Adobe Flash is not working in Safari (5.1.7 Snow Leopard)

OK, Apple support was unable to find any problems, so I added a new User with Admin. I backed up all my data and moved it into my new user account. I then tried everything out and it all works! I deleted my old user and deleted it's settings.

Then, I went back into my hard drive and deleted my Old User folder and FINALLY, all is well again.

Whole process took about one hour.

Finally. did a full backup with Carbon Copy Clone and hope to not run into this problem again.

Regards,

jkk

Simply get a USB stick and go into your hard drive. Click on your hard drive, then users and then click on your folder. Copy all this, which is all your Data, onto the USB memory.

Go into System, Preferences, users and unlock. Add a new User and give it Admin rights. It will ask if you want to keep and folders. Click the last option to not save any folders. Add password and stuff, then log out. Now log in with your new user. Go into Finder and find your new User Name. Copy your Data, which includes, Docs, Music, Pics, etc. into your new user account name from your USB stick.

Go back out and restart on your new user name and you should find out that all your Data will now be there. All your applications will also be there, but some third party apps, you may need to re-type in your serial numbers for those programs.

Like I said, everything should now work perfectly.

NOW, go back into your hard drive from Finder and drag your Old User Folder into the trash. This will give you all that space back after you delete from your trash. It may say that part of your old folder you are looking to delete is locked. Click OK to delete it all.

Now shut down and restart your new account and everything should work perfectly with the same amount of free space as you had before.

Let me know if you have any problem. Should take an hour or so.

jkk

I just did a little experiment. I created a new admin account, used it to delete my normal user with the "leave home dir alone" option so no files are lost. This renames your user dir (my user is "jrg") to:

/Users/jrg (deleted)

Then I created a new user of the same name (thus rebuilding all internal user databses that are NOT stored in your home dir. Then just renamed the dirs via the terminal running as my admin user ala the following (note the single quotes are used to get the space and ()'s to be accepted as the filenames by the shell that normall would not do so).

cd /Users

sudo mv jrg 'jrg (new)'

sudo mv 'jrg (deleted)' jrg

Then logged out as admin and back in as "jrg", and everything is as it was.... unfortunately including flash not working. So this IS for sure something in your user dir and thus jkk there must have been some data you did not copy from your saved version, or did not copy to your saved version.

I have been having this problem for several months, and read pages 2-4 of this thread. The first comment on page two mentioned an earlier comment that worked, so I finally went back to the first page and found the following:

Linc Davis

Open Safari's preferences dialog and check again that no extensions are enabled. If they aren't, click Privacy > Remove All Website Data. Open the Flash preference pane in System Preferences and click Storage > Delete All and Advanced > Delete All. Test.

The above worked for me. I was unable to view any flash video using Safari, and was having to use Google Chrome. I also couldn't upload pictures on facebook using the flash uploader, and that works also. Thanks Linc Davis.

Mark

Went through these four pages and finally worked out a solution. Figured I'd memorialize it just in case it happens to help anyone else in the future.

Using: MacBook Air (2009), Software OSX 10.8.3

What ultimately worked:

1) First used Linc Davis' suggestion (from page 1 of this thread):

"Jul 10, 2012 8:05 PM (in response to tubiechik17)

Open Safari's preferences dialog and check again that no extensions are enabled. If they aren't, click Privacy > Remove All Website Data. Open the Flash preference pane in System Preferences and click Storage > Delete All and Advanced > Delete All. Test."

1A) ****NOTE: may be self explanatory for everyone else but I made sure to check both boxes under this setting: "Delete All Site Data and Settings" AND "Delete All Audio and Video License Files"****

2) Uninstalled all of my Adobe Reader, Flashware and Shockwave software/applications.

3) Performed step 1 (+1A) again - I don't know if this is really necessary, but I'm just "ocd" and did it again. . .

4) Reinstalled all of the uninstalled Adobe items.

5) Restarted everything. Followed through on prompts. Worked like a charm!

I'm no expert, but I know I was getting really frustrated and I wanted to put this out there just in case it helps anyone else who might have gotten through the 4 pages of tips and was in the same situation! Hope this helps!!!

For people like me who are still struggling getting flash to work, please check the following;

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5527069

It worked for me removing plug-ins from divx-player, silverlight and macromedia. Combined with reinstalling flash.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.

Step 1

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.

Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. For instructions, launch the System Preferences application, select Help from the menu bar, and enter “Set up a guest account” (without the quotes) in the search box. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”

While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.

Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem(s)?

After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault in Mac OS X 10.7 or later, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The Guest login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.

Step 2

The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login.

Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:

1. Be sure your Mac is shut down.
2. Press the power button.
3. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
4. Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).

Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.

The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.

*Note: If FileVault is enabled under Mac OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, you can’t boot in safe mode.

Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?

After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of steps 1 and 2.

That's good!

Mine resolved by Unistalling Adobe Flash Player then you should check if it has been completely unistalled then you can reinstall it.

Make sure you delete these two folders before reinstalling it:

• <home directory>/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player
• <home directory>/Library/Caches/Adobe/Flash\ Player

Don't forget to reset!!

I hope it will resolve your problem too.

Does the Shockwave item look like this:

Shockwave Flash

Shockwave Flash 11.3 r300 — from file “Flash Player.plugin”.

Open Safari's preferences dialog and check again that no extensions are enabled. If they aren't, click Privacy > Remove All Website Data. Open the Flash preference pane in System Preferences and click Storage > Delete All and Advanced > Delete All. Test.

I'm in the same situation as tubiechik17, my guest user works fine, but under my own user things like the olympic video on CNN's home page just displays a black rectangle with contorls at the bottom. those show 00:00 / 00:00 so it does not seem to have downloaded anything.

I have no private plugins so the working guest user is sharing all the same ones. This happend sometime after installing 10.7 (I think), I just installed 10.8 and no difference. the various recomended deletes had no effect.

What else is user specific that is in play here?

John,

I was having the same issue and I finally found what was the cause of it after reading Linc's previous post. I went in and disabled all Safari extensions and the problem was solved. I had some extensions that I do use a lot and didn't want to stop using them so I enabled the extensions but then enabled them one by one and tested each individually.

After doing this with all my extensions, I found that the google disconnect extension was the one causing the issue. I have the facebook disconnect and the twitter disconnect extensions and these do not cause the issue, at least in my case.

Just to add, the issue was still present after upgrading to Mountain Lion and Safari 6 and performing the steps above resolved it.

Hope this helps.