Troubleshooting
Use this page as your first port of call for troubleshooting. If you have no success, please email me as given on the contacts page.
Troubleshooting is split into the following areas:
- General Issues
- Problems with menus
- Problems with gold membership
- Problems with the move database
- Other problems
- Browser compatibility
General Issues
| Problem | Solution |
| I have changed my computer | Your gold member passkey and activation word were stored in your cookies on your last computer so these have been lost. If you have your original registration email with your passkey or the activation email, just click on the hyperlink in that email. You may be asked to request a new activation email as your computer build may be different. Alternatively, just go to Gold at the top menu and enter the information manually (assuming you printed out the email as requested!). If you have lost all records, then email me and hope I have not lost them too! If you have also changed your email, then please email me for a new passkey. |
Problems with Menus
| Problem | Solution |
| Menus at the top of the screen disappear on resizing the window | This is usually a problem with IE6. I have improved things by automatically refreshing the screen. If this does not work, try altering the size once more and the refresh may work again. |
| Menus at the top of the screen go blue and are hardly readable on resizing the window | This is a Netscape v4 problem. Don't resize the screen! Even better - upgrade to v6. |
Problems with Gold Membership
| Gold membership seems to have disappeared | You have deleted your cookies which store the information. Go to your last activation email and click the hyperlink or enter the information in manually via Manual Login under Gold. |
| Your passkey is rejected | This usually only occurs when you do not use the correct email address. The correct one is the one quoted on any registration emails, even if you normally use another email address on the particular computer or it has changed. If it has changed then please let me know and I will issue a new passkey. |
| You paid with PayPal or NoChex and have received no email | If you have received no confirmation from PayPal or NoChex, then they
may have an old email of yours. You will have to amend their records.
Let me know and I will send you a passkey manually as I also get
confirmation. Your spam filter may be filtering out the activation email for some obscure reason. Check your spam folder. Some ISPs (eg btopenworld) have an online spam folder which can only be accessed via web mail, even if you use Outlook Express as your mail client. Go online and check this, switch it off or make jiveoholic.org.uk a safe site. If you have had confirmation, please let me know as their maybe a cyber-jam (some server en-route not working). I will send you a passkey manually. |
| Your computer reports that it needs reactivating but was working the other day | Your system has changed, probably an operating system, browser or screen resolution change. Simply request a new one. This must be done from the computer you wish to use it on. See comments on using a lap top below. |
| The system confirms activation but then complains about it when you go to the home page | Some versions of Firefox seems to often have cookie problems. Ensure you are using the latest version. Deleting the cookies for the site using Firefox options has worked for one person. |
| You computer reports that it needs reactivation each time you connect your laptop to a decent monitor | You need to request a new activation email when in the docked configuration. In the same configuration click on the hyperlink or enter it in manually. Not only will this fix the problem but the old activation word will be remembered for when you operate your lap top in isolation. |
| You have reformatted and reloaded your computer and seem no longer to be a gold member | Your gold member passkey and activation word are stored in your cookies and these will have been lost. If you have your original registration email with your passkey or the activation email, just click on the hyperlink in that email. You may be asked to request a new activation email as your computer build may be different. Alternatively, just go to Manual Login under Gold at the top menu and enter the information manually (assuming you printed out the email as requested!). If you have lost all records, then email me and hope I have not lost them too! |
| Your computer reports that it needs to be activated | Seems to occur occasionally, especially after using videos. May be a browser bug (IE6) - please just request another word or click on the last activation email you received. |
| A requested activation email does not arrive after a considerable time | 1. There may be a cyberjam somewhere. Try requesting
another one first. Usually they arrive within 2 minutes, if you are still
waiting after an hour, see below. 2. Your spam filter is filtering out the activation email for some obscure reason. Check your spam folder. Some ISPs (eg btopenworld) have an online spam folder which can only be accessed via web mail, even if you use Outlook Express as your mail client. Go online and check this or switch it off or make jiveoholic.org.uk a safe site.. 3. You have changed your email address. It is always sent to your registered email address. Just let me know what your new email is and I will adjust my records and send you a new passkey. 4. You are an AOL customer. AOL are very fussy about quite where emails come from. Send me an email and I will send you your activation email via an alternative route. 5. You are unable to receive emails because your domain name ISP has gone down, your account has expired or your web mail inbox is full. Send a test email to yourself. If this works, please let me know about your problem. |
