Chat Help?

Can anybody help me? I desperately want to be able to chat with my new friends at DG.

Here's what happens:

I click on the right side of the screen where it says 'chat room open'. It takes me to a new page where the chat room is (I see the graphics for the chat room). The bottom of my screen says applet started, then done. Then nothing happens. I'm able to click in the message area and type script. When I hit enter it disappears.

When I click on the drop down menu for channel it lists main & moms. I can choose either but nothing happens. The buttons to the right 'react' when I click on them but nothing happens.

Sorry to be so long winded but I know it will take info from me to solve the problem.

TIA
Sue

PS Logging on from home with a LAN & firewall

Sue,

Your firewall is most likely stopping you from receiving connections from the chat server.

Does your firewall give logs whenever it denies access to certain ports? If yes, find the range of ports, and instruct your firewall to allow you to enter.

You need to be able to receive via the ports that were shown to be denied in your logs. Let me know what happens!

Dave

Huh?!?!? I am in awe of that lingo. I have no idea what you just said Dave, and I hope I never have to figure it out. LOL I sure hope Sue knows what you said though, as it sounds good enough to fix her problem.
Joan

Thanks for the quick response Dave!

Unfortunately chat is closed for the night :(

DH is running Zone Alarm on the LAN. His last record of a denial is about the same time I was trying to access the chat. He asks if the port the chat tries to access is always the same. Understandably, in these times (and I'm NOT an alarmist, far from it. Just want to be safe on the internet) I don't want to open the firewall up to uneccesary addresses.

Thanks Dave!

PS: I won't be back until Thur night...take your time!

shuttle, I'll get back to you on your question, then, tomorrow. :)

I'll have to find out about the port question (being the same, that is) I'm not sure off the top of my head, although I'm thinking no. We'll see.

Dave

Still Thinking??

Yes :) I actually haven't checked it yet, but I promise I will have this answer to you sometime before the next chat.

Thanks Dave!

shuttlebunny,

I checked and it looks like the ports will be widely scattered. The lowest number will be 1024, and the highest I saw was 63512.

The internet works like that... you send to port 80 (for web, for example) and receive on who-knows-what-port.

This is why firewalls generally allow 1024-65,xxx to be open incoming, and services generally do not run there, in order to allow those ports to remain open.

If you are blocking those ports above 1024, certainly my chatroom is not the only thing that you are unable to do on the net? Are you able to open all ports > 1024 just during chattimes, and close them back after the chat is over?

Let me know!

Dave

Thanks for the info Dave, DH will look into it!

It's a miracle! I didn't change a thing & I got to chat!

Go Figure!