Fullscreen flash in linux freezes video: partial solution

Linux flash has problems with fullscreen on my laptop with an integrated intel graphics chipset. Most of the time I fullscreen it, the audio keeps playing but the video freezes.

You can solve the problem by disabling hardware acceleration, but that noticeably impacted my video quality (dropped frames, pixelation). However, it appears that a combination of changing focus to other windows and quickly fullscreening/un-fullscreening will make it work. Unfortunately, I haven't found a set of steps that works every time...usually, I just click around a lot until it works.