Important progress with RYL chat tech issues

[Tears and Rain]

Thankyou :]
No problems.
Just thanx for all the work you've done/put into it x

[mustang69]

James, After your fix, chat stopped working for me. I'm on Windows XP Pro and my anti-virus is Norton. We also have a firewall at our wireless network.

I understand the whole port thingy, just not sure where to look so when my son gets home from tech today (he's study to be a sys admin and game programmer) I'll have him take a look. I'll let you know what we come up with.

[mustang69]

James,

Jonathan is home and he can't find anything on our part. I'll check my temp internet files and see what's up there.

[mustang69]

Follow up and then I'll quit the spamming, I promise. I changed my browser from IE to Firefox and now I CAN get into chat. Does that help?

Thanks James!

Kath--

[Queer Fringe]

yay!

[James]

Hi Kath,

Thanks very much for all of your feedback and sorry it's taken me a little while to post back here.

Very glad to hear that you have now got things working with Firefox. The fact that you have rules out any fundamental issue with your broadband and probably also your antivirus software. This leaves the following options, specific to IE:

- Browser helper object / COM add-on / toolbar
- IE specific proxy settings or similar
- Flash configuration within IE

Jonathan may also be prepared to use the 'Reset' command under the Advanced tab in the internet control panel to restore IE to 'factory settings' - this might help, but bear in mind you will lose *all* customisations, 3rd party toolbars, cookies and other internet files.

He may also be able to adjust your firewall to allow traffic to and from 83.223.115.12 on port 443 (UDP/TCP) in both directions to your computer (on your private LAN address). This might improve things though, as I say, I don't expect the firewall to be your issue.

Sorry you're still having difficulties. There are sadly just so many possible system configurations out there we cannot possibly provide specific support steps for all of them!

[luvmy66pny]

chat doesn't work for me.. i need itbad.

just a blue screen with white box at bottom...

[James]

Sarah, I'm afraid I'm going to need more information from you than that if I am able to help you. Please read through this thread and let me know whether you have tried the special chat link posted and also verified your Adobe Flash installation. Also, I'll need to know the following:

- Version of Windows you run
- Your antivirus/security software
- Which web browser you are using (and any others you have tested with chat)

Many thanks :)

[mustang69]

James, the fact I need to use chat in a different browser doesn't bother me. It is strange that it worked immediately after the fix and stopped working a few days later.

I'm up and running and that is what is important.

Thanks again for your time,

Kath--

[luvmy66pny]

i have tried the special link for chat and i got the failure.
windows xp is what i run on
spysweeper, and norton
and i use internet explorer

hope that helps?


thank you.

[Auburn Shadow]

Heya James,

Thanks for offering to try and help me get into chat. Unfortunately since this new update I still can't access chat, but I've tried on several different computers within university halls and can't access chat on any of them, so I've come to the conclusion that the problem's at my end with the restrictions on my network and so I'll have to accept that I won't be able to access chat while at uni.

Thanks anyway though. It's really amazing that you're putting this much work into trying to ensure as many people as possible are able to access chat.

Hana
xxx

[James]

Hi Hana,

Really sorry to hear it's not working for you - I suspect you're right and the university network firewall is indeed preventing you from accessing chat.

Thanks for the nice things you said about my helping members. Unfortunately, there's only a limited amount I can do to help members who can't access chat, simply due to the way the chat system works...

Using the old port 80 for chat was good on the one hand because it's a completely standard port, minimising the likelihood of firewall issues such as yours. Port 80 though tends to fall foul of shoddy/picky antivirus software and this is a deal breaker for huge numbers of members.

The new 443 port setting is more compatible and still a relatively standard port so has a good chance of working with *most* firewalls. More sophisticated firewalls (such as those used by large companies and universities) will analyse the content of traffic passed even on standard ports such as 443. Since 443 is usually used for HTTPS and our chat traffic does not conform to this, things can break - this is what is almost certainly causing your difficulties Hana.

That leaves the option of moving chat to a completely arbitrary port number but that is likely to cause more problems than it solves since firewalls will not allow inbound traffic on non-standard ports - the developer of the chat software is certainly keen that we use only 'standard' ports for maximum compatibility - so back to square one!

So, we're doomed if we do and doomed if we don't I think!! :-S

[Porcelain Child]

my chat was working till today and now it wont work what do i do?

[James]

That's extremely odd - is there anything at all you have changed on your computer? In what way does chat fail for you? (blue screen etc.)

Try clearing your temporary internet files, and also restarting your computer if you haven't already. If none of that works, you could try with Apple's Safari web browser, available from here:

www.apple.com/safari

Let me know how it goes, and best of luck :)

[Porcelain Child]

i havent changed anything on my computer it was working fine last night cos i was on it early hours this morning, umm i have restarted the computer many times, my internet connction is strong i can get on the ryl homepage and forums and games and the chat but when i click on enter chat it says internet explorer can not display the page

[James]

Are you able to see the link that Internet Explorer is trying to use to load the page? It should begin http://chat.recoveryourlife.com:443/etc. etc.

If you go to http://chat.recoveryourlife.com:443 and enter a random username, and try to enter chat, what error message is displayed?

You did not mention whether or not you have cleared your temporary internet files.

[luvmy66pny]

james- any idea on what i can do?

[Per Ardua ad Astra]

I dunno if this is the right place to post this I am guessing it is.

Everytime I'm in chat and go into forums, chat disconnects me and when i click a link in forums it disconnects me everytime.

[effervescence]

James - you sound wonderful and intelligent - help!!

I have windows vista, internet explorer, i have the flas player thing, i loaded java the other day cos thought that would help, and i dnt have a firewall cos the one that comes with vista refuses to stay on (weirdly) and chat still wont load! i followed the link u posted on here and i got "connect failed". Help please?!

[effervescence]

p.s. I read another thread u posted about chat and i don't have Avast.