Safari/Firefox crash when I get to any site that requires flash

Hi -

So I remember having this problem two or three years ago, and don't remember how it was fixed...

Starting last week, every website (on either Safari or Firefox) that requires flash player causes the program to freeze. Sites such as ESPN.com and, well, basically anything that has any sort of streaming video just stops (with the little blue bar halfway done loading), the rainbow circle pops up, and I need to force-quit. I figured out that I can temporarily sidestep the problem by (at least on Safari) going to "Safari", "Preferences", choosing the "Security" bar, and disabling Plug-ins, Java, and JavaScript. That, however, only allows me to see some parts of sites like ESPN or NBC.com. The video parts of these sites then do not work. Is there a specific way to fix this? Thanks!

Have you tried reinstalling Flash player?

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BUIGP

I did try that, and still have the same problem, unfortunately.

Do you happen to have Perian installed?

I don't, and I'm not sure what that is. Should it be installed? Is anyone else having this problem?

nachonovo said:

I don't, and I'm not sure what that is. Should it be installed? Is anyone else having this problem?

Click to expand...

Perian is a set of plug-ins for Quicktime. It's quite easy to confuse a Quicktime video for Flash. I've had some problems recently with Perian and the latest Quicktime update, which prompted the question.

At this point, I would recommend creating a new user account (System Preferences => Accounts) just for testing purposes. Log in as the new user and see if the problem persists. If it does not, we know the problem is specifically related to your account and not the OS itself.