Usual advice is to use the latest version of all RealPlayer related software are you doing that ?

It is possible there has been a regression somewhere, are you able to provide a link to the version listing and release notes of your Real Player related software. (You will probably find that faster than I can, if you have the software installed).

First of all consider trying downgrading to FlashPlayer 10.3

If that does not help upgrade again and try find out if turning off FlashPlayers protected mode helps.

There has been a rather long saga of Firefox Windows problems with RealPlayer/Flash.

A recent related threads, with useful instructional links:

• Flash Player hangs Firefox 18 on Win8 64 [solved - protected mode] /forums/support-forum-contributors/708905?last=50206#post-50153
• and a possibly similar problem /questions/946829

Thank you for your suggestions, some of which I tried.

However, what I eventually discovered is that Real.com has separated its Realplayer program from its Realdownloader program (effectively without adequate notification upon an update) and one has to find the latter and tell it where to place the downloads--otherwise it doesn't work.

Thanks for posting back.

So the problem is with Real.com software,and you have found the solution. This is popular software and others are sure to run into the problem.

For anyone that needs specific steps to solve this.....

1) Open Realdownloader
2) Click Realdownloader drop down menu in top left
3) Click preferences
4) Click Browse and pick your destination folder