| The system keeps sending information (eg activation emails, animation emails) to your old email address | Let me know your new email address and I will send you a new passkey that will work with it. |
| You request an activation email and it does not work even though you are trying it on the same browser of the same computer you requested it from | If you are using BTs own BT Openworld browser, then problems have been reported. It is recommended that you do not use this browser as it is slow, limited in functionality and interferes with most computers in an unreasonable way. Please email me and I will try to send you an activation word that should work. |
| Each time you enter your registration detail, it says that they are fine, but then promptly forgets the information | Please check that your clock is not set to a future year. |
Problems with the Move Database
| When in the Move database the Text Gallery and Animation buttons are not visible or hardly visible | This occurs with Windows 98 and large fonts. The text is too big to fit on the un-scrollable upper control window. Go to settings and experiment increasing the default value. Those using the Opera browser will have similar difficulties. |
| When in the Move database and the window is resized, the move information disappears. | This is a Netscape v4 problem. Don't resize the screen! Even better - upgrade to v6. |
| You get some garbled meaningless error message when you try to go to a new move description, animation or gallery. | I am uploading a new move to the database. Just try again in a minute or so. |
| The database is not accessible when offline | This depends on "caching" of pages. This is not compatible with databases and has been switched off, except when you use the "send email" facility. Selecting "make available offline" when you put the site in your favourites works for normal pages and the animation by email, but not the move database. |
| When an animation is being loaded, it keeps saying "loading", maybe showing 10/14 etc | This normally means that only 10 of the 14 pictures have been loaded and there is some difficulty loading four of them. Netscape 6 seems to have a problem counting and if you click play then they are actually all loaded. If they are not you can still click play but you may get some blank frames. |
| When the animation tab is pressed when there are lots of moves selected, which tab is selected is confusing due to some bug | If you are using Netscape 6.2. Upgrade to Netscape 7. |
| Whilst the galleries work, the animation text seems to change on cue, but not the illustrations or sound of a "click", however they do seem to change at the end. | Your cache memory is full so each illustration is taking seconds to be downloaded each time. Delete your explorer files. In version 6, you go to "tools", "internet options" then click "delete files", check the box "delete all off-line content" and then "ok". |
Other Problems
| The site is unavailable or unacceptably slow | When a fatal server error occurs, the server normally resets within a couple of minutes, certainly less than 10. A slow site can be due to a server problem Always feel free to go to the mirror site at www.jiveoholic2.org.uk. I pay for you to use it! However you will have to have entered your gold membership information into it previously, or you must enter it manually via Manual Login under Gold at the top menu. |
| When you select File and Print or the browser print button you get the wrong part of the page printed | Precede the operation by first clicking the mouse once in the frame you wish to have printed. Even better use the print button supplied on the Jiveoholic site. |
| Sometimes illustrations or any graphics are replaced by a box usually containing a small x | Sometimes this can be because the illustration is lost in cyberspace somewhere and reloading the page can help (In IE refresh or F5 makes you go back to the main page again. It is better to right click the page you want refreshed and then select 'refresh'). If this repeats, please tell me as it could be that an illustration has been deleted by mistake. |
| My browser keeps asking me if I wish to view ActiveX controls | This is a security message. Modern browsers detect code that has the potential to do harm, but unfortunately modern web sites use such code to test which video players you have and to run videos. Please click where it says and permit the use of such controls for this site only. If this does not work, you may have your general security settings set too high. "normal" security should be adequate. |
| When running an animation, the clicks appear out of synchronisation when using the Vista operating system | 1. Go to control panel > sound
> speaker > Properties. 2. Then under enhancements. 3. Select "Disable all enhancements". 4. Enjoy all your music without lag or delay!! |
Browser compatibility and resolution
This site is designed so the essential elements fit for an 800x600 resolution. 640x480 (VGA) has been catered for by reducing the size of the animations, however other pages will need a lot of scrolling, which in Explorer, can be improved by clicking "view" then "text size" in your browser and select a smaller size. For Netscape, try clicking "view" then "decrease font" a few times.
This site is designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer v 4 onwards, works well with Netscape v6 onwards, and recent versions of Firefox and Opera .
There is an IE6 bug which affects the menus when the window size is adjusted. This has been dealt with by re-writing the window each time you adjust the screen. This may not always work perfectly, but there should be few problems.
Netscape Navigator v 4 is not supported - may work if you are lucky.
