Flickering Flash

Summary: When HTML is layered over Flash objects, the HTML often flickers and sometimes straight-up disappears. This is fixed for some versions of Flash by setting wmode=”opaque” in the embed/object code.

Problem: Although I’ve experienced this issue in the past while browsing other people’s sites, I recently had it happen twice on one of my own: once where a Flash object was essentially used as a background, with HTML positioned over it; and again, where a lightbox was appearing over a Flash video. In both cases, the rendered HTML would flicker and sometimes disappear as the Flash animation played.

Solution: For Flash 8 and earlier (I believe), there does not appear to be a fix. For Flash 9+, however, setting wmode to either opaque or transparent seems to correct the problem:

Discussion: Flash doesn’t play nicely with HTML.

2 Comments

    • Author

      Stenu

    • Date

      August 13, 2009

    • Time

      2:50 am

    When I faced this problem, this article was the first which I found to tell about it. And exactly, Flash player 8 and lightbox (actually Thickbox) over it is causing me a headache.

    So, any progress since February? Do I have hope to find a suitable solution? I am not willing to change either of those components (Pl8 & Thick), so workaround would be really nice surprise!

  2. My solution was to hope that no one accessing the site still had Flash 8 installed. It's not much of a solution, but according to Adobe's version penetration statistics, 98.8% of users surveyed in "mature markets" had Flash 9 or better installed, compared with 98.9% for Flash 8 or better. At least, that's how I think the table is supposed to be read...

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