Does Flash Crash Your Firefox/Web Browser?

[tdrusk]

I am having a problem with Flash and sites such as Youtube. Gutsy has improved this problem, but it still isn't completely fixed yet. I posted this in the Ubuntu Brainstorm and was told that many people aren't having a problem.

So, anybody who has a web browser crashing on them while using flash please vote here.

If you are using a different browser than firefox, please say so.

EDIT: Since I now know I am not the only one, please go here (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/371/) to fix it.

[sillyxone]

I have the same problem viewing flash movies in FF too, most of the time it happen when the movie is loading and I navigate away from the page.

Never experience the same problem in Epiphany.

I heard that FF3 fixed this bug. I'm in a production environment so can't try FF3 beta daily, just wait and see.

[Iceni]

I've had this problem with opera up till the 9.50 beta. The latest development snapshot fixed this, and I'm happy:)

[CaptainCabinet]

Firefox sometimes crashes for me while watching videos online. Mainly youtube. So I try to stay away from the site.

[samwyse]

Both Firefox 32-bit and 64-bit hang occasionally with the newest plugin, but in 64-bit you can go and kill npviewer and continue browsing without killing Firefox.

[hyperair]

Check the version of your Flash. Mine's at revision 115. Also, I use the daily build of Minefield, updated at 10.30PM my local time daily and I don't experience any issues with Youtube.

[derekr44]

Mine crashes on Youtube quite a bit, mostly when I navigate away to a different page.

[aysiu]

Mine doesn't crash as often as it used to, but it does crash occasionally. No biggie.

[p_quarles]

I think I recall Flash crashing exactly once since I started using Fluxbox.

And, as someone else mentioned -- using nspluginwrapper in 64-bit Firefox means that you can kill Flash without killing Firefox.

[Bishma]

Every browser on my system crashes without fail whenever there is any flash on a page even after uninstalling and reinstalling everything internet related on my machine.

[y-lee]

Using dapper and Firefox or Swiftweasel 2.0.012, no I seldom crash on flash sites :)

[Vingummi]

Flashplayer that comes with 7.10 has a bug and has been solved, hope it helps.
Link: [SOLVED] Bug #173890 flashplugin-nonfree md5 mispatch support thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=636397&highlight=flashplayer)

[Kingsley]

My browser has never crashed on Fedora. It crashed all the time when I used Ubuntu 7.10, but I'm not sure if the problem was associated with me using Compiz back then.

[SunnyRabbiera]

every so often, once in a blue moon

[imT]

not often but still... it's happening...:(

[PetePete]

+1 for the not often but does every now and again

seems to do mostly when navigate to different page

[toupeiro]

Yep, it happens. Its really my only true annoyance about ubuntu that I can't seem to fix (restarting firefox and killing bad PID's != fix)

Unfortunately, I occasionally work from home by way of Citrix Metaframe which authenticates me via a web page and secure ID chip. So as you can imagine, sometimes the problem escalates from annoyance to truly ******* me off.

I've tried al the various howto's that supposedly fix this, none have worked. I've tried stracing it myself, no help. Hopefully this gets remedied someday.

[Linuxratty]

My browser has never crashed on Fedora. It crashed all the time when I used Ubuntu 7.10, but I'm not sure if the problem was associated with me using Compiz back then.

No,cause the same thing happened to me using Ubuntu without Compiz..In fact,Ubuntu with Firefox crashed using Flash if i even looked at it funny.
I got crashes sometimes with Fedora,seldom with Mepis and rarely with Klikit and I don't recall flash crashes at all with ,Linspire or Freespire.

[kevinatkins]

Yep, this problem affects me, too... tends to occur when I navigate away from a page with Flash content using the browser navigation buttons...

[super breadfish]

It doesn't seem to happen as much now, in the past Flash crashed a lot, especially when on Youtube. I never identified the exact cause, but it seemed to happen most with a lot of videos or a large video, or when closing a Youtube page soon after opening it.

[FuturePilot]

Yes, every so often it will.

[intense.ego]

Like some other people said, mine crashes when I navigate away from a flash site like youtube, though it seems to happen less and less frequently. Its no longer enough to make me avoid youtube, etc.

