OS 10.6.8 Safari 5.1.10 Abobe keeps asking me to update my flash player (17.0.0.169) but I read in different forums that there may be problems with the new update. Can anyone advise me on whether or not to update? BTW, what is the update version number? jaybass

My Flash (in 10.6.8) is up to date at version 17.0.0.188, and I haven't experienced any problems, but since I use it very little, I may not be authoritative.

Thanks artie, I'll update it and let you know how it goes. jaybass

It doesn’t address your question about possible issues, but in case you don’t already have it, here is a link to a Flash Player version checker, which also lists the current version available. You may also like the link to the full Flash Player installer, as opposed to the smaller installer helper utility frequently found.

The "Updates" pane in the Flash Player pref pane in System Preferences checks your version and installs a new one if necessary, right from home, and with just two clicks.

When and if it works. Most of the time, I'll find out about the update via VersionTracker or MacUpdate but checking via the FP pref pane tells me that I have the newest version. I then go directly to Adobe to download and install it. Once in awhile, the pref pane shows the update but usually not.

Every day I play bridge on the internet and today I got the blocked plug-in message so I updated adobe flash player version 17.0.0.188 (NPAPI) which conflicts with the info provided by altanaut. I still got the blocked plug-in message so I uninstalled the new version and downloaded the 188 version but specified PPAPI and then I was able to log in to my bridge game. When I checked system prefs and clicked adobe player, it has 2 of the new versions listed but one is NPAPI and the other PPAPI. I don't think it matters but how can I remove theNPAPI entry? jaybass
Q: Is it possible to post a screen shot? If so, how? I have just looked at alternauts info and for safari and firefox shows NPAPI for...188 but that was what I had for...169 but the first download for...188, NPAPI didn't give me access to my bridge game but the second download did (PPAPI) which according to the table is only for opera and chromium-based browsers. Whatever the reason, it's working.

Be veeery careful with those updates you get from VersionTracker! They're likely to be waaay out of date.

I never find out about Flash updates automatically, because I invariably see them on MacUpdate first, but rather than d/l them there I go to my pref pane, and it has invariably given me correct info and facilitated the d/l.

Although it doesn't resolve your conundrum, you may find this post by tacit somewhat helpful as regards your NPAPI v PPAPI question.

You can uninstall your unwanted Flash plug-in by navigating to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins and deleting it...after you figure out which one it is. (Alternatively, you can move it to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins:Disabled.)

Screenshots: I use Free Image Hosting, but I must always truncate their URLs.

By way of example, this shot came with URL <<a href="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/commercial-photography/texas/houston/"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/CewO8Zz.png" alt="Houston commercial photography"></a>> which had to be truncated to <http://i.imgur.com/CewO8Zz.png> for posting. FIH's URLs have always look like the long one, and the same truncation has always worked for me.

Hope this helps.

artie, Since there seems to be a contradiction in the table, I hesitate to remove either one because of the possibility or trashing the wrong one and as I said before, it's working so perhaps better left alone. I have tried to upload the table I mentioned but I don't know if I did it right. jaybass

http://i.imgur.com/ahfVc3y.png

That's a reasonable approach..."If it ain't broke...." (Edit: Unless, of course, you're inveterately curious, like me, in which case, fix it 'til it's broke! )

If you haven't noticed, dkmarsh beat me to fixing your link, so you can see where you went wrong.

I can see why you want to leave well enough alone (and you can, see below), but your description of events doesn’t quite tally with what’s going on. For instance, I’m pretty sure that your impression that Safari only behaved properly with a particular web site after the PPAPI plugin was installed is erroneous. Why? Because Safari cannot use the PPAPI plugin. Opera and Chromium can, and if you use one of those and need Flash capability, you’ll have to install the PPAPI plugin. You can test this easily enough by loading the browser of choice and navigating to the Flash Player version checker site I linked to above. It’ll tell if you (1) have Flash installed for that browser and (2) which version. For instance, if you only installed the PPAPI plugin, Safari will tell you to install Flash, meaning the NPAPI plugin. Likewise, if you only installed the NPAPI plugin, Opera will tell you to install (PPAPI) Flash. If you use Flash in both Opera and Safari, you’d need both PPAPI and NPAPI plugins. There should be no problem having both of them installed at the same time (and hence no need to remove one or the other), and the Flash System Prefs panel allows you to monitor that.

As to the seeming contradiction between the version table and your experience: if the only browser you use on your bridge web site is Safari, you cannot say from a troubleshooting point of view that it requires the PPAPI plugin until you’ve removed all vestiges of Flash Player and reinstalled that particular plugin type from scratch. The best way to remove Flash is with Adobe’s official Flash Player Uninstaller, followed with installation of the Flash Player version/type to be tested. You do that with one plugin version/type at the time, and by testing it with all your browsers to see which one works and which one doesn’t. Given which version/type you installed first (and that’s default browser dependent; the installer serves both NPAPI and PPAPI types) you can predict the outcome of these tests. Obviously that’d be way beyond your immediate interest, which is simply to get things to work. But this may help in understanding what’s going on.

Next there is what you called a blocked plugin in post #34457. I suspect the issue was in fact a missing (or bad) plugin, regardless of which of the two Libraries you use to store Internet plugins. If there actually was a block, that suggests that you may be using one or more browser extensions to control plugins, perhaps specifically the Flash Player plugin. If true, you might want to disable extensions when the issue pops up again and see if that helps.

Finally there is version incompatibility: some web sites require a certain minimum version of the Flash plugin, and updating should take care of things. For security reasons you should always use the latest Flash plugin version. Browser-dependent plugin type differences only confuse the issue.