{PROBABLY FIXED!!} Streaming and Flash Video just went Bad?

[book_guy]

hoping for some tech help ...

Anybody else having problems with the new Flash update? It hogs so much of my memory I can't stream video! Which kind of defeats the purpose, right?

Anyway, here are my problem symptoms -- video that is supposed to "stream" just stops and waits a LONG time to buffer (like, forty seconds) then plays just a little bit (like, twenty seconds) then waits to buffer again. Any thoughts about settings to change? I didn't change anything, and it all used to work just fine, and then suddenly it all just quit. The only new thing I did, was use an HDMI cable to plug some streaming sports into my television. But I've restarted since then, so I can't imagine that has anything to do with it ...

Hope some smart guru on the forums can help!

[bhlombardy]

Is it still doing it with the HDMI removed and then rebooted?

What OS, web browser (and version) are you using it with?

[sadisticflipside]

Jumping the gun...

If using Chrome for windows, check to ensure you are not running more than one Flash plugin. Chrome updates itself, and if you happen to install Flash from Adobes site, Chrome will be much more sluggish. You can see the plugins installed by entering about:plugins in the address bar.

Cheers

[book_guy]

Well, this post is kind of obsolete, now, so I'm striking it out and then writing a reply that explains further.

Howdy. Thanks for any help you can suggest.

My set-up: Win-7, HP Pavilion dv-7 laptop, all the updates to software, Windows, Media Player, Adobe products, Shockwave, Flash, Java, etc..

Some potential solutions that don't seem to have much effect:

turning off fire-wall, turning off anti-virus, turning off all background programs and services that I think I can get away with, rebooting, restarting, changing user ID at Windows log-in, giving myself more (or fewer) Admin privileges, defragging disk, clearing page-file at reboot, clearing registry of "bad" entries (I generally use CCleaner regularly), clearing the internet cache and the downloaded off-line temporary internet files, etc. ... most of the "obvious" first steps for "my computer isn't working right, what should I do?" type situation.

Problem exists in Firefox (up to date) or Internet Explorer (up to date). Haven't tried Chrome. Thank you for the intelligent suggestion about having two versions of Flash player on the computer, I will look into that immediately.

So, the simple story is ... I get a hiccup in the middle of any Cock Hero video that I'm trying to stream. Same for XVideos.com, or YouTube. Weirdness. Never had it before, didn't actually "change" anything in the sense that there aren't new downloaded programs that should be considered to be interference.

Problem is, generally, that the browser isn't "smart" enough to load the next portion of a streaming video until after it's too late. In other words, I can see the "loaded" progress-bar at the bottom of a YouTube video; it will progress to halfway, where the loaded portion has made it to the middle of the bar at 50%; meanwhile the playback indicator will also be progressing toward it, but slower; however, when the loaded-indicator gets to the 50% mark, it stops and the loading stops, while the playback-indicator continues at a normal pace (and I see and hear the video properly, all is well) until it gets to 50%. When it hits 50%, though, nothing else is loaded. So, it stops in mid-stream, doh! So, it didn't have the sense to load the remainder of the video in time to play it. Furthermore, sometimes it STILL doesn't have the sense to load the remainder of the video until I do something to "move" the screen. For example, I might re-size the browser window, or click the mouse to "pause" and then "play" again, at which point the loading-indicator begins moving again. And when enough has been loaded, the playback-indicator begins moving again, and the video plays back properly for whatever duration has been loaded.

To rephrase: for streaming videos, the pre-load in the media player doesn't fetch enough data to accommodate the fact that playback will use up all of that data soon by ... duh ... playing it back. Play-back eventually catches up to what has been pre-loaded, but then has to wait for more pre-load to come in. Make sense? Why wait? Why not pre-load in ADVANCE of needing it, so that there won't be a stop in the playback? Didn't used to have this problem. Can't guess why it started, can't figure how to fix it.

I have looked for every setting I can find that is related somehow to a "cache" or "pre-load" or anything like that, and I have both tried re-setting it, or tried to set it to some kind of maximum or minimum depending on what seemed intelligent. No difference.

One thing to realize is that I've got an "ATI" (whatever that is) which means I don't have access to the control which would allow me to select "no video acceleration" or "no hardware acceleration" for the device itself. I have set the Flash settings to "no acceleration."

Another thing is, this dv-7 by HP is a (supposedly) media-friendly computer, which means it has all sorts of excess whistles and bells about playback. There's "Beats" audio and "Catalyst Control Center" switchable graphics (high-quality or low-power versions of images are supposed to "automatically" engage depending on the type of software you're running), and plenty of historical problems with power conflicts. The internet has a lot of reports of people whose dv-7 wi-fi antenna just spontaneously shuts itself off (even if the proper settings have been chosen to prevent exactly that). I had that problem, sent it in, and now when I got it back (three months ago) the wi-fi antenna was no longer a problem but other hardware was playing at the same mistake and spontaneously shutting itself off. HP did a bad job of software conflicts in its power management. In fact, when I got the thing back from repair, there was a really kludgy silly over-done "user-created" power scheme in the power control panel, that they didn't mention to me and that I wouldn't have found out about, except for the dumb luck that I happened to look into it. So, HP knows there's a problem, and they have in-house work-arounds (one of which I accidentally found in the power-management control panel), but they aren't being upstanding enough to actually work on and release a full software solution. This problem of streaming playback COULD have something to do with this power-conflict issue.

