Q: Updated Safari last night. Now the free online games on AARP, will not load. It's not the website because my husband's macbook pro still loads them
I've updated to the latest version of Safari, on my 2015 macbook air. Since then, the games I play, on the AARP website, won't load. I checked to make sure Flash was up to date and it is. I also have an old iMac that I play on. I haven't updated that machine yet. Right now the games load on that one. Is anybody else having this problem?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Posted on Sep 21, 2016 11:57 AM
Got it. You mean this.
You've clicked the button to launch the game, and this is all the further it gets. I had this happen under Sierra with both Safari and Firefox. I was testing in El Capitan before with Safari 10 figuring it would be the same.
What's wrong is the box is a Flash ad that insists on running before you can actually play a game (one of those, "You can skip this ad in x seconds" things). I hadn't installed Flash in Sierra yet. The giveaway was small text that appeared before the black box covered it saying Flash was required. So the AARP site is stuck because it wants to cram an ad down your throat before you can play the game, but it can't do it without Flash installed and enabled in Safari. So it just sits there and stares back at you with a black placeholder for the stalled ad.
Once I installed Flash and re-launched Safari, it stated that Flash was detected and conveniently turned it off for my safety. Sure. That's just what I would want the OS to do. Disable a plug-in I intentionally installed so I could use it. Went to Safari's preferences and told it to use Flash all the time.
To get there, click on the Security heading, then the Plug-in Settings button at the bottom. In the left column, Flash is turned off. Turn on the check box. Then at the right, change the drop-down menu at the bottom right to On. Click Done.
The games should now work in Safari. Though even with an ad-blocker installed, you're still forced to watch the Flash adds before the first play, and in between most requests to play the same game again.
Posted on Sep 27, 2016 7:11 AM