[akiratheoni]

I voted No because while it has crashed in the past, it was very, very rare and hasn't happened in such a long time.

[bonzodog]

It has happened to me, but only very occasionally. Not yet on Arch Linux though. It did on Zenwalk Linux, using the Adobe download, but again, only occasionally.
Once, it caused an X hardlock that killed my keyboard altogether, and FF froze over in fullscreen mode. I had no choice but to force a hard reboot of the machine, as I lost all control of the system.

[Whiffle]

Not at all on konqueror using the older r48 version flash...

[jrusso2]

I use the older version of flash and I am using the Firefox straight from Mozilla and works great no crashes

[kerry_s]

i don't get crashes, i get stuttering on vids, less when i switch to low quality. i was using flash 7, which worked great, but i had to move back up to flash 9, cause so many sites use it now. i have 0 problems with sites like pandora, in fact i got that running right now on another desktop, it runs very smoothly even with another firefox open with many tabs.

[Billy_McBong]

it used to crash whenever there was flash on a page, flashblock (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433) helped for not displaying unwanted flashes

but now i dont really get anymore

[Sunflower1970]

Has not crashed Firefox on any of my Linux boxes...but I do seem to have trouble with FF + Flash on Windows XP on my work computer...Weird. Not a big loss though.

[vishzilla]

No, it doesn't crash. But Firefox sure eats up a lot of memory when a flash page is displayed.

[Polygon]

Not often,. Sometimes i run into an obvious bug like closing a tab with flash and then switching tabs and pressing some random key all within a half second sometimes makes firefox crash

but with every release of the flash plugin for linux, it seems to get better with not crashing.

Im happy with how far the plugin has come, we now essentially have every single feature that the windows version has. Full screen, h.264 support, etc etc

[meldroc]

Yep, still does.

I used to run the 32-bit version of Ubuntu - in that case, it'd take Firefox with it. Now I run x64 Ubuntu, with the plugin to run 32-bit Flash in 64-bit Firefox. At least the behavior's slightly improved - only flash crashes, but it doesn't take Firefox with it.

This bug's been a thorn in my side for years now. It's been here for several versions of Ubuntu, some people say it's Flash that has the bug, some say it's a kernel bug, and I don't care where the bug is, just for the love of FSM, will some developer at Adobe or elsewhere take some mercy and FIX this? It's a real pain in the ***, and it shouldn't have been allowed to continue to exist this long. Just will the Ubuntu developers, kernel developers, Adobe developers all please stop passing the buck, bang your heads together and FIX THIS!

[tdrusk]

Yep, still does.

I used to run the 32-bit version of Ubuntu - in that case, it'd take Firefox with it. Now I run x64 Ubuntu, with the plugin to run 32-bit Flash in 64-bit Firefox. At least the behavior's slightly improved - only flash crashes, but it doesn't take Firefox with it.

This bug's been a thorn in my side for years now. It's been here for several versions of Ubuntu, some people say it's Flash that has the bug, some say it's a kernel bug, and I don't care where the bug is, just for the love of FSM, will some developer at Adobe or elsewhere take some mercy and FIX this? It's a real pain in the ***, and it shouldn't have been allowed to continue to exist this long. Just will the Ubuntu developers, kernel developers, Adobe developers all please stop passing the buck, bang your heads together and FIX THIS!

Yep I agree 100%

[macogw]

Nope, haven't had this problem since Firefox 1.5, and then it was only on one specific all-Flash site. FF2 and FF3 on Gutsy were fine, and FF3 on Hardy is just fine as well.

I have had FF3 crash on Hardy a couple of times, but never while I was using a Flash-based site. Those were all either random or maybe bad javascript.

[XVII]

I don't know why flash would make the browser crash. I've never had any problems.

[AdNZL]

I can go for day's or weeks without FF crashing, and then somedays it crashes every 5 minutes, which is how I found this thread in the first place :) Seems to be more unstable the more I have running. Also flash in ubuntu uses much more cpu than widoze for some reason. Just basically runs like crap, which is a real shame.

[billgoldberg]

Firefox, flock, NN9, epiphany and kazehazake crash on me.

