Yep, working now.

as i posted earlier, firefox under mac osx 10.6.2 (snow leopard) is not working as the "rectangular java box" doesn't show the "java coffee cup"-just a blank box. safari works just fine and n.b., the same version of firefox (3.5.7) works just fine on my mac laptop g4 running leopard 10.5.8

+1 .

Two months almost with NO chat. I got in for one day on Sat 9th Jan (AEST), no one there, just me but now for some reason since Sunday its not working again.

What is going on?

Tried twice again today, with Firefox, first time no java coffee cup while loading, just blank. Second time, the java coffee cup came up in the box but I still got the same OLD exception error I have been reporting here for TWO months. So the brief moment of success was very short lived.

Can we please have an update from IB Tech?

ditto, DUG...at least from home (Comcast, Seattle), no luck connecting in weeks. I have been able to connect over (Delta) GoGo and from work (all three with the same MacBook Pro, os x 6, FF, cookies deleted); however, neither of these are practical options for me. So, I continue to be without the chat.

So, yesterday we made a network change that may or may not have affected this issue.

Can you please let me know if you've experienced any difference?

Seems to work normally for me now, and it did not two nights ago.

still the same as above for me

It made a difference for me; I use IE8 and was able to login to chat for the first time since the problems were reported a few months ago.

However, since the afternoon of 1/14, I am back to the same time out error messages when I try to log in.

Thanks for the feedback.

Well I'm back to the problem I encountered before. First, got knocked off chat (got in via AOL IE browser) & per the norm, it took 15 minutes to get back on. Actually, it took 5 minutes longer than usual.

So I tried going in via IE plain (I think 8) browser & it told me that I didn't have the latest Java installed. So I literally installed the Java & tried going in again & it told me - again - that I didn't have the latest Java installed.

PS - I cleared cache etc multiple times.

What's the problem?

Ok, as long as I'm complaining. WHY if I'm on chat can I not access FT at the same time? If I do, I get knocked off. The only other way to access FT at the same time is to go in via IE in a dif browser. The irony btw is not lost on me that I can access FT via IE but not Chat. Cheers.

Is Chat to being not working again? It hasn't worked since friday night, any other regulars having trouble?

The problem is that the chat room opens in an applet. That applet is dependent on the browser window staying open. As soon as that browser window changed to a different page, it disconnects you. You can, however, navigate the forum in a different window or a different tab. This is not a recent developement; the chat function always worked this way.

There have been no changes that should have affected chat.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

Now riddle me this - why cannot I not access chat if I'm just going in via plain IE browser? It tells me I have to have latest Java installed, I install it, try to acess chat & get the same message. The only way I can access chat is if I go in through the AOL IE browser.

Cheers.

Java is an application that's built by Sun Microsystems. IE is an application that is built my Microsoft. In order for these two applications to work together, special components are built. Now, if we consider minor releases, let's say that there are 10 versions of Java in the last year. Let's say that there are also 10 versions of IE in a year. Are we expected to believe that they make 100 versions of the components that allow these two applications to work together? Chances are that they don't. They pretty much assume that each version is going to work flawlessly with the other ones. They do some testing, but there are always going to be some combinations that just plum don't work right together.

Yes, but one might assume that plain IE & plain Java would work together

Cheers.