A problem is growing and not yet been addressed by Microsoft, Adobe or AOL. In repairing computers, many problems come down the line before the software giants post solutions. Adobe’s Flash movie player is increasingly showing up as uninstalled for PC owners still using AOL regularly. Flash is the software that often makes posting and viewing movies and video clips online possible. Without it, users are prompted to Install it. The problem is two-fold: It won’t install completely, and, Firefox 2 has no problem showing Flash content when Internet Explorer and AOL won’t!

The solution must be a triple-headed beast. One solution concerning ports that Flash uses to communicate with online media won’t fix all problems. You can check your Flash Port connectivity at this site: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_16466 Port Tests run quickly and can help identify if your IE and AOL viewing trouble are the possible result of Firewall settings blocking certain ports.

JESSE HARDING of jesseharding.com reports that his problem was solved by performing the following steps:

1- Close all your programs
2- Open up your “Add/Remove Programs” window from the control panel
3- Uninstall anything that says “Flash Player”. I had 3 files. One had to do with Active X. The other 2 were called Flash Player 9 something or other.
4- Visit adobe.com in both IE and FF to reinstall the plugin.

In our latest case, there was no Adobe Flash listed in the Add/Remove Programs to uninstall! Frustrating but illustrates yet another head of this Beast of a Solution. Please try Jesse’s answer and find a link in the red Bibliography section below.

According to Kioskia.net in English, a downloadable EXECUTABLE file called FlashRepair.exe fix this problem for several users but not for others. I can’t bring myself to provide the .exe since I’ve scanned it (no virus found) butnot used it first hand. So a link to the thread where you can download/save the .exe at your own risk (leave a Comment for the rest of us if it helps you). en.kioskia.net FOURTH DIALOG BOX DOWN HAS THE EXE.

Adobe’s “Flash Player Support” suggest the following browser repair if reinstalling Flash does not work:

To repair Internet Explorer: Choose Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. Choose the browser from the list of programs, click Change/Remove, and choose the Repair option. Restart after repairing the browser, and follow steps in Try this first: How to fix almost all Flash Player issues to reinstall Flash Player again. If Internet Explorer does not appear on the Add/Remove list, Repair is not an option, and you should move on to the next step.

The “Next Step” deals with Security Levels and ActiveX controls. You can find that information at Adobe’s Flash Player Support FAQ Page which may solve some instances of this problem.

Uploading a Flash movie SWF file that is visible in Firefox and Not in Internet Explorer 6 or 7 means you may not have declared what the SOURCE is for IE to see.

<param name=movie value="MOVIENAME">

In the movie name, it has been advised to avoid using the following characters: _ () and 1 Strange, but true. Something in the language trips up the code interpretation. So MOVIE_NAME(1).swf would be buggy. Consider MOVIENAME01.swf and hope that change doesn’t cause chaos!