Not on every flased based object I see, but let's say every ten youtube or other flash based vids I watch it crashes.

It only takes a few seconds to kill and restart it, but it's the main reason I don't advise ubuntu to friends using pclos2007.

[Samhain13]

Not often too, like what some of the others say. And it's not all sorts of Flash content but only those that have video-- and again, not often.

I've also observed that my browsers (Opera and Firefox) are more likely to crash when viewing YouTube (and similar videos) after having toogled the scripted comments and related videos boxes. But then, it's just an observation.

[Old Jimma]

Yes. Firefox crashes for me, particularly when I'm running other multimedia such as Amarok.

It sure would be nice if someone could fix this.

Phil Smith
Duluth, GA

[gn2]

On my Desktop PC: 64-bit Xubuntu 7.10, does not crash.

Laptop: Elive Gem, does not crash.
32-bit Xubuntu 7.04, does not crash.

[tdrusk]

If you want flash fixed please go here (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/371/) and vote to fix it.

[Linuxratty]

Yep, this problem affects me, too... tends to occur when I navigate away from a page with Flash content using the browser navigation buttons...

Yup,it's happened when I try to leave as well...I'm not sure why as the video has stopped playing when this happens.
I've never seen this happen in Windows.

[SRGT. DeGreene]

My Firefox Browser crashes on me but very rarely, but im usually doing something important so it is very annoying.

[lobster1234]

I recently did a mass migration from Windows to Ubuntu 7.10. This includes an AMD Athelon Desktop, a Dell 1505 laptop and an IBM t60 laptop. In all 3, Firefox keeps crashing regardless of Flash content or not. I have tried all the solutions/hacks listed like disabling Totem, installing flash from Adobe, uninstalling gnash player but no help.

This could just be the straw to break the camel's back. I can live with crappy hibernate and suspend support on my laptops, but if firefox does not work (unfortunately Opera and Konquerer do not do Flash as easily) I might have to just give up and come back later (in a year or so!).

[cookieofdoom]

Flash likes to crash my browser. I switched from 64 bit to 32 bit because I think nspluginwrapper makes it even more unstable in some ways. Flashblock (mentioned above) does seem to help a lot. It makes Firefox a lot more usable.

[Mazza558]

It mostly crashes when trying to close a tab which has a flash vid open.

[smartboyathome]

Doesn't crash my browser on 64 bit, but it doesn't always work.

[lobster1234]

Follow-up to my post #44 : On the Dell, I installed flashblock add-on, which pretty much makes all flash content to be played 'on-demand' rather than automatically. It seems to have prevented the frequent crashes. I will post right-away if I find otherwise.

[klange]

Ever since I got FF3b3 I've never had a single Flash-related crash. It's quite nice.

[tdrusk]

Thanks for posting guys. Keep your opinions and votes coming.

Also, make sure to go here (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/371/) and speak up

[Jack78]

My firefox seems to crash with java - at least flash works great :)

[SZF2001]

Ugh, this is one of the reasons I had to switch back to Windows - my gf loves MySpace (THE HORROR) and all the ******** it uses on it's pages would constantly crash the browser. And the Youtube thing people mentioned too.

This was with Ubuntu 7.10.

[gn2]

Ugh, this is one of the reasons I had to switch back to Windows - my gf loves MySpace

You don't need Windows, you need a change of gf.

[SupaSonic]

Flash crashed my opera like 4 times a day. With FF3 there are no crashes, although just yesterday instead of youtube videos there was just an empty screen.

[macogw]

Ugh, this is one of the reasons I had to switch back to Windows - my gf loves MySpace (THE HORROR) and all the ******** it uses on it's pages would constantly crash the browser. And the Youtube thing people mentioned too.

This was with Ubuntu 7.10.

Use AdBlock Plus to stop it on MySpace...those ads are annoying anyway

[SZF2001]

Tried that and noscript, but she NEEDED her music.

Yea and I'm not going to dump a girl over an OS.

[yeko]

Here is the solution..Worked for me.

I went to the Adobe Flash for Linux site and downloaded the Flash Player tar.gz file. The file got downloaded to my Desktop.
From then the installation was as simple as these steps.

