Many viewers of YouTube were getting this error message on Sunday, March 15, 2009:

Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe’s Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.

Well not so fast.

First, I had JavaScript turned on.

Second, I downloaded the lastest version of the Adobe Flash Player.

Apparently, this is not the first time this problem has happened.

http://forums.techguy.org/multimedia/526305-hello-you-either-have-javascript.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080330145347AA6eHX8 

This is just the type of problem that should have been avoided had both YouTube and Adobe tested their code before releasing live to world.

Videos are still not playing on YouTube.

However they work perfectly fine on this blog where they are embedded.

I posted on Microsoft’s Channel 9 Coffeehouse to see if any developer were getting the same error message and what they did about it:

http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/461080-YouTube-or-Adobe-Screwed-Up-Looks-Like-Adobe/

This may be helpful for all of you that are having this problem:

Seeing your post made me actually get round to fixing it, go here, run the uninstaller and the go to flash.com and reinstall it, all works again.

Google who owns YouTube and Adobe need to get their act together, this should not happen!

The whole situation reminds me of a Bugs Bunny Bloopers Cartoon:

(Blooper) Bunny! (1991) – HQ

Start Me Up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpd3v4wwThE

Background Articles and Information

Software Bug

A software bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from behaving as intended (e.g., producing an incorrect or unexpected result). Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program’s source code or its design, and a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code. A program that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy. Reports detailing bugs in a program are commonly known as bug reports, fault reports, problem reports, trouble reports, change requests, and so forth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug