How To Fix Flash Player Crashes in Google Chrome?

For the past few days, ever since I updated my Google Chrome, I was encountering frequent Flash Player crashed every time I used to forward videos on YouTube. At first, I thought that it was a temporary issue, but when the problem became persistent, it really got very annoying. A simple page refresh was used to solve the problem, but I was looking for a permanent fix and I got to the root of the problem after a thorough investigation.

What Caused the Problem?

The problem was the conflict between the Flash installation that’s bundled with Chrome and the one that was already installed on my computer. Whenever I used to forward a video, Chrome used to get confused as to which Flash installation it should call to buffer the remaining video which caused the entire Shockwave player plugin to crash. These types of crashes are not found in browsers like Firefox or Opera because those are not shipped with their separate flash installation, rather they use the system’s default flash.

Now that we know the cause of the problem, let’s see how we can fix it.

How to Fix the Issue

The fix to the frequent Flash Player crashes is very simple. Just open up Chrome browser and type about:plugins in the address bar (Omnibar) and press enter to open Chrome Plugin Manager. Here you will see all the plugins that are installed in your Chrome browser.

Now search for the section Adobe Flash Player and if you see (2 Files) written alongside, you are on the right track. Click on the Details button on the top-right section to view all the Flash files that are currently running in the background. Now all you need to do is disable the Flash plugin that’s installed in the Chrome directory and keep the second one active. The location of the file should begin with something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application

Once the plugin is installed, save any work you were doing in your browser and restart Chrome. You will now not be bothered with frequent Flash Player crashes while watching videos.

What’s Next?

Now that we have disabled Chrome’s built-in Flash Player, its update will not be counted as everything your Chrome gets an update. This means, if your Adobe Flash is not set on automatic updates, you will have to periodically check for updates and apply them manually in the future. However, even after applying the fix, you are still facing Shockwave player crashes; you might want to post your problem to the Google Chrome support forum.