Shockwave Flash error

asudjbliss · Post by **asudjbliss** » April 1st, 2006, 12:57 pm

im having the exact same problem. It started, however, after trying to upgrade flashplayer... not the browser. The hangup at 93% is really bothering the crap out of me though.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » April 1st, 2006, 10:14 pm

Hi, I am having what I think is a similar problem and could use some help. I had IE and shockwave and flash work fine. I just installed firefox and wanted to test the plugins. the website I went to told me I needed to install the plugins but when I try to get the installer to run, shockwave does nothing and I get a brief flash if something from the Flash installer and then it does nothing either. Both installers create a process but appear to do nothing at all no matter how long I let it sit. I'm at my wits end here since shockwave and flash ere the 2 cornerstones on whether I decided to use firefox as the default browser. I do not really feel confortable uninstalling shockwave as it works so well in IE and I am afraid I will have problems. Does anyone have any suggestions for debugging this without messing up my IE plugins? I am using WIN XP and Firefow 1.5 newest version

Old BushVenom · Post by **Old BushVenom** » April 2nd, 2006, 12:37 am

The Flash installer for Firefox is different from the Flash installer for IE, because it doesn't use an ActiveX control. Using Firefox, click on the following link, download the newest Flash Player, then run the installer with Firefox closed:

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/dow ... kwaveFlash

Shockwave will update for ALL browsers with just one download and quick installation (neither of these installers, Flash or Shockwave, says "we're finished now"):

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/

Roger77 · Post by **Roger77** » April 2nd, 2006, 4:48 am

asudjbliss wrote:The hangup at 93% is really bothering the crap out of me though.

I completely uninstalled and reinstalled both, today. The installation seems to hang a little at 93%. I think it's just a processing pause.

I found this Macromedia forum question that includes their take on the situation: <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=184&threadid=1131603&enterthread=y">Huge Flash Player Problem!!</a> (I think the problem can also lie with Flash.)
The troubleshooting link has a comma in it. Use this: http://www.macromedia.com/support/flashplayer

Test your installation here: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/welcome/
Click on the "About". The page can also trigger an automatic update if you need it.

Also:
Does it only happen on the one or a very few pages? (Some pages are poorly coded.)
Does it work in <a href="http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode">Safe Mode</a>?

reconNinja · Post by **reconNinja** » April 2nd, 2006, 5:13 am

Got it.

I've had this problem for about a week, I had it with whatever version of Firefox I had, and then I updated to 1.5 in hopes that doing so would solve the problem, and it didn't.

The Flash Player uninstaller is required to solve the problem, however, the link to it gives you a corrupted file. Use the following link: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flas ... player.exe

Upon running that, close your firefox browser. From there, wait until the program gets to 100%. It should(by should, I mean this is what happened to me, something else with the prog may happen for you) get to 100% and then stop doing anything. You'll need to open the taskmon and kill off killbro~.exe , the gcff.tmp or whatever it is, and the flash uninstaller task. After that, go to your temp file (C:\Documents and Settings\recon.AMANDA\Local Settings\Temp) and run killbrowser.exe . Nothing should happen. Now download and install flash again(I downloaded some 'slim' version, it wanted to add a yahoo toolbar, just uncheck that nonsense). Upon successful installation of flash, it should bring you to some shockwave site, which of course uses shockwave flash. The page should load without any errors, thus you're cured. Go to any other shockwave flash-using website ( www.wgcshop.com for example) and you'll notice you recieve no errors.

For those of you who, like me, want to know WHY this problem occurs as opposed to just how to fix it: From what I've pieced together, and this theory may be flawed, is some kind of complication between ActiveX and Macromedia Shockwave flash. The aforementioned .dll file, along with the .xft file(I think that's what it was) don't seem to have much of a role in this bug(however someone from a mozilla board wrote that deleting npmozax.dll solved the problem, I was unable to test this though as I didn't have npmozax.dll on my computer). As I stated earlier, the previous version of Firefox that I had also got this bug only after many many of using Firefox. Therefore the bug isn't specific to the newest Firefox version. Also worth noting, one of my original attempts at solving this problem was to install the latest flash on top of whatever version I'd already had installed. This, of course, didn't work. It is imperative that affected computers run the flash uninstaller first.

