Intermittent loss of sound followed by freezing of video (Win2K, XP)

Question

Dear Sysop,
Problem: the first streaming flash video plays correctly
with sound and motion. Subsequent re-plays, but only of the first
file, are equally good.
When a subsequent file is played (2nd, 3rd, 4th -- it is
variable) the sound first stops, then about a second later, the
video freezes. The progress bar shows the file continuing to
load, to completion, during this time.
Motion cannot be restarted by clicking any of the buttons.
Clicking and dragging the slider to any position within the
now-loaded file will display motion at that point in the video
(without sound) but in about one second the video again freezes and
will not restart, no matter how long one waits. When attempting to
load and run another video, the player will display the first few
frames of the new video, in motion (without sound), then freeze
again, permanently.
The progress bar will always go to completion while the video
is frozen and sound is absent, and moving the slider to various
locations always indicates the entire file is there, but it will
not play. This behavior persists on all subsequent file loads and
cannot be corrected by waiting.
Work-around: the problem is always corrected by rebooting
Windows, reloading the browser and going back to the video source
on the Internet.
Files that failed will then play, but only the first time,
reliably. Reloading only the browser, without the reboot, fails
to solve the problem. The Sony video (see secondary video source)
will play (but with extremely low frame rate and without sound)
when Youtube videos are still being frozen (if this is of any
help).
Comments: I suspect something in my Windows installation may
have changed (past incompatible process, worm or malware, now
removed?) as Flash did work at one time. Problem became more severe
after upgrade to v9, did not disappear after full uninstall and
re-install of v8. Yes, I am using the Flash uninstaller program, in
addition to the Windows uninstall.
Apple's "Bonjour" process was suspect, and disabled, but
problem persists. When v9 was installed MSIE and Firefox had the
same behavior at the same time, so it must be in some part of the
installation, some Windows process, or maybe a Registry entry,
something that's used by both. No, at this point, formatting the
drive and reloading Windows isn't an option ... searches of this
Forum or the Internet on this particular problem have been
unproductive.
System details:
Flash v8 (same problem with v9)
Add-in for MS Internet Explorer
After prior upgrade to v9, Firefox had same behavior
Windows 2000 Professional
The Flash add-on generates no Windows Application Log events
System Log shows no abnormal events when freezing of video
occurs
No new or unidentifiable processes run when freeze occurs
Primary Video source: Youtube
Secondary source: Sony VAIO link from Flash Showcase, Adobe
site

Answer 1

quote:
Originally posted by:
delagare
... Flash 9, which I have reinstalled, has the same build
version as the original, 9,0,16,0. I am experiencing the same
problems, with a slight variation. The duration of the freezing is
a bit less than I previously experienced, nevertheless, it is
impossible to play satisfactorily. I would not advise wasting your
time with the newer version.
I thank delagare and others, and have taken their advice, not
to waste time and risk my system's integrity by innumerable
installs and uninstalls, in the hope of getting a piece of flaky
software to work. I have saved hours by reading the news and not
bothering to click on Adobe's videos! My downgrade to Flash 8
remains on my hard drive, and even with all the information posted
here there is zero response, at least any directed to me as a
registered forum user, from Adobe techical support. What more can
one say??
If this is of any help, this very same re-installation of
Flash 8 has apparently started to work again, and I can think of
only one change in my system between this software working so
poorly as to be unusable, and its present recovery. I have
installed a program that alters the way any program running as a
child process of the browser accesses the hard drive. This program
was designed to "sandbox Internet Explorer" and is therefore named
"Sandboxie." This software obviously has other advantages, as
explained at
this program's web site, where
a freeware version may be downloaded. If in fact Sandboxie
is the reason for Flash 8 beginning to work, the freeware
version should be enough to pull the trick.
If any responsible person from Adobe cares to read this,
please understand that in the total absence of any official
response to these prior posts or their authors, I have reached the
only conclusion I can: that there is in fact something wrong with
the way the program accesses the hard drive that causes these
problems, and as delgare explained, Adobe's advising Flash users to
go through innumerable installs and uninstalls does nothing.
If any of the posters in the thread are still being notified,
try this "kludge" for Flash 8 and post back here if it works. It
would be very interesting to hear should it also work for Flash 9.
The system details of the my installation have not changed and
should appear earlier in the thread.