1. Open terminal. Applications->Accessories->Terminal
2. Change directory to Dektop by running the command "cd Desktop", without the quotes.
3. run the command "tar zxvf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz".
4. This will create a folder/directory called "install_flash_player_9_linux".
5. "cd install_flash_player_9_linux".
6. Finally run the installer "./flashplayer-installer".

The installer will ask to close any running instance of Firefox and will install the Flash plugin.
You may verify the plugin by againg starting Firefox and typing "about:plugins" in the address bar.
If you get something like

Shockwave Flash

File name:
libflashplayer.so

[aysiu]

Here is the solution..Worked for me.

I went to the Adobe Flash for Linux site and downloaded the Flash Player tar.gz file. The file got downloaded to my Desktop.
From then the installation was as simple as these steps.

1. Open terminal. Applications->Accessories->Terminal
2. Change directory to Dektop by running the command "cd Desktop", without the quotes.
3. run the command "tar zxvf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz".
4. This will create a folder/directory called "install_flash_player_9_linux".
5. "cd install_flash_player_9_linux".
6. Finally run the installer "./flashplayer-installer".

The installer will ask to close any running instance of Firefox and will install the Flash plugin.
You may verify the plugin by againg starting Firefox and typing "about:plugins" in the address bar.
If you get something like

Shockwave Flash

File name:
libflashplayer.so
I've done that and still occasionally get Firefox crashes related to Flash.

[matt_risi]

Happens multiple times a day, drives me up the wall.

Specs:
Centrino 1.6gHz
1gb RAM
80gb HD
915gm video

[madjr]

The slower the processor the easier it is for flash to crash FF.

i rarely have a crash on my intel dual-core, but i get multiple crashes a day on my older celeron/p4/amd single core.

sometimes a crash will even halt my system, because FF stays in memory after crashing... very bad experience.

this has to be fixed. Firefox can't stay in memory after a crash due to flash.

[SZF2001]

^Agreed.

[Krister]

Check these, maybe this is the problem:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/196588
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192888
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/198020

[s13g3]

Even after a complete and total format and re-install (post other attempts to fix the issue) my system hangs *totally* while using the web on a fairly regular basis. I have not re-installed flash since the system re-install, yet my system still will completely freeze from time to time - I can't seem to find anything repeatable that causes it - it's crashed even when viewing pages with no (apparent) flash content, such as my Gmail page. Sometimes I can use the browser for 15 min to half an hour without a crash, other times it takes only a few minutes, but whether I use Firefox or Epiphany, a crash is basically guaranteed if I use it much more than 15 minutes.

This is a relatively new system build, using 7.10 (8.04 refuses to boot properly [hangs at status bar] no matter whether I install it from the CD or if I allow 7.10 to upgrade, no joy) x64 on a ABit KN8 SLI with 2GB of Corsair memory (10 passes with Memtest showed no memory problems), an AMD X2 4400+ and an nVidia 7200 SLI 256mb. I used the bootcd extensively for a while when I had a bad drive cable and no bootable HD, and I had no such lock-ups or crashes while using the bootcd, so I believe I can be rlatively certain this is not specifically a hardware issue, but more of a software problem.

I've been faithfully using and recommending Ubuntu to others for quite some time now, but it's finally starting to cause major headaches even for me, and I really can't believe 8.04 just won't work on my machine for some stupid reason, and somehow even after the big Adobe flash update that broke flash for everybody back in the middle of December, this issue within 7.10 STILL hasn't been fixed??? I mean, it was no big deal before the flash update that broke everything in Dec. that MySpace would always cause the prior incarnation of this system (it's received a hardware upgrade and several complete OS reinstalls since then) to crash every time I went there (MySpace sucks anyway and I'm ok with not ever going there), but now that it could be any website that causes the crash, this is not cool.

I don't want to, but if I can't find a reasonable solution for this soon, I might just have to go install Debian and be done with it.

This was written from a text editor to ensure I'd have some chance of successfully posting it before my system crashes again... help! Please!

[s13g3]

By the by, after hitting submit for that last post, my system hung as soon as it reloaded this page to display the new post... WTF mate?