If any more headway is made on this bug, please post it. Although I'll probably never visit these boards anymore(simply because I don't need to now that I've solved the problem), others may be interested. Thanks.

reconNinja · Post by **reconNinja** » April 2nd, 2006, 2:27 pm

Update-

Ok, I've restarted my computer, and now I'm having the problem again. Taking those steps again, it didn't work. It's seeming to be a lot easier to just deal with IE, than all this nonsense with Firefox. I've looked at Macromedia's bulletins as well as Mozilla's on this issue, and NO ONE knows what's going on. So if you can defeat this bug, congrats to you.

dickvl · Post by **dickvl** » April 2nd, 2006, 2:45 pm

btw: did you try this link: http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowl ... 511#remove

Alice · Post by **Alice** » April 3rd, 2006, 10:45 am

reconNinja

Regarding npmozax.dll, the Mozilla ActiveX plugin/Flash conflict and the bugzilla reference was brought up in the other current "Shockwave Flash error" topic, here:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=399221 (rename or delete "npmozax.dll" from your Mozilla Firefox\plugins folder, if found).

Unless you're also having problems with Flash in Internet Explorer then there is no need to completely remove Flash 8 from your system. IE uses the Flash ActiveX control (Flash8*.ocx) while Mozilla browsers like Netscape 7.xx Mozilla Suite and Firefox use the plugin files NPSWF32.dll and flashplayer.xpt - To remove the Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox Flash plugin, just find and delete all copies of these two files (locations depend on whether you used the install_flash_player.exe download or the flashplayer-win.XPI). Ref: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/flash. ... -uninstall
Then reinstall the current Flash Player 8.0.24

Roger77 wrote:I found this Macromedia forum question that includes their take on the situation: <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=184&threadid=1131603&enterthread=y">Huge Flash Player Problem!!</a> <snip>
Also:
Does it only happen on the one or a very few pages? (Some pages are poorly coded.)<snip>

Here is a quote from that Macromedia forum topic, for the record (it might not be a bad idea for others with this problem to try the Macromedia web forums)

Originally posted by: Newsgroup User
proximono wrote:

> I've been having a huge Flash Player problem for quiete a while now:
>
> I use Firefox, and I keep retrieving the following message every time I start
> a new Firefox Session:
>
> Illegal Operation in plug-in
>
> Shockwave Flash

It's very unusual to have a problem in the Flash Player plugin. The FP
ActiveX control is usually more problematic.

In this case the fact that Flash fails across multiple locations
indicates something -external- to Flash is probably the root of the problem.

Do the standard troubleshooting at http://www.macromedia.com/support/flashplayer and beyond that clean your system as well as possible of possibly spyware, 3rd party items, etc..

Bentley Wolfe
Senior Support Engineer, Flash/Flash Player
*Macromedia, now a division of Adobe Systems

If you've ruled out Firefox extensions using Safe Mode or otherwise, have tried a new profile and a clean install of Firefox (to rule out other plugins and profile issues) then I would look for external programs that might be interfering with flash content.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » April 4th, 2006, 10:09 am

I have that too, the illegal operation error..

Drives me nuts, pops up every so seconds. I tried uninstalling, manual deleting, reinstalling..

Nothing works..

Alice · Post by **Alice** » April 4th, 2006, 11:47 am

In case it helps (can't hurt)

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=394386
Shockwave Illegal Operation error... (possible fix)

BrAcK wrote:I've scoured these forums with hopes of a quick solution to the Shockwave issue for the last couple days... It's been pissing me off to no end... I think i tried most if not all of every suggestion made throughout these threads.

About 10 minutes ago, im staring at my /Mozilla Firefox plugin folder talk to it like it's my worst enemy. (Yelling at inanimate objects shows the bastard who's boss.) Anyway:

If anyone has the GetFlash.exe in their Firefox/Plugin folder, delete it or drag it someplace for safe keeping. After i just dragged it to my desktop then ran Firefox again, i have no more Shockwave errors popping up. Sad as it may be, i've used MySpace as my guinnea pig for the last few days to see if anything i've tried has worked or not.

