[Álber]

When the mouse pointer hovers over the flash player, mouse wheel does not scroll until the pointer is outside the player. If I click in the player, I have to click outside before I can scroll again.

First it only happened with some versions of JW Player... Now it also happens with all YouTube players.

• Adobe Flash Player (Shockwave Flash, as listed by FF Plugins) 9.0 r124.
• Firefox 3.0.1, Windows XP SP3, standard mouse.

• It doesn't affect IE, Safari or Flock.
  
• It happens in FF safe mode.
• It also happens with FF 3.1 Alpha 1 and FF Portable 3.0, but NOT with FF Portable 2.0.
• I have already uninstalled/reinstalled Flash 9.
• I have also tried uninstalling Flash 9 and installing 8 and 10 Beta. It didn't work, so now it's 9 again.

• I don't know why the YouTube behavior changed. One morning it started occuring in most embedded players; by evening non-embedded players were also affected.
• The need to click outside before scrolling did only appear after I re-installed Flash.
• I didn't tamper (much) with my system those days.
• Google says it was a classic bug of FF2 in Linux, solved with FF3. I found nobody with this problem on Windows.

Any help would be really REALLY appreciated, guys. I'm pulling my hair out here.

[TOGG]

I have no idea what may have caused your original problem but, if you didn't use the special tool from Adobe when you first uninstalled your Flash plugin, the subsequent reinstall may not have completed properly. Did you use this; http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...4157&sliceId=1 ?

If you did use it, the tool will have removed the Flash plugin from all the browsers you have installed, so you will have to reinstall both the IE and Firefox versions. If you didn't use the tool it might be worth running it now (after reading the instructions) and then reinstalling. If you don't have the links for the Active X and non Active X versions of the plugin, I can supply them.

[Álber]

Sadly it didn't work, Togg: I had already used the Flash uninstaller, although I don't remember reinstalling the Active X version (Adobe Flash for IE). Now I installed Active X before the non Active X version (the .exe Flash installer), but the semi-random Flash scroll-freeze problem persists.

I really don't have a clue of what's happening here:

1. As far as I know, if the problem comes from my Flash, uninstall-reinstall should work... Also, Safari should be having the same problems than Firefox, since both of them use the same plugin.
2. Therefore, I would think the problem is not there, unless I have some dirty Adobe Flash code-waste somewhere in my windows registry jungle-labyrinth.
3. If the problem comes from the browser, a clean profile or clean install should solve it. I have not uninstalled it, but I opened it in safe mode ( ~ clean profile), and installed a portable edition ( ~ clean install), and they behaved in the same way.
4. I think it's interesting that it doesn't happen with the portable version of Firefox 2...I'd say the plugin is alright, but FF3 doesn't handle it as it should. And then we go back to point 1.

Another interesting thing is that the scroll-freeze of a embedded YT video doesn't appear when I view it in Google Reader. The whole thing about some flash players scroll-freezing and some others working fine also puzzles me.

The options I'm considering at this moment are nuking and reinstalling FF3 (with a profile backup up my sleeve), and uninstalling Flash again and combing the registry for plugin traces before I reinstall it again. ...Both options give me the creeps, and I think I might be oversighting many things.

It seriously goes over my head. What would you do in my place?

[TOGG]

It did occur to me as well that a bad uninstall couldn't have been behind the original problem but I wondered if another uninstall reinstall sequence might help in some way. Obviously it doesn't!

I don't use Firefox much because Opera is my default browser, so I have no experience of uninstalling/reinstalling FF while still keeping the profile intact. I have seen many posts here and in other places, about various problems with the latest FF version but haven't paid much attention to them. There are posts at Mozilla Support about some Flash problems with the latest version (example here;http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view...parentId=16131) but a very limited search didn't disclose anybody with your exact problem. Have you tried disabling extensions and addons?

Installing a new copy of FF seems to be a logical thing to try and it presumably couldn't make things any worse!

[Álber]

Ok, I may need some instant-help, please. Does this YT video look like this? And this look like this?
Or have I broken Flash?

[TOGG]

You'll have to give me some time because I'm on dialup and it's amazing how long 52 seconds can take to d/l!

