Let me start by saying, this is not the only solution, as there may be different causes for this problem. In this post, I am talking about a specific issue:
Why do I have a “Flash Crash”? Because RealPlayer download button is enabled.
I’ve been banging my head against the wall recently with a mystery issue: my Flash Player kept crashing. I would go on re-installing flash, only to find out that it would crash again – sometimes within minutes of the reinstall. In addition, these crashes kept “freezing” my Firefox. Extremely annoying, as you can imagine.
I Googled this issue and found various ideas on what to do. Sadly, most of them still recommended reinstalling Flash and hope for the best. Then, when updating my IE browser at home and responding to simultaneous request to upgrade my Flash I saw it – the message straight from Adobe that explained it all: Adobe Flash Player crashes when exiting a page that has SWF file content and the RealPlayer “browser download button” feature is enabled.
This crash could be the result of installing and enabling a RealPlayer browser download button. The RealPlayer browser download button feature changes the way Flash Player interacts with the browser, and is not a supported configuration for Flash Player. So, simply put, there is a clash between RealPlayer and Flash Player. I will not go into an argument as to why I have to be forced to do so (I would think the big boys should learn to play together), but since I never used that button anyway, and I have all kinds of other players to use for my media files, I chose to sacrifice the RealPlayer’s download button in my browser.
I followed the link in the Adobe pop-up window, and here it is:
A Solution:
Remove RealPlayer or disable the RealPlayer browser download button in your browser’s add-on preferences.
Here is a step-by-step on how you disable this RealPlayer Browser Download button:
Firefox
- Choose Tools > Add-ons.
- In the Add-ons window, select “Real Player Browser Record Plugin.”
- Select either Disable (or Uninstall).
- Close, then reopen your browser.
Internet Explorer
- Choose Tools > Manage Add-ons.
- Choose Enable or Disable Add-ons.
- In the Add-ons window, select “Real Player Download and Record Plugin for Internet Explorer” (which I find to be an odd title – can Internet explorer add-ons window control other browsers? I should look into that.)
- Click Disable in the settings area at the bottom of the window.
- Close and then reopen the browser for this change to take effect.
Extra tip from my experience:It is important to check for this when upgrading to a new browser: I don’t think it keeps this setting automatically. I recently upgraded one of my browsers; the upgrade required a restart of my computer. Upon restart, Adobe informed be that a new version of Flash player is available. Once that install was complete, I had to go back to my freshly upgraded browser and disable the Real Player plugin to make sure my Flash performs. When upgrading, just double check.
I hope this helps you out!