Flash Player keeps disappearing

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I have Win 7 Home Premium. Not sure how long but maybe for a couple of weeks now I’ve been having a lot of trouble with Flash Player. I regularly do Angus Reid surveys and they require Flash Player. Almost each time I get one now, when I go to their web site (with IE 11) it tells me that I need Flash Player and it does not appear to be installed and provides a link to https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html to check. This Adobe site tells me it is not installed or enabled. However checking IE’s Manage Add-Ons shows Shockwave Flash Object is Enabled.

Control Panel’s Flash Player Settings Manager’ Updates tab is showing ActiveX Version 19.0.0.245 which is the latest version.

Anyway I have repeatedly gone to the Adobe Flash Player Download link to reinstall it and after the installation procedure has successfully completed, it appears to have been installed and everything works fine. That is, until the next time I need to use Flash Player and I’m back to that same situation where it tells me it is not installed. This has been going round in circles now for a couple of weeks.

Incidentally, when I go to the download page and click the Download button (after unchecking the “optional” Google Toolbar offer) the installer runs to about 75% and then pops up a message telling me to close Internet Explorer and then click Continue. Seems really odd that their installer is telling you to close IE part way through the install procedure when the web page is clearly stating “Step 2 of 3” which means that at the conclusion of the install you should be taken to the next web page (Step 3). So that doesn’t make much sense. If the installer needs the web page closed, shouldn’t it do that itself? Anyway I do close the web page and then the installer will finish the installation. (I seem to remember earlier Flash Player installs completing automatically without requesting the browser be closed.) [Edit: Just checked after reinstalling again and when it finishes … after hanging at 90% for a rather long time … it then automatically opens the web page to the Step 3 page.]

Any thoughts on why my Flash Player seems to “self-destruct”? Reminds me of the old Mission Impossible TV show where in the opening scenes Jim Phelp’s cassette tape with mission instructions would self-destruct after playing!

:confused:

(Computers and I are not the best of friends but we generally get along most of the time. Today being Friday the 13th was a particularly crappy day at my work as there were numerous problems, mostly related to issues with our cloud hosting service’s hardware which fortunately their tech support was quick to respond and correct as they are a local company.)

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Thanks for the very quick reply.

Shockwave Flash and Flash Player are two different things.

My comment about Shockwave Flash came from watching the video at https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/install-flash-player-windows.html which at 1:10 says that Shockwave Flash Object is another name for Flash Player.

It is working now again after I reinstalled so does look like the installation completes but the next time it disappears I’ll try your manual download and see if it changes anything.

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Shockwave Flash and Flash Player are two different things.

Not true.

Shockwave Player (“Not to be confused with Flash Player“).and Shockwave Flash Player (“labeled Shockwave Flash in Internet Explorer and Firefox“) are two different things.

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Any thoughts on why my Flash Player seems to “self-destruct”?

At IE11 Tools/Safety, is Active X Filtering checked/ticked?

If so, you need to uncheck/untick it, or use the blue barred circle in the address bar at a particular site.

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At IE11 Tools/Safety, is Active X Filtering checked/ticked?

Nope, not checked.

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I’m not an expert on ActiveX and I don’t use IE, so this may be completely irrelevent, but in Firefox, a few updates ago, it reported that Flash needed updating even though I’d done the update several times.

It turned out that the installer had inserted the latest .dll file, but hadn’t deleted the old one; FF just chose the first one it came to. Deleting the old file fixed it.

Not saying this is any use to you, but there might be a clue somewhere.

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Like all programs that become buggy, an uninstall/reinstall usually resolves and this has proven successful for repeated prompts to install Flash Player.

Follow the steps in this article to ensure everything is removed prior to the reboot and reinstall.

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

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Thanks for suggestions. I just went to https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html to check the Flash Player and it’s again telling me it’s not installed so “poof” it’s self-destructed again.

Hopefully I’ll get some time in the next few days to try the manual reinstall first following Sudo15’s link. I’ll report back when I have some results.

