We have received feedback indicating that some users are experiencing issues either installing or using the latest version of Adobe Flash player on the site. We are doing what we can to improve these issues, particularly those regarding the required Flash player upgrade. Our investigation so far has uncovered that other sites are having similar issues with Flash player upgrades. The most common culprit is believed to be a faulty Flash player installation. If you are having trouble viewing a flash video or with upgrading your Flash player we highly recommend the following:

1) Close all browser windows.
2) Uninstall Flash Player using the Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller.
Note: Some users have reported greater success if they reboot at this time.
3) Reinstall the Flash Player Plugin from Adobe.

If you continue to have a difficult time viewing Flash content on Screencast.com we want to know about it! Please contact TechSmith's Technical Support team here, or feel free to leave a comment below.

Andy Bell
Screencast.com Team
Lead Test Engineer

UPDATE (July 31st, 2008) - Wow, lots of comments! It is clear that there are some additional issues that uninstalling and reinstalling are not correcting. Here is where we are at with those issues reported in the comments below:

1. "The video I am watching seems as though it has sound and I can't hear anything." -- I haven't heard much about this; if you are having this issue please contact support such that we can track it down.
2. "The video is in a very small box and is much to small to view correctly." -- Again, I have no additional information on this, please contact support such that we can find out why this is happening.
3. "On some videos I only see a black box where the video should be and no play button." -- This was an issue with our site, when the first frame of the video could not be read the Flash Player refused to play the video. This should be corrected as of July 22nd, 2008.
4. "On some videos the first frame and play button appear but when I click the play button I only see a black square." -- Again, I need more information on this. If you are having this problem please contact support so they can start getting more information on the issue.
5. "The video won't play! I need HELP!!" -- I would really like to help you! But I can't have an effective dialog with you on the blog! Luckily we have a full department of people trained to help you. Further, they help me a great deal by gathering additional information about the problem so our team can get it fixed as soon as possible! PLEASE contact them using this form: TechSmith Support. Or call, +1.517.381.2300, or 800.517.3001 (U.S. & Canada only), between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm EST, Monday - Friday.

UPDATE (August 26th, 2008) - Regarding issue number four from above, "On some videos the first frame and play button appear but when I click the play button I only see a black square" ...

• We've learned from reports to support that videos which have a pound sign (#) or ampersand (&) in the file name cause the video feed to fail every time the video is played. Renaming the file and uploading it again will resolve this problem but our team is working to fix the issue.
• We've also determined that some internet traffic to Screencast.com was degraded such that video data transfers were occasionally interrupted. In the case of Flash video the result looked the same as the issue above, clicking play resulted in a black square being displayed instead of the video. We believe this has been resolved.

Also new issue has been reported: "The area where I expect to see the video is not there, instead there is just the link to this blog post." We've found that having an apostrophe (') in the file name will prevent the video from being displayed. We are going to fix this issue.