Uninstall the 11.3 first, with uninstaller program from Adobe :

Uninstall Flash 11.3

then follow the directions : Install Flash 10.3 or 11.2

thank you

Thanks. I uninstalled Flash 11.3 (again), and to my surprise I was able to install Flash 10.3.183.20 (last night the Flash installer had refused to go ahead and install an old version). But no joy: problem is just the same with the older Flash plug-in, as audio stream from Radio Classique or France Musique takes several minutes to begin. So I guess I've eliminated the controversial Flash 11.3 as the cause of my problem. Any suggestions as to where to look next?

Further info in case relevant. I have been using Chrome exclusively for many months because Fx had got so slow. Last week I tried Fx again, let it upgrade itself, was pleasantly surprised that it was fairly fast, made it my default browser once more. (I much prefer the interface and add-ons.) So my audio streaming problem may not be recent in Fx - I don't know. But the identical problem in Chrome only started within the last week at most, so it probably all is something recent.

Try clear Cookies and Cache and check it again.

thank you

Tried that yesterday. No help, unfortunately.

I have removed Flash player entirely yet again and then installed both the IE and non-IE versions of 11.3.300.268. I would really appreciate ideas about where the problem might lie. The delay before streamed sound from those two radio stations arrives in Firefox is over 2 minutes. In IE it's only about 1 second, as normal. My Creative SB X-fi mixer shows the input as being IE rather than Flash when I'm streaming radio in IE, but when I'm using Firefox, it shows the input as being Flash, not Firefox. Is that a clue as to why IE and Fx behave differently? (On the other hand, when I play BBC iPlayer in Firefox, where there's no delay, that too is shown as being a Flash source rather than a Fx source.)

Other "solutions" I have found elsewhere are to remove Real Player Record (but I don't have Real Player installed), or to lower the bit rate sampling quality (made no difference). Am stumped.

Internet Explorer uses a ActiveX version of Flash.

see : Disabling Protected Mode in Flash 11.3

Thanks, ideato, for persisting. I followed the link above and not only disabled protected mode but followed every other step recommended on that page. Still no joy.

Am going to re-enable protected mode for Flash, the NoScript extension and hardware acceleration: I turned them all off, but they didn't affect the problem.

also try to "disable the hardware acceleration" in Flash Player, and from firefox from: Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: UNCHECK "Use hardware acceleration when available" .

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/help01.html

Has anyone found a solution for this? I am having this exact same issue and it's driving me crazy. Some Flash streaming solutions play immediately while others have to buffer a minute or two before playing.

Thanks!

Do you have security (anti-virus) software that might be scanning MP3 files?

The France Musique player is opening an MP3 link.

• http://players.tv-radio.com/radiofrance/playerfrancemusique.php

flashvars = "NomStation=francemusique&Skin=http://players.tv-radio.com/radiofrance/img/skins/francemusique.jpg&audiofile=http://mp3.live.tv-radio.com/francemusique/all/francemusiquehautdebit.mp3&withlogoeffect=false&eStatSendType=flash&eStatSerial=272031200840&eStatName=direct&eStatSection3=direct&eStatGenre=live&tvr_genre=live&tvr_name=francemusiquehautdebit.mp3&tvr_section1=francemusique.com&tvr_section2=&tvr_section3="

Well, that player isn't my issue actually. :) This is a common issue I have with random flash players.

A player I am building right now, in fact, is at: http://dev.nexmix.com/trulocal/player/

However other players, including on my radio station, is running fine without buffer: http://www.studiohits.com/player/ (aacPlus using FLV encapsulation)

Here is one that does specifically MP3 streaming: http://dev.nexmix.com/flashsc/Nativeradio-small/

I have other samples I have gathered in the directory of: http://dev.nexmix.com/flashsc/

You can see why this is confounding on why only select Flash solutions take a dive. Is it aacPlus (non FLV encapsulated) players that have to load? Again, no clue.

It bothers me because I've been in this industry for so long and not knowing the problem makes me sad.

Found the problem. I bet everyone here is using Sophos. Sophos looks at it based on Javascript and checks the file. It sees this file as a file, not a stream, so it will check 2048k of it.

http://community.sophos.com/t5/Sophos-Endpoint-Protection/Slow-video-streaming-ex-YouTube-com/td-p/14091

I suggest to remove: audio/unknown

And lower the sample to 512

That should solve it!

Brilliant! I bet you're right. I do use Sophos on my the desktop in question. Will check as soon as I get home (am at a conference this week).

Many thanks.

David

David,

It's funny, I started looking the same time you were looking. Sophos made changes for v10 and that's when I found the same issue. As soon as I found the solution I had to find this post so I could share it with you since you were still struggling.

Chris

OK, now we have the problem of Windows access control. The YouTube solution you link to talks about the Sophos config file factory.xml (though in a context different from mine - namely, IE as opposed to Fx or Chrome, the converse of my problem). I'm assuming that of all the gazillion versions of factory.xml on my PC, the relevant one is in C:\Users\All Users\Sophos\Sophos Anti-Virus\config, and I don't have access to that file. I had previously turned off all the SAV services. I'm OK with stopping and starting admin services, but I'm unwilling to mess with file permissions - especially for my anti-virus - unless I understand what I'm doing and how to undo any changes I make. Windows provides so many often baffling ways of giving/withholding access to different users, and I haven't yet got comfortable with them. David

I am an IT professional, so I just keep "User Access Control" off since I know my computer inside and out. My suggestion is to turn off UAC to just change the file and then change it back.

OK, have done as suggested and modified factory.xml with Sophos stopped and UAC temporarily off. I removed the item with audio/unknown from the section on web control and changed the sample from 2048 to 512. The effect is to shorten the delay but not to remove it: it feels as if the buffering delay has been shortened (could well be one quarter of what it was) but that removing the audio/unknown line has had no effect.

For Internet Radio stations it would cause a delay for sure, the audio/unknown, for example the players I listed above. That was a night and day solution. I am curious if there is a video/unknown (I didn't look for that).

Do you have dial-up internet that would make the delay seem like a long time? I watch YouTube all the time and the 512 now is pretty instant, versus the 2048 where I'd have to wait a second or two.

No: it's fairly good broadband (about 12+ Mbps, depending how optimistic a speed tester you use), and previously those radio stations came on within a second. Now there's a delay of some 35 seconds, after lowering the sample size to 512.

best David