One other thing, I have restarted and re-set my ISP company's modem, and my wi-fi router. It seems to have mild benefit, especially if I disconnect everybody else from the internet so that the only device routing through my router is this one laptop. That really hasn't ever been the case in the past, my router should be able to handle bandwidth for about five connections at the rate that I'm trying to stream. Furthermore, it doesn't stay fixed. The problem soon re-emerges.

Weird things I've done lately that have to do with streaming:

1. Downloaded Planet Arkadia game for a try-out. Didn't like it, too much like Warcraft. Deleted it. As you probably know, the download method is a streaming peer-to-peer type thing, it's the game's own little downloader that runs in the background until you've gotten the Gigabytes necessary to play the game. However, I've done what I can to eliminate ALL the software, downloaded files, and secret caches from that thing so I suspect that if it has a deleterious effect, it's because of some kind of setting tweak upstream of my laptop (a.k.a., my ISP got vexed and throttled my speeds back, or something like that).

2. Similarly, started watching streaming sports. I used First Row Sports (just the web interface!) and also NBC Sports Extra for soccer games in the last two weeks or so. And I connected the laptop to the TV via (as mentioned) an HDMI cable. Neither of these leaves software on the laptop, nor any "hanging" downloads once you've disconnected. But I wouldn't be surprised if they caused some kind of (as mentioned in number 1) tweak to a setting somewhere, either on the laptop or upstream of it, a tweak I either can't or haven't found yet.

OK well that's a lot of talk. Glad if anyone has read this far. Thanks for your time!

[book_guy]

OK, so, this seems to be the solution:

I had a "double" Flash player installation. Thanks very much to Sadisticflipside for suggesting this solution! I think I have fixed the problem. I'm not 100% sure yet, since the testing will be going on for a little while just to see if bandwidth or other pressures don't screw things up again. But for now, it seems that I can stream with impunity as I always could until this problem arose.

It wasn't exactly a double-installation of Flash player. More accurately, it was one and a half installations. My method for resolving this problem was to un-install Flash, and Firefox, and a lot of other stuff, and then re-install.

And, when I say "un-install," man, I MEAN it. I not only ran the uninstaller app that comes with Flash. I ran it several times. I "forced" ran it. I manually searched and hunt-pecked for any folder named "Adobe" or "Flash" or "Shockwave" or "Player" and for any Registry entry similarly named. I deleted the ones that seemed sensible to delete. I ran CCleaner intermittently among all of these un-installations and deletions, removing more and more "problem" registration entries that it found. I ran the other computers in the house while this laptop was without Flash. I made sure things seemed OK everywhere else. Then, and only then, did I re-install (1) Firefox and then (2 ... whoops, first there was a problem.

See, this is when the weirdness arose. Get where I'm at. I have un-installed Flash, right? And I have also un-installed and then I have re-installed Firefox, right? So, that means I should have a Firefoxed but Flashless computer, right? Yes Firefox, no Flash, right? But at that point, on YouTube, I watched a buncha videos. I watched the Nye Gitarkameraten (Fuentes, Lund, Holm, Nilsen) do Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on some Norwegian talk show. Then I watched K. D. Lang do the same song for the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Then I watched K. D. Lang do the damn "Walk On" song from "South Pacific" that they sing at Liverpool football matches. Then ... I realized that there weren't any advertisements showing up on YouTube. And then I realized, that I shouldn't be able to watch YouTube if I don't have Flash on my computer, right?

So, weirdness. So, I ran the un-installer and the forced-un-installer for Flash all over again and again. I restarted. I kept running CCleaner. And finally YouTube wouldn't work right. And THEN ...

... as I was saying two paragraphs back ...

... then, and only then, did I re-install (2) Flash.

So, evidently, there were some dregs lying about. Flash had left some residue somewhere. I've gotten rid of it and finally gotten a really clean re-install of Flash, and it seems to be working fine. Unfortunately, that does mean ads have come back on YouTube. Pity ... ... but at least now it doesn't stop halfway through any stream and just sit there for five minutes (literally) while the download is not downloading.

Again, thanks very much, to Sadisticflipside, for the suggestion. I'll mention something if the solution turns out to be a false lead, but, for now at least, I'm back to simple streaming like it used to be. Also, I do wonder about two questions:

1. How did this happen? Did it have something to do with First Row Sports or NBC Sports Extra and the exorbitant high-bandwidth streaming I was doing?

2. Why do two Flash players show up as running in Task Manager? Whenever I am playing a Flash video, then Task Manager says that Flash is running. Seems sensible enough. But, it shows either NO Flash running, or TWO Flash-es running. If I kill one, the other dies as well, so this is evidently a double-representation of a single running process or application. Nevertheless, it makes me wonder a bit.