How to Fix “You need to upgrade your flash player”

Adobe’s Flash Player has been pretty much hit or miss in the past few years, which led to it being completely dismissed with popular websites such as YouTube, and was built-in in browsers such as Google Chrome, to minimize the number of security issues and errors. However, there are users who don’t use Google Chrome and still need Adobe Flash Player once in a while, and they may be facing issues such as an annoying pop-up window which won’t go away, and tells you that you need to update Flash Player. Another issue you might face is another popup window, but this time Flash Player asks you to store data on your system. This can happen most commonly with online games that rely on flash, if you attempt to play them with a browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

Fortunately, whichever of these issues you are facing, there are easy fixes. You will be able to do them in little to no time, and you will have your online games playing in no time.

Method 1: Reinstall Flash Player

If you’re getting the first error message, it might be the case that Flash Player is malfunctioning, or you have an older version that doesn’t work with the page you’re trying to load. To solve this easily, you can uninstall Flash Player and reinstall the latest version by downloading it from Adobe’s website.

1. To uninstall Flash Player you need to open Control Panel, by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard, typing Control Panel and opening the result. Or, if you’re using an older version of Windows, you will find Control Panel in the menu when you press Windows on your keyboard.
2. Once inside Control Panel, locate Programs and Features, or Add or Remove Programs if you’re using an older version of Windows. You might need to change the View to find it (see the picture). Click it and you will be presented with a list of software currently installed on your computer, in which you will need to find Flash Player.
3. Click on Flash Player, and click Uninstall. Follow the wizard and the prompts and in the end, you will have uninstalled Flash Player. Restart your system.
4. Go to your Downloads folder, or wherever you have saved the setup for Adobe Flash, the one that you downloaded from the website, and locate the setup file. Start it by double-clicking it, and follow the wizard to finish the setup. Again, restart your system once you’re done.

Method 2: Enable Shockwave Flash in Firefox

If you’re using Firefox, you will need to enable Shockwave Flash, which is essentially Flash Player, and this may help you solve your problem with Flash requiring an update.

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and open the Add-ons menu, either by pressing Ctrl, Shift and A simultaneously, or by clicking on Tools, and then Add-ons.
2. Select Plugins on the left side, and in the list, locate Shockwave Flash. You should be able to see the status to the right of its name. (In the image, for example, it is disabled)
3. Change the status of the plugin to Always Activate from the dropdown menu. This will enable the plugin, after which you can close the dialog box.

Method 3: Change Flash Player’s storage settings

In case you have the second message, which is Flash Player telling you that it wants to store data on your system, it might be the case that its permissions are set incorrectly, or it isn’t allowed enough space for the data it wants to store. For this situation, there are a few things you should do.

1. Open the site for Flash Player’s Global Storage Settings. As mentioned in the website, the window at the top of the website is actually your specific Flash Player. Whichever changes you do, apply to your system.
2. Check both Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer, as well as Store common Flash components to reduce download times. Along with this, you can increase the amount of disk space that Flash Player is allowed to use. 100KB is a good starting point, but you can increase it if it’s not enough.
3. Open the site for Flash Player’s Website Storage Settings. Again, this is your Flash Player. Select the website you’re having issues with, and choose Always allow so Flash Player doesn’t ask you for storage permissions all the time.

When you’re done with all of the aforementioned steps, Flash Player should be working properly.

Adobe Flash has been somewhat of a hit and miss, especially with all the security issues, and it is no surprise that the industry has chosen to avoid it when possible. However, if you’re facing some of these issues, using the methods described earlier will help you get rid of them.