If this doesnt work for you, move the GetFlash.exe back into the plugin folder and keep trying.
I have no idea if this file is needed or not (as of yet) - But it seems to have been the bastard behind all this mess... For me anyway.

Hopefully this will help out anyone else that's been dealing with the same crap i have been.

Hope this helps.

GetFlash.exe (according to the file properties) is the Macromedia Flash Player Updater. It isn't needed, as all it does, I've gathered, is to trigger a prompt to update Flash when there's a newer version.

JRM60 · Post by **JRM60** » April 4th, 2006, 7:38 pm

I've tried just about everything suggested here and have come to the conclusion that my computer must be really screwed up or that Firefox is just not going to work for me on this computer. Recently I have been using Firefox as my secondary browser, only going to one site and it seems to be working OK, with no lockups. (still with the warning) I will be purchasing a new system soon to use for Photoshop. I will again try Firefox on the new system, maybe it will work, maybe it won't, what I don't understand is why this problem even exists in the first place, seems like Mozilla should be able to correct. I had great success with the older versions of Firefox and just don't understand why a newer version would have these problems.

I would like to thank all of you that have contributed to this thread, I very much appreciate your time and effort. Maybe I'm just not persistant enough to get the job done, but I have spent way to much time trying to correct this problem. Love Firefox, but can't put up with this any longer.

Best Regards to All,

Jim

KevinTheSolution · Post by **KevinTheSolution** » April 10th, 2006, 1:25 am

My workaround solution is uninstall the current flash player, and install an old version. I installed version 7, and it seemed to work fine.

Finally! no more error!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » April 15th, 2006, 3:00 pm

Thanks a lot Kevin! This worked for me as well!!!!!

Kyle26 · Post by **Kyle26** » April 18th, 2006, 10:44 pm

It's quite simple really. There is a bug in Macromedia Flash Player 8 that causes this Shockwave Flash error to happen. http://casario.blogs.com/mmworld/2005/1 ... stall.html tells you more about it. Other issues with Macromedia Flash Player 8 can be found at http://www.fullasagoog.com/index.cfm?blogid=300.

I tried sending the files in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins to the Recycle Bin but that didn't work, so I restored the files to that folder. Then I did some tests with www.wgcshop.com which ReconNinja (from this thread) provided--to find what was causing the plugin error.

Here is what you need to do with Mozilla Firefox browser in Windows XP to remove this annoying plugin error:

1. Go to www.wgcshop.com and wait for the plugin error. Then on the left side of the screen where the list is, right click on the menu list then look at the bottom of the popup white box. It should show "About Macromedia Flash Player 8..." (and that's where the problem comes from)
2. Find and download the uninstaller for Macromedia Flash Player 8 at http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowl ... r_tn_14157 (download the correct one for the operating system you are using)--also, if link's dead, find an uninstaller that is specifically made for Macromedia Flash Player 8.
3. Close browser windows then run the Macromedia Flash Player 8 uninstaller.
4. You may get stuck at 93% uninstall while it's searching for browser windows to shut down. When that happens, open Task Manager and kill off "killbro~.exe" (which doesn't matter because it's just looking for browser windows that aren't even there). Wait for uninstall to complete. Then end the gcff.tmp (sp?) and uninstall_flash_player.exe (sp?) processes in Task Manager.
4. Download the appropriate Macromedia Flash Player 7 installer from http://infogenix.com/links/download_flash_player.html
5. Install Macromedia Flash Player 7.
6. Open Firefox browser, go to http://www.wgcshop.com/. See if the error message comes up again. It should be gone. That wasn't so hard after all, was it?

Congratulations to Kevin for having the right idea of how to resolve this problem. It's probably the best workaround solution for now.

Alice · Post by **Alice** » April 19th, 2006, 5:07 am

The Flash Player 7 installer for Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape on Windows that is linked above is the outdated and insecure version 7.0.19.

I would suggest anyone wanting to download the Windows Flash Player 7, to get the "Netscape" download for the updated Flash 7 (7.0 r63) that is available on this page:

Macromedia - Flash Player TechNote : Flash Player upgrade for operating systems that do not support Flash Player 8

short link: http://www.macromedia.com/go/d9c2fe33

Shockwave Flash error

Error just won't go away.....

Re: Shockwave Flash error FIX