller and then delete specific Adobe files. In particular, Section 3 step 3 is important – you should delete all the files and subfolders stored within the following folders:

C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash

%appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player
%appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player

If one of these folders can’t be found you may see an error message – don’t worry about it, just proceed on to the next folder. Note: the instructions Adobe give in Step 3 are for XP – if you have Vista or Windows 7 you can ignore the Start > Run command in their step 3.3.a – just click Start then copy and paste (or type in) the folder name into the Search box then press Enter to open the folder.

Now you have completely uninstalled all traces of Flash Player – restart your computer.

3. Reinstall Flash Player – Download and install the latest version of Flash Player by visiting Adobe’s site here. During installation, un-tick the additional ‘freebie’ (e.g. Google Toolbar/McAfee Scan) unless you want that as well.

If you use more than one web browser you will need to install Flash Player for each web browser (not Chrome as it has its own Flash built in). After installation completes, choose your update method from the options as shown below:

Flash112
Flash 11.2 – Choice Of Update Method

It is recommended to choose ‘Install updates automatically…’ to ensure that future security and feature updates are installed as soon as they are available.

4. Test Flash Player – Now test again to see if Flash Player works ok. If it doesn’t then do the following if you have IE9:

  • IE9 – select Tools \ Safety – if ActiveX Filtering is selected, deselect it then try Flash Player content again.

If you only have problems with one particular website, go to the Website Storage Settings Panel here as shown in the example below:

flashsettings2

  • In the list of Visited Websites at the bottom, click (to select) on the one which is causing problems e.g adobe.com in my example.
  • Now move the slider above it from None on the left across to 10MB on the right (second from the end) and retest Flash Player content on that website again.

5. Still Having Problems? If you still encounter Flash Player crashes in all web browsers, try posting a query in Adobe’s support forum here – you will likely get better help if you can provide all relevant details e.g. Flash Player version, browser and Windows versions, problem you have (which websites?), graphics card and drivers, what you have already tried to fix the problem etc.

16 thoughts on “Flash Player Crashes In ALL Web Browsers”

  1. Well, thing is, I ran AdwCleaner to get rid of some adware. Bad move, now my shockwave began crashing, games won’t work, can’t access websites such as… well, flash-heavy ones. Not only that, programs spontaneously crash, or stop responding, and all my browsers suddenly hate youtube. Why??? This problem is so annoying now I have to use my DAD’S computer. Which is really old. And slow. BUT AT LEAST IT WORKS.

  2. I have been having issues with flash crashes started when War Commander a facebook game updated. Chrome did an update to lastest version of flash also about the same time. I run AMD E-450 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics1065GHz and on a HP all in one with Windows version 7 Home premium 64 bit OS 4.GB Ram with 3.61GB Useable.

    Did the new flash update effect me? Is that way I keep having flash crashes? I don’t have enough speed to support the new flash update?

    Jim

  3. I know this article is a bit old but I stumbled across it after months of wanting to throw my computer out the window! I would use one browser for a while until it crashed then move to the next and so on and so forth….until a couple of days ago when I couldn’t use any of them…. But the above fix worked like a charm! Thank you!

  4. If you need to keep the hardware acceleration OFF _and_ you have ATI radeon series grapjhics card, it is likely to be problem with the GPU firmware’s UVD processing. See another thread how to fix it or then just live with this. This bug seriously hurts overall graphics performance with every application that uses UVD, Flas is just one of them.

    See further details: https://techlogon.com/shockwave-flash-crashes-in-google-chrome/

      • Thanks Roy, glad to be able to help.

        The best part of the story is that when you fix the GPU FW, the hardware acceleration of Flash definitely gives you a significant boost! It was actually my son who told me that Flash slows down all GPU intensive applications significantly. I did not believe him, shame on me, until I had a clear 1st hand experience and did some debugging, but these kind of problems can be a serious headache to trace and isolate.

  5. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve been trying to fix it for like 2-3 years!! and would get so frustrated having to restart and restart! THANKS and Kudos to you! Just disabled the hardware acceleration Thanks!!

  6. I have tried all the steps listed, and then some! I use manly Google Chrome, for facebook, FV! On windows Vista 32bit., with sp2 No matter what I try flashplayer (shockwave) is still unresponsive when entering FV. have not tried other games. Have been fighting with this since about May 2012! Any other suggestions?? I have also removed AVG from my registry, Crashed my computer to the point of almost having to re-install Vista. What do I do?

  7. Hi Igor, technically, your solution (disabling audio effects) is to fix freezes (100% CPU usage, usually by audiodg.exe which hosts the audio engine in Vista/7) rather than actual crashes.

    However, many people would see a freeze as like a crash anyway so it could be very useful to them – thanks for your comments :-)

  8. youtube is not working, everytime i want to play smth it’s showing smth like that instead the vidio : a grey backgroung with a piece of puzzle in the center of the page. there it’s written ” couldn’t load plug in”
    ????

  9. Hi Kim, I believe it’s Flash for 64bit IE that is not supported on Vista64 – 32bit Flash should still work ok on 32bit browsers (which is why it works on Chrome).

    Firefox is also 32bit so should be ok. Try installing the latest Flash for Firefox from Filehippo if you can’t get it direct from Adobe:
    http://www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/

    If that won’t install (I haven’t got Vista64 to test with) then you could install the patched Flash 10.3.183.20 instead – see the ‘Updated 22nd June’ section at the bottom of this article:
    https://techlogon.com/june-2012-update-for-adobe-flash-player-in-firefox-only/

  10. Well, apparently, Adobe no longer supports my computer with Vista64. So, I’m trying to just use the Google Chrome to Facebook, youtube, etc. I enabled the Google flash, and disabled the others.

    Anything you can share about this? I don’t need another computer, mine is fine… rather disappointed in Adobe.
    And I miss my Mozilla.

  11. Thanks,
    I have been trying to fix this for about 8hours now. Using the adobe removal utility finally worked.

  12. Ok you’re using Adobe flash not chrome built in flash – does it work ok on adobe’s test site and youtube i.e. it’s installed ok without crashing? If so then problem would appear to be with just this one site

  13. I have win7 Home Premium 64bit hp computer. Started having problems with Crashes. Followed your instructions…even uninstalled & Installed Flash Player. I also updated my NVIDIA GeForce 405 driver. I also tried incognito but that didn’t help either. I’m not crashing anymore but I can’t view pictures at ancestry.com in either Chrome or IE. I can view them in my Family tree Maker program just fine. I don’t know what else to do. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!
    Thank You, Kim

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