Alright computer geniuses...

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I have a computer problem and could use your help. 

Whenever I load a webpage with flash content, I get an error message that says this:

"Shockwave Flash
The plug in has performed an illegal operation.  You are strrongly advised to restart Firefox."

This friggin message pops up for each and every webpage with flash content.  Do you know how many webpages have flash content?  It's driving me crazy to have to close that stupid error message every time.  So...

I tried upgrading to the newest version of Shockwave.  No improvement.

I tried upgrading to the newset version of Firefox.  No improvement.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox.  No improvement.

I wanted to uninstall and reinstall Shockwave, but I couldn't.  Shockwave doesn't include any means for uninstallation.  Checked out the tech info from Adobe, and it turns out that you have to download and install a special program that will uninstall Shockwave.  (How screwed up is that??)  Well, the uninstallation program won't install correctly, so I can't uninstall Shockwave.

I checked google for any info on this problem, and didn't turn up anything useful.

That's the limit of my easy and sensible troubleshooting options.  I could format and reinstall everything, but it's a bit premature  for that drastic a solution.

Any thoughts?

[280plus]

I'm no genius but I think you need a wipe and reload. I'm an expert at paying for that. Hopefully you can do it yourself. I had Bill the computer guy come over and set me up a new system a while back. He installed AVG anti virus free version and Spybot Search and Destroy and I've been problem free for quite a while now. But I just remembered I should do a spybot sca. Came up clean last time. 

[ilbob]

it is probably not a virus or malware of some sort.

i'd guess you are in DLL hell.

wipe and reload is about the only cure.

it tends to happen a lot when you are installing and uninstalling software on a regular basis. especially if you are in the habit of downloading "free" stuff and beta versions.

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

The plugin, as I think you've guessed, is probably fouling itself. When you get into this kind of situation, it's always good to go Googling for the error.

I tried the following:

"plugin has performed an illegal operation" firefox

and got a bunch of results that are too long to post here.

The most detailed debug session is here:

http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=85760&pid=467432&mode=threaded&show=&st=&#entry467432

HTH,
- NF