Zoom7000 Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 We are experiencing a problem with Adobe Shockwave. A science teacher is trying to run a couple of science related shockwave movies and gets the following error everytime: Director Player Error: This application requires an Xtra (Flash Movie...) that either does not exist or failed to initialize properly. Please make sure the appropriate Xtras are in the Xtras folder(s). When you click OK you get another similar error and the bit I have highlighted in bold changes to "Text" and again to "Vector Shape". Then you get the following error: This Shockwave movie has errors that have caused playback problems Please contact the author of this content regarding this problem, Shockwave is unable to continue. The weird issue is that the problem is not occuring on all the PCs. I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling Shockwave and Flash, rebuilt the PC and still no luck. It works fine as Administrator, but not as a regular user. Adobe's Shockwave page says it is sucessfully installed. I looked on a PC where the movie was working and noticed there were a lot more "Xtras" in "C:Windows\System32\Adobe\Shockwave 11\Xtras" so I copied the Xtras over to the PC with the problem. I now don't get errors but I get the Adobe Shockwave splash logo with the progress bar and the progress bar never fills. Installed Firefox and tried running from there but it complains that Shockwave is not installed even when I try to reinstall it. Any ideas? I'm totally baffled! I've given the teacher Full Controll of the Windows folder as a test, but still no luck.
plexer Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 I had no luck getting shockwave or the authorware plugin to install correctly as a normal user as you say they seem to work as admin. Ben
Michael Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 Have you tried allocating the user a new profile? This is the only difference I can see.
tomscaper Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 What software is it and do you have the original disk, could it need a particular version of shockwave.
Zoom7000 Posted September 15, 2008 Author Posted September 15, 2008 Sorry, forgot to post the links: PLATO Learning (UK) Ltd - Enhancing Teaching, Inspiring Learning solar_preload It's definately not the user profile as I get the problem with many users and tried creating a new user too.
Michael Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 I have tried both and both work fine with the latest versions of Shockwave and Flash. If you navigate to Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Manage add-ons, are the controls both enabled?
tomscaper Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 Tried the two links as admin and student and they both worked fine, we have shockwave 10 here, mabye it is a version problem.
Michael Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 Possibly, Shockwave is upto version 11.0.0.465. You can download the MSIs following this link
Zoom7000 Posted September 15, 2008 Author Posted September 15, 2008 Yes, it works as Admin and Teacher/Student on selected PCs and not on others. Which is why I'm confused. I've tried the MSIs both slim and full. Still no luck.
Michael Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 Tried resetting IE to defaults? I can't see what else the problem could be.
elsiegee40 Posted September 15, 2008 Posted September 15, 2008 Yes, it works as Admin and Teacher/Student on selected PCs and not on others. Which is why I'm confused. I've tried the MSIs both slim and full. Still no luck. I'd start by checking out the Shockwave versions on the machines where it works... you may not have the same version all round. I had similar problems last year and ended up uninstalling and going back to a previous version that was working on other PCs in the school.
contink Posted September 16, 2008 Posted September 16, 2008 One thing I've found with a few versions of Flash (not SW but it may apply) is that libs for the latest version get corrupted and going to add/remove allows you to repair it. That said I've noticed that in other instances there's been problems with the RIS image I've created and sound drivers for certain systems so you may have a driver issue in there causing issues too. Good luck
Zoom7000 Posted September 16, 2008 Author Posted September 16, 2008 Interestingly I've just tried to do a repair to Adobe Shockwave from Add/Remove Programs and it simply crashes everytime it gets to the "Checking C:\Windows\System32\Adobe\Shockwave 11\SwHelper_1100465.exe" I have to use Task Manager to kill it. Still confused!
sidewinder Posted September 16, 2008 Posted September 16, 2008 Ive had a similar problem, with Multimedia Science School (made by Plato!) Its only on a few machines though, and only with certain teacher accounts, with some it works ok Last time I got round it by using the shockwave uninstaller from adobe and then going to the website and getting the latest one to install. Redeploying our MSI still brought up the error. Yet that same MSI will work fine with MMS on various other computers
Zoom7000 Posted September 18, 2008 Author Posted September 18, 2008 Just a passing thought, is there an option in Group Policy that I may have configured (or not) that could be causing this issue?
tomscaper Posted September 18, 2008 Posted September 18, 2008 Is it anything with shockwave that does not work or just those two specific sites. Have you tried rebuilding that specific machine to see if it comes up again.
Zoom7000 Posted September 18, 2008 Author Posted September 18, 2008 I've have tried rebuilding the machines, but that did not fix anything, probably because I have Shockwave integrated into my image. I need to create a new virgin image and give it a try. I'm not sure if it is anything to do with Shockwave, is there anything else similar that I can try that makes use of shockwave? I'm thinking more teaching materials as opposed to games.
tomscaper Posted September 18, 2008 Posted September 18, 2008 I would try with the clean image and install either v11 or v10 of shockwave and see what happens. It may be a problem with it being intergrated within the image. Other than that i dont know what else to suggest, the fact it works with admin and not users makes it sound like permissons to something. could you try giving access to the system32 folder. or the system32\macromed\Shockwave 10 in v10 or system32\Adobe\Shockwave 11 in v11
Zoom7000 Posted September 18, 2008 Author Posted September 18, 2008 Tried giving full access to System32 folder, then Windows folder and then the entire C: drive. Still to no avail. I might search through Group Policy to see if it is some stupid IE setting I need to configure.
Michael Posted September 18, 2008 Posted September 18, 2008 Integrating Flash/Shockwave with an image shouldn't be a problem. I do that all the time. I think it's something specific to this image however. Have you checked IE add-ons like I suggested in an earlier post?
Zoom7000 Posted September 18, 2008 Author Posted September 18, 2008 Yeah, I have checked the add-ons and they are all enabled.
speckytecky Posted March 26, 2009 Posted March 26, 2009 Anyone ever crack this problem? I have a Science teacher today asking to have 10 computers set up running Planet Science | Randomise I have logged on to 10 computers all with Admin rights and all having identical settings (latest Flash & Shockwave etc) but only one will run the programme:confused:
Zoom7000 Posted March 26, 2009 Author Posted March 26, 2009 No, I never managed to get it working either! Adobe's Flash and Shockwave can be really weird at times! 1
tomscaper Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Try deleting the users profile and recreating. We had one teacher couldnt access any flash site until i deleted his profile.
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