Ubuntu Multimedia :: Random Flash/Shockwave Objects Refuse To Work In Firefox

i run ubuntu 9.10 64-bit, using firefox 3.5.6 (courtesy of ubuntuzilla) as my web browser. i've had a problem with some flash and/or shockwave objects simply refusing to work inside firefox, despite having 64-bit flash player and all necessary plugins/addons/extras etc. installed.

there is no pattern to the problems, other than all of them being flash or shockwave objects that won't play. the majority of videos videos do play, including hd ones. however, this morning i encountered a pair of videos clips that simply would not play. i could load the page they were on, but all i ever saw was a black box, with no audio, where the video should have been.

i also noticed that on some of the videos that do play, the flash player's built-in volume control does nothing. i can slide it up or down or mute it entirely, but the sound from the flash video is unaffected.

i'll post urls of the problem videos later, so others can try them.

meanwhile i was able to watch other videos videos without issue, on another tab, aside from the broken flash player volume control.

i've also had a problem with the [url] player for a radio station, which i believe uses shockwave. i like to listen to atlanta, ga's wsb 750 am radio in the mornings before work, but so far i have to do it on a virtual windows xp machine running firefox 3.5.6, under virtualbox. if i try to open the player in firefox 3.5.6 running in the host os (ubuntu 9.10), i get only a blank popup window. url is [url]; click the "listen live" box at upper left to try it.

both machines, the host ubuntu 9.10 install and the guest windows xp machine, use exactly the same ad-blocking hosts file. i use the noscript addon in the host os install of firefox, but i allow any and all scripts when visiting the radio station's website.

since the streaming radio works on the virtual xp machine, i'm pretty sure my network configuration, hosts file etc. have nothing to do with this.

has anyone else had this problem? the flash content really should be agnostic with respect to the host os and browser, shouldn't it?

i guess it could be some random problem with the 64-bit vs. the 32-bit version of the flash plugin, so i may try instaling 32-bit ubuntu on a virtual machine to find out whether there's a difference.