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Flash Player Eating Up CPU, Bogging Down System

Hello,

After upgrading to Snow Leopard I've noticed that Flash Player takes up a lot more CPU power than it did with Leopard. Is this a common problem? If so, how do I fix it?

Thanks in advance.

Black MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6), 2 GB RAM, SuperDrive, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 320 GB HDD

Posted on Aug 29, 2009 10:29 PM

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33 replies

Aug 29, 2009 11:06 PM in response to Bagpipe Player

I would replace any newer version you may have installed with the one that was originally installed by Snow Leopard. I would not count on any Adobe version being compatible at this time - your mileage may vary.

In the past OS X included a version of the Flash player software that was considered to be or modified to be compatible with the current version of OS X. Newer Adobe versions often did not work properly or at all.

Aug 29, 2009 11:09 PM in response to Bagpipe Player

The reason this is happening is because in Snow Leopard all the plug-ins that work with Safari are now independent processes. So that makes Safari more stable than it was in Leopard. So if you think it is taking more CPU its coz its a seperate process.

Ideally you have nothing to worry about but if you would still like to remove it and reinstall then you can remove it from:
Mac HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/FlashPlayer.plugin
Mac HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/FlashPlayer.xpt

It can be downloaded from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/adobeflashplayer.html

Restart the Mac after you finish installing the player and make sure to have Quit Safari and other browsers before the installation.

Hope this helps dude..!! 🙂

Aug 30, 2009 2:12 AM in response to Bagpipe Player

I'm not suggesting you don't know what you're doing (you haven't mentioned how you are monitoring the Flash Player), or calling you a liar, but it may be worth checking that it is actually the Flash Player causing the problem?

Take a look here, my investigations point to Spotlight being the culprit:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10074229#10074229

You need to run Activity Monitor, and make sure you choose to show "All Processes", not just "My Processes" - you will probably see "mds" and "java" hogging the CPU.

It may of course not be relevant in your case, but worth a look nonetheless I'd say as it's affecting a lot of users.

Sep 8, 2009 5:20 AM in response to Bagpipe Player

I have this exact same problem. Looking in Activity Monitor, the "Flash Player (Safari Internet Plugin)" rockets up to around 150% of CPU (dual core machine) playing most videos through Safari, and the fans start kicking in and the machine feels like it's about to melt. This is especially concerning as I normally use my laptop closed with an external display - the heat from this could easily damage the screen. I guess if it does then Apple and Adobe will be looking at some kind of class action over this.

I'm also on Snow Leopard, by the way. I'm guessing we just need to wait for 10.6.1 or an update from Adobe to fix this.

Flash Player Eating Up CPU, Bogging Down System

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