Unable to connect to live chess

I can browse most of the the chess.com site but when I click on the "PLAY LIVE CHESS!" button on the 'http://www.chess.com/livechess/myhome' page firefox v17.0.1 fails to reporst a timeout. I get the same when I tried IE but was able to connect using Opera but the connection was too slow to play.

This started sometime in the last week or so: previously no problems.

Any Ideas?

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http://blog.chess.com/NimzoRoy/diagnosing-and-fixing-internet-problems

Thanks NimzoRoy

Unfortunately I have tried most of the things on your blog - the problem is not limited to either the platform - it failed also on my tablet running 'Boat' browser and on my laptop running an older version of firefox than on my PC and which hadn't been switched on since the problem started. This does suggest that the problem must be with either the connection to the net or my ISP. What puzzles me is that it works with one browser which means that it is not a simple block by a misconfigured firewall, or the black listing of a website or service by the ISP.

About to change ISP so by the weekend I may have more info!

Try using Google Chrome browser if you haven't already. And make sure to turn off all extensions and add-ons in the non-working browsers if you haven't already done so and try again. If that works turn 'em back on one at a time until you find the culprit.

I'm not an expert here but I don't see how the ISP matters if at least one browser works. Pls do tell if changing the ISP helps or not.

Just checked on my tablet - both using the chess.com app and via chrome and boat browsers and was unable to connect. Very bizarre that the app does not work either. Strongly suggests that it is not anything todo with how any one browser is setup, rather something common to all by platforms. Well should be replacing the modem router when I connect to the new ISP on Friday. Trouble is I can not see how it can be the fault of the router(s).

Have you contacted the staff? In this case I would. I seem to recall reading about problems with some chess.com apps but I never use any nor do I use a tablet so maybe your problem is app and/or tablet related? Can you get online using something else (someone's PC or MAC) to see what happens?

BTW modem and router related problems can sometimes be corrected by just rebooting them (turn 'em off for 3 minutes and back on) and rebooting your tablet can't hurt what OS are you using?

i have tried a number of different platforms&browsers on my home network and all are showing the same problem - my lap top, the tablet and my main PC. The tablet is a Samsung running some version of Android. So the problem is not even specific to a particular op. system.

I have worked out why Opera works - it has a 'turbo' mode for slow connections and if this is NOT ENABLED it also times out when I click 'Live Chess'. It does not time out if it is enabled.

The turbo mode works by using Opera servers as proxies which compress the page data to reduce the volume of data being sent and hence reduce the time taken to process.

This points perhaps to a problem with bandwidth perhaps or similar on my line. May need to do a line test I guess. Alternatively it might be some sort of malware on one of the PCs connected to the network transmitting large volumes of data. Will switch everything off bar the tablet and re-test!

Will keep you posted.

Mike

Sorted!

Switching off everything except the tablet didn't help. So I discounted the malware theory (but will be subjecting my PCs to a scan anyway) and had a look at the modem/router and found that its firewall had been swithed OFF and that there were more IP addresses listed (both local and I think external starting 10.xxx) than I expected and so after restarting the firewall I powered off the router/modem and left it for a while before restarting it. This solved my problem.

I didn't check the speed prior to doing this - I should have done - but checked it afterwards and download was 3mbytes: not great but it works. Should be able to get double that based on what others achieve locally accorfing to the test site I used but that is a seperate problem!

Thanks for your help!

Trouble is I am back on line and loosing againing! :-(