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This seems representative of the problem that Firefox has had for years now. It just can’t handle the Flash thing. Every few days, some page or other will say “needs Flash” or “Flash not installed”. I have to redownload the installer and run it again, and then things are fine for a few days. I can’t find any answers as to whether a given AddOn may be causing the problem, but it is widespread among Firefox users.

Oh, and Flash is simply the browser plugin, while Shockwave Flash Player is the offline tool, right? No one really uses that anymore, do they?

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Try a clean install https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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A clean install would be good, but it could be that you have remnants of an old version on your system which will not go away and are coming back to bite you. Use an uninstaller such as Revo to thoroughly uninstall it, including a Registry scan, and then check the location WindowsSystem32MacromedFlash, and delete anything that is in there. If you have a 64 bit system, do the same for Syswow64MacromedFlash. It could also be that you have an outdated auto updater running. Check your startup items, and your scheduled tasks, and remove anything related to Flash. Then go to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ . This will detect your browser and offer you the correct version for that browser – ignore any offers for spurious software, and download/install it. If you want to use Flash in more than one browser, you will need to do this from within each browser. For what it’s worth, I use it with FF 42 and have no problems, certainly not of the kind described.

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A clean install would be good, but it could be that you have remnants of an old version on your system which will not go away and are coming back to bite you. Use an uninstaller such as Revo to thoroughly uninstall it, including a Registry scan, and then check the location WindowsSystem32MacromedFlash, and delete anything that is in there. If you have a 64 bit system, do the same for Syswow64MacromedFlash. It could also be that you have an outdated auto updater running. Check your startup items, and your scheduled tasks, and remove anything related to Flash. Then go to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ . This will detect your browser and offer you the correct version for that browser – ignore any offers for spurious software, and download/install it.

Thanks. I used Revo and it seemed to think Flash was installed while other applications said it wasn’t. I allowed Revo to remove everything it could find for Flash. Then checked both folders you indicated (I have 64-bit) and there were no Macromed folders in either of them. There was nothing in Startup and Task Scheduler at this point relating to Flash. Reinstalled Flash and up and running now. Will see if it stays running. Also cleaned up a few items in Startup that I rarely use.

My email program (Incredimail) apparently also uses Flash and interestingly enough there was a Flash graphic in it that hadn’t been working for some weeks although the email program worked properly otherwise even though other applications were saying Flash wasn’t installed. After I uninstalled Flash (before reinstallation) the email program wouldn’t open as then it realized there was no Flash. So now with Flash reinstalled, the email program is working again and the graphic has returned.

I’ll post back after a few days or so the results … hopefully it’ll be to report no more problems.

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Just to let you know it’s been almost a week and Flash seems to be running along smoothly. No errors or messages saying it’s not installed. So unless something else occurs, I’m considering problem solved.

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Corrine‘s Security Garden Blog has direct download links to the latest, clean (no additional software offered) Flash versions listed, as well as a direct link to the Flash uninstaller, soon after they’re released – current page here.

My preference is for the ESR version of Flash (page link below):

Adobe makes available a version of Flash Player called the “Extended Support Release” (ESR) to organizations that prefer Flash Player stability over new functionality. We have created a branch of the Flash Player code that we keep up to date with all of the latest security updates, but none of the new features or bug fixes available in our current release branch.

But this will very soon become unavailable to non-Enterprise users – thanks a lot, Adobe:

WARNING

This page and the download links will be decommissioned on January 22nd, 2016.

If you are not an enterprise user, please visit get.adobe.com/flashplayer to download Adobe Flash Player for your system.

Enterprise users must have a valid license to download and distribute Adobe Flash Player binaries.

https://www.adobe.com/mena_en/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

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Adobe’s move makes me ask again whether I really need to have an updated version of Flash Player.

Go hang, Adobe!

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Adobe’s move makes me ask again whether I really need to have an updated version of Flash Player.

Go hang, Adobe!

As you may need Flash for some sites, this is why you should keep it updated –

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/critical-fixes-for-windows-adobe-flash-player/

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