[regomodo]

#

[Tom--d]

Hasn't carshed on me at all when using Flash Player 10 beta 2 with no pulseauido on Hardy (removed it).
But Flash player 9 crashed all the time.

[starcannon]

It used to, but with all the updates, the flash crash has gone away for me.

[Oldster]

Flash 9 would hang my browser and drive my cpu to the max until I added the work around using the Netscape Plugin Wrapper.

I really can't use Flash 10 at all. If I enable hardware acceleration it crashes the browser almost instantly. With the hardware acceleration off it works longer but eventually crashes. (Nvdia video card and proprietary driver).

[High Roller]

Anyone tried Flash Player 10 RC that was released today?

[keiichidono]

Anyone tried Flash Player 10 RC that was released today?
Yup, it works a lot better than Flash 9 with NSPlugin wrapper and libflashsupport, no more crashes (so far) and fixes the problems I had with previous beta's and Flash 9.

[expensivelesbian]

hi. bit late to this thread. Yes, Flash crashes all of my browsers (Midori, Firefox, Opera, Epiphany WebKit, Arora), whenever any audio or video playback is asked of it. I recently uninstalled everything Flash related and reinstalled it back again. Things worked for about 2 hours before resuming crashing again.

[HappinessNow]

My Firefox only crashed when I used the Chromifox Extreme Theme, and only then when they released the latest update for Firefox 3.5.

I use Chromifox Basic now and have no problem.

I have never had a Flash crash.

[LookTJ]

No, but it's stops at some point and then moves on.

[ssam]

no, because i don't have it installed :-)

[khelben1979]

Flash works stable over here together with Firefox 3.5. I'm using Debian Lenny.

[ssdt]

It is not fixed till now in 9.04. Can anyone help me to fix this and give a tutorial so that everyone could fix it because people like me do not know what plugin to install and what to remove.

[dragos240]

I have never had flash crash on me. Working great.

[ExElite]

Hoping to get any tips or help?

Every browser on my system crashes without fail whenever there is any flash on a page or site.


I have flash on my website as a photo gallery and any time I go on that page browser crashes, been using firefox but then I did a text and its the same on all 3 browsers I have ??

IE8.
firefox.
Flock.

I can't work it out.
Thanks for any help all.

[pissedoffdude]

Not too often, so I have no problems with the crashing. However, full-screen is very slow and choppy when run at high resolutions. This doesn't seem to be a problem with 32-bit flash though - only the 64-bit plugin.

[ExElite]

I have Vista 32bit and SP2 - This is the one its Crashs on :/
My over pc XP SP3 works great. :)


Only started doing it anout a week or may be 2 weeks ago.

[Katalog]

Latest version of Flash doesn't crash Firefox 3.5 on me, but it makes video stutter and choppy as heck. Which I find especially interesting since the same videos play very smoothly in Chromium.

[pissedoffdude]

Latest version of Flash doesn't crash Firefox 3.5 on me, but it makes video stutter and choppy as heck. Which I find especially interesting since the same videos play very smoothly in Chromium.

Same here. Are you running 64-bit flash by any chance? I've noticed that chromium uses a 32-bit plugin, which actually plays smooth in fullscreen and in general.

I'm not sure if there's any fix for this, but the flash issue may be the reason I'll switch to chrome once it's done, though I suppose running a 32-bit firefox would also solve the fullscreen problem.

[gnomeuser]

Mine doesn't crash as often as it used to, but it does crash occasionally. No biggie.

One crash is one to many, fixes all around. We have the technology, failure to adapt to this bargain shall result in swift punishment for making the world suck just that bit more.

Regardless Flash not as much crashes the browser as make the entire computer unbearably slow, the video is choppy even in low resolution and it's generally intolerably. The same videos downloaded from youtube and played in totem works just fine so clearly Flash is doing something horribly wrong here.

A pox on both their houses I say.

[Katalog]

Same here. Are you running 64-bit flash by any chance?

Nope. UNR 9.04 on an Asus Eee PC 1000HA. And I know it's not because my netbook is "underpowered", because YouTube and Hulu worked fine in Firefox 3.0.1.x, and everything works well in Chromium right now too.

