I just had a hard disk die, and had to start fresh. I loaded Mageia 5. I now have Opera 38.0.2220.31.
Since the Flash was updated for Linux because of a security update, I have the latest and greatest flash.
It does not work with this version of Opera. I set up the flash plugin in both /lib/opera/plugin and lib64/opera/plugin/. No joy. Checking the developer tools for plugins, Adobe Flash is nowhere to be found. Streaming video sites that rely on flash cannot be viewed.
Before the crash, the old "outdated" flash worked. I had to enable it , but it worked. The older version of Opera worked with flash.
The problem is obviously a bad bug with 38.0.2220.31. I downloaded Chrome and it does not work either. But Firefox does work. I am currently looking at freshplayer, a wrapper that allows later versions of Flash for windows to be run under Linux, but I am not expecting much.
Probably the best bet would to be to try an older version of Opera. We will otherwise have to wait for a bug fix. :< :< :<