Firefox and Flash buffering

[mkrishnan]

Hi all,

I'm having some trouble with Flash in FF 1.0. The buffering does not seem to work properly, so that when a flash pane is on screen, and then becomes obscured, or else the window is scrolled, it fails to update, leaving a large portion of the Flash image blanked out. I checked some sites on Safari on this same computer, and I don't seem to get the effect, at least in all cases, on Safari (I hadn't noticed before that this was FF-specific, but it seems to be).

Mousing over sections of the flash sometimes restores the parts that are moused over, and clicking a button within the flash that redraws the whole thing, if there is one such, will usually also work. Also, if it's a movie, and it hits a natural refresh point, where the whole pane changes, it also refreshes. But if I scroll the window, it's gone again. 🙁

Anyone else experience this, and possibly know how to fix it? 🙁

 

[FredAkbar]

Same here in Firefox 1.0. No fix that I know of 🙁

 

[iKnezek]

Not Exactly

I don't think I've ever had the exact problem that you are having, but I never use firefox for flash or movies simply because it can't play it smoothly and freezes often. The same sites work in Safari, and I think it's just firefox hasn't been developed enough yet. 🙁

 

[mkrishnan]

Meh, that's too bad. 🙁 But thanks for the replies! It's strange -- the buffering issue even happens on the Macromedia test page. But I couldn't find any real mention of it googling. Maybe I need to re-google.

 

[mkrishnan]

Here is an example of what happens. After scrolling the screen, the entire flash pane goes blank. The parts that are visible became visible after I moused over them (meaning that it was set to do local repaints from the buffer on mouseover, but no global repaint occurs when the window is scrolled, I think....). I'm going to try re-installing Flash...perhaps there's some issue with having installed Flash before FF?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Here is an example of what happens. After scrolling the screen, the entire flash pane goes blank. The parts that are visible became visible after I moused over them (meaning that it was set to do local repaints from the buffer on mouseover, but no global repaint occurs when the window is scrolled, I think....). I'm going to try re-installing Flash...perhaps there's some issue with having installed Flash before FF?

Don't have that problem, but that might be because I upgraded to FF 1.0.1 a couple of days ago (and the G4 optimized version today), but I noticed that the adblocker has kicked in on that flash somehow. Is that something you've done or that happens automaticly? Because there is a chance it might be the adblocker that interfers with (some) flash sites...

Edit: See I came over as promised... 😉

Edit2: My "Flash Player.plugin" show that it is version "Macromedia Flash Player 7.0 r24", don't know if there's any newer, but that one seems to work with my setup:

 

[mkrishnan]

Edit: See I came over as promised...

Yes, you did! Thanks! 🙂 And I think you're on to something too.

I guess I just didn't know what to search for. It seems that AdBlock has two ways to identify flash content -- either with an overlay ring, like the setting I had (it wasn't adblocked -- that tab was just there to give me the option to block it), or with a menu option that temporarily disables all Flash and lets you pick the ones onscreen with context click that you want to block. It seems like the code they use to make the overlay ring screws up repaints.

It looks like the fix is to go to Adblock preferences, and disable OBJ tags in the Adblock options menu. Then, you can still kill Flash ads with the overlay flash option, but repaints work properly.

I'll play around with it some more, to see if it works, but thanks again! 😀

EDIT: I guess, in hindsight, it seems rather obvious to have thought of Adblock as part of the issue, but it never occurred to me. I need to spend more time in the puzzles thread!

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I'll play around with it some more, to see if it works, but thanks again! 😀

You're welcome. Always nice to be useful every now and again... 🙂

 

[brap]

I think I owe mkrishnan a beer, or something, what with all this problem solving he keeps doin'... I just assumed it was Flash being crazy and put up with it 😱

 

[mkrishnan]

I think I owe mkrishnan a beer, or something, what with all this problem solving he keeps doin'... I just assumed it was Flash being crazy and put up with it 😱

This one goes to Mitthrawnuruodo! 😀