[kk0sse54]

Flash in opera crashes for me and firefox 3.0 would periodically crash gnome but with the latest firefox and flashplugin9 it's been running quite stable despite still running it through a linux binary compatibility layer.

64-bit Flash has also been working fantastic for me in Arch and I haven't had any stability issues with it.

[Tamalin]

Yes, this has been happening more and more recently. I did not use to happen, but I never really used flash that often before anyway.

[HousieMousie2]

Adobe Flash 10 crashes my SYSTEM 3-7 times A DAY! Many times the keyboard lights flash, but not always. The system is completely non-responsive and must be restarted using the reset button or shut off via the power button.

The same thing was happening with Flash 9.

Firefox: 3.0.14
Adobe Flash: 10.0.32.18
Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron (LTS) KDE 3.5.10 (fresh installation, after trying Jaunty and KDE 4, with no luck.)

Konqueror would fail to load flash after a very short time.

Opera is PAINFULLY slow AND would crash.

[Colonel Kilkenny]

Opera is PAINFULLY slow AND would crash.

Opera shouldn't crash as it uses another process (operapluginwrapper) for Flash. However it may freeze for a moment and stay totally unusable until operapluginwrapper exits.

[HousieMousie2]

I concede it is possible that Opera was having a separate issue, and that given the troubles with Flash I have had using Firefox and Konqueror, I simply assumed it was flash again... since I was viewing one of the culprit pages when my machine became (and remained) unresponsive.

[hoppipolla]

No issues really here on Chrome, just a few sites that use particularly complex Flash don't work fully.

[MasterNetra]

I have issues with Flash such as Youtube vids flickering and full screen vids flickering showing stuff under it. But it has yet to crash Firefox to my knowledge.

[imwithid]

Although I prefer Firefox to almost all browsers, I prefer Opera to Firefox. I haven't had a problem using Opera, although I've noticed my CPU usage is quite high whenever running Flash. I suppose that since I'm using the x64 alpha version of flash that that could be the culprit. Until a revised version appears, I'll have to deal with it.

[linuxadore]

@Imwidhid
I also noticed greater CPU usage with Opera, but I prefer it. FF is great, but Opera is my favorite...FP never crashed.
But I cannot in Hardy properly install flashplayer9 from repositories anymore, cause reports error: sha256 mismatch...NOT installed..., neither flashplayer 10 (deb and tar.gz), but I solved with old dev adobe packages
with debugging option - recommend my step-by-step how2

http://my.opera.com/linuxadore/blog/old-flashplayer9-installing-from-source-in-ubuntu-hardy-8-04 :popcorn:

[arnab_das]

as i use google chrome, it doesnt crash the entire browser, but it crashes the tab, yes. :(

[phillychease]

it doesnt crash, but its kind of laggy

[scouser73]

I've been using Google Chrome for the last three or four days now, and flash has been working flawlessly, the my answer would be a resounding no.

[neu5eeCh]

...just for the love of FSM, will some developer at Adobe or elsewhere take some mercy and FIX this? It's a real pain in the ***, and it shouldn't have been allowed to continue to exist this long. Just will the Ubuntu developers, kernel developers, Adobe developers all please stop passing the buck, bang your heads together and FIX THIS!

Damned straight. I ranted on this very subject a couple of weeks ago (here in the cafe). Any number of members were telling me that it's Adobe's fault. But as I've researched the issues, the blame is hardly clear cut. I'm with you: Bang some heads together. Just make it work.

[neu5eeCh]

I've been using Google Chrome for the last three or four days now, and flash has been working flawlessly, the my answer would be a resounding no.

Too bad your overseas (I think) or i would ask you to watch the Daily Show (http://www.thedailyshow.com/). I don't have problems with any other site, but trying to watch the Daily Show crashes all my browsers and I do mean all of them. Stick a fork in 'em.

[Ian dewhurst]

I had this exact same problem.
Flash's process npviewer was so bad that it would mess with with my desktop too as well as taking my CPU to 100% (crash, mouse jerkiness etc).
It got to the stage that I decided to remove everything flash and browsers and start from scratch.
I now run flash with Chrome browser (CPU around 40%), its less resource heavy than FF (CPU around 65%) and much smoother to boot.