Adobe Flash Player issues

CaptainRAVE · 7 Oct 2012 at 12:35

Hi all, could use some input with this one.

My dad emailed me stating that some videos like news reports cannot be loaded up (using Firefox), as it states he needs to download adobe flash player (probably just an update as it has been working fine before). He says he has tried to download it from the website and through the Firefox updater, but it still won't work. Not sure what to suggest to him next, especially because he isn't very technically minded.

Any ideas that I can pass onto him?

theheyes · 7 Oct 2012 at 13:25

Any particular requirement to run firefox? If not, Chrome might be a good solution since it is easy to install and low maintenance.

casey · 7 Oct 2012 at 14:56

I have just had this with a friend. He was launching BT Yahoo from a desktop icon. I found that putting the web address directly into Firefox everything worked fine.

CaptainRAVE · 8 Oct 2012 at 19:17

Apparently he has tried google chrome, but is still having the same problem? What to try next?

bledd · 8 Oct 2012 at 19:21

Chrome has built in flash. So there's something very wrong. Can you use teamviewer to check it out?

CaptainRAVE · 8 Oct 2012 at 19:24

bledd. said:
Chrome has built in flash. So there's something very wrong. Can you use teamviewer to check it out?

Neat idea, will give that a go.

CaptainRAVE · 8 Oct 2012 at 20:15

Oh my lord. So I send him to http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/windows.aspx, ask him to download and install the program. Then I ask him to send his ID and password. He sends:

ID123456789
Password1234

I couldn't work it out at first, then my other half pointed out that he has probably found it written down as an example somewhere. Facepalm when I realised where he got it from!

Oh, and it has taken him the best part of 25 minutes to get that far!

KIA · 9 Oct 2012 at 11:58

Hook him up with Chrome.

bledd · 9 Oct 2012 at 13:16

PEBKAC

CaptainRAVE · 9 Oct 2012 at 17:56

I might actually revisit the chrome idea. Based on how inept he was with team viewer, he probably didn't install chrome correctly. Will talk him through it over the phone on the weekend.

FoxEye · 11 Oct 2012 at 00:12

ususally I just go to adobe.com/software/flash/about. either it will ask you to install the latest version (works in FF, IE at least), or it will tell you what version you have currently.

it's also worth nothing that he might actually have flash, but something like noscript or adblock might be disabling it? or javascript might be turned off?

mrk · 11 Oct 2012 at 00:43

The updater in Firefox won't work. I've never seen it work for plugins like Flash.

Always use the horse's mouth for such stuff

CaptainRAVE · 13 Oct 2012 at 20:46

bledd. said:
Chrome has built in flash. So there's something very wrong. Can you use teamviewer to check it out?

Great call on teamviewer, used it today to fix his computer. He had downloaded flash installer about 30 times, but hadn't installed it :rolleyes:

All fixed now though

V F · 13 Oct 2012 at 21:14

mrk said:
The updater in Firefox won't work. I've never seen it work for plugins like Flash.

Odd. It updates for me. It's been so long now since I can remember manually installing it. At times when I go to check to make sure it's the latest thats installed.