So far, the first link runs OK in Opera, but there is some flickering at the bottom of the screen and the vertical lines in the grid are not straight.

[TOGG]

I should have clicked all your links before responding! The first video and your screenshot look roughly the same to me, as do the second set.

I don't use You Tube much but when I do, the videos always look blurred, probably due to the quality of the camera (or phone!) used to make them but also to the age of my equipment. This computer is 4 years old with onboard graphics and a CRT monitor.

Just for the hell of it I'll check them with Firefox. I doubt there'll be any difference as both browsers use the same Flash plugin.

Edit: As expected, they look pretty much the same when viewed with Fiirefox (although I only downloaded the shorter video). I did get the usual YouTube message about not having JavaScript enabled or needing a new version of Adobe Flash, but I think that was my fault for being slow with the NoScript settings

[Álber]

Thanks, Togg; if nobody says otherwise, then it might have been me being paranoid.

This past couple of days I have been wrestling with the registry: I ran CCleaner registry app and it found a Flash shared DLL (npswf32.dll) missing in C:\Program Files\Firefox\Plugins and C:\Program Files\Firefox\\Plugins. I tried:

• Deleting the weird \\Plugins key.
• Pasting npswf32.dll to \Plugins.
• Deleting the key pointing to \Plugin.
• Pointing that key to C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash, where the real npswf32.dll is.
• Reverting and combining all changes.
• Installing even older versions of Flash.
• Uninstalling, installing, uninstalling, installing Flash
• Many things I have forgotten by now.
• Leaving most of that like before.

... And all I got was those crappy, unscrollable, LQ Flash vids.
Thank you again. You have been truly kind and supportive, man. I'm now gathering my forces for the Big Bad Firefox reinstall. I'm gonna cry.

[TOGG]

Ah! the infinite mysteries of computing - why do we bother?

I've always been mystified by those 'npswf.dll' references popping up in different places. When I run the Secunia Software Inspector it identifies both versions of Flash that I have installed, and I have always assumed that the one with 'Macromed' in its title was the IE Active X version, if only because the other one has 'Opera' in its title?

So if your Firefox version has gone missing or been corrupted by something, a reinstall may be the only hope, assuming there is no option to 'repair' faulty plugins.

[throoper]

Just so you know, I viewed the links in FF1.5, FF2. and FF3.
They looked the same with each version.

[Álber]

Thank you, Throoper. Somehow it still seems to me that every flash video looks much worse than before, but I may be under one of those pesky false-positive perceptual confirmation biases.

Now I'm into regedit territory. Found a page with a list of the registry changes of Flash installations, and I'm going to check if everything is alright in that camp. Then, brrr, Firefox.

[Álber]

NOW things are getting interesting:

The problem disappears if the flash player has wmode="transparent", or is embedded in an iframe. Funny thing is those are the kind of Flash players my IE6 refuses to scroll when my mouse points at them. Oh the symmetry. Yeah.

At least it means there are two new roads to explore:

a) The dirty, "easy" way would be to come up with a Greasemonkey userscript which'd turn flash players embeds into iframed or wmode="transparent" embedded players. This man seems to have come up with some JavaScript for that; however, it's way out of my league -I don't know anything about JS and Userscript scripts-, and it'd be a very dirty, possibly problematic, trick. Redrawn pages, etc.

b) The other way to go is to dive into the misty waters of WMODE, and try to understand why my FF3 doesn't play along with its default value (and IE6 chokes with transparent). I have already found lots and lots of people talking about wmode and its bugs, but, 1) I don't understand it, and 2) they seem to be talking from the webdevoloper/scripting camp, not the browser/plugin side of things.

[TOGG]

This is all way over my head I'm afraid, but I wonder what would happen if you tried IE7 with default settings (and is this the same or a different problem to the one you have with Firefox?).

I don't use IE (except to collect updates) so I have never tried visiting YouTube with it.

[Álber]

It's finally over. The good folks over at Userscripts helped me with a little wonderful magic Greasemonkey Userscript that does the trick and works like a charm.

The mystery of WTH/WTF happens with my FF3/F9 remains unsolved, but I'm really happy to be able to scroll through flash players without getting struck, and I can mark it as virtually solved now.

:]