IE has trouble with Flash content

For some time now (dunno exactly) Flash doesn't load here when it's embedded using the <embed> element. It works fine, however, if done via <object> alone. So most embedded videos in web pages don't work while YouTube itself works fine.

Any idea what causes this?

[IE 8, Windows 7]

Joey

Posted 2010-06-28T21:06:35.800

Reputation: 36 381

There's been an update to the Flash player recently. Have you got the latest version? If you haven't then upgrade, if you have then that could be the cause, but I can't see why. – ChrisF – 2010-06-28T21:11:48.347

@Chris: I did upgrade, on both my machines. But I think the flakiness started before the update already (and just on one machine – the other still works fine). – Joey – 2010-06-29T00:38:46.510

OK - can't think of anything else to try right now though. – ChrisF – 2010-06-29T08:40:19.330

Hm. I have the same problem. It seemed to start after I installed an update to Flash that Steam required... – Eric Brown – 2010-07-06T18:28:04.237

I have the same problem too. My understanding that it doesn't work when embedded via HTML but works if it's done using Javascript. It also works perfectly on another user account on my machine which is another oddity. Have you found a solution? – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-24T06:51:46.100

@Alan: Reinstall Windows ;-). Since I wanted to get rid of the 64-bit version anyway since the chipset doesn't support more than 3 GiB of memory that was overdue. Not really a solution, though. – Joey – 2010-11-24T07:10:15.753

Oh, yeah ;) I'd rather force my wife to use Chrome ;) – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-24T07:22:37.697

@Alan, so it did work before? And any URL that fails for you now? – Arjan – 2010-11-30T11:55:14.923

Like: what do http://jsbin.com/aguzu5/2 and http://jsbin.com/aguzu5/3 give you?

– Arjan – 2010-11-30T12:25:06.337

Any page that has flash embedded directly in HTML fails. If it's placed via javascript like many sites (including youtube) do, it works just fine. – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-30T14:30:35.987

So, @Alan, did it work previously? (And I assume that if you say any, this implies that the links I gave fail too? That will give folks something to work with.) – Arjan – 2010-11-30T14:32:22.073

Answers

Sort of a shotgun solution to weird security settings...

Reset IE settings:

Internet Options > Advanced tab > Reset button

Garrett

Posted 2010-06-28T21:06:35.800

Reputation: 701

Tried that. No luck. – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-29T10:33:28.077

The EMBED tag has a long and troubled history, being first introduced by Netscape, therefore being shunned by Microsoft up until IE3, then declared as deprecated in HTML 4 in favor of the OBJECT tag, then making a comeback in HTML 5.

The difference between the embed and object tags is that the embed tag infers the processing application based upon the data type, while the object tag expects you to explicitly specify the application by the classid and codebase attributes.

You should also be aware of the fact that IE uses an ActiveX control to display Flash, so that the Flash display in IE and other browsers is not done by the same software. This of course causes problems.

There are two possible causes that I can see for the EMBED tag not functioning:

The Shockwave Flash ActiveX is broken (check here)
The .swf MIME type is broken. This is probably defined in this registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Mime\Database\Content Type\application/x-shockwave-flash.

More info is to be found in : Troubleshoot Flash Player installation | Windows.

Some useful resources are:
JavaScript Flash Detection Library (Flash Detect)
ActiveXHelper - view essential information about installed ActiveX components.

harrymc

Posted 2010-06-28T21:06:35.800

Reputation: 306 093

Thanks, I'll try your suggestions, but... 1) I've tried reinstalling Flash; 2) It works well when I login into another Windows account (I guess HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is machine-wide, right?). Works on 1 account (admin), doesn't work on other 2 (standard users). Tried making those 2 users admins but that didn't help. – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-25T07:10:35.763

Account-specific results may point to UAC problems with the Flash installation. See "Update Flash Player on Windows Vista and Windows 7" in my Troubleshoot link. – harrymc – 2010-11-25T07:58:32.243

Tried that without success :( I guess I'll just give up and tell my wife to use Chrome. – Alan Mendelevich – 2010-11-25T17:54:49.393

What happens if you temporarily turn of UAC and reboot? (before you get in troubles with the wife) – harrymc – 2010-11-25T19:50:31.920