For quite some time now I’ve been unable to get one of my favourite chat rooms to load in Firefox. The strange thing is, this all works perfectly in Windows.
The company who develops the chat software provided me with the following link to a demo chat room, to test the software and help them to find out what’s causing the problem. So far, nothing I’ve tried seems to work.
This Java applet is loading fine for me. They say that no password needed so I typed something and clicked to the ENTER button. The applet is working and the progress bar stops at the Logging in status (maybe because there is no real authentication).
Can you reach this state?
Have you installed the java browser plugin for firefox?
If not then type this in Konsole ( gnome-terminal in GNOME, terminal in XFCE):
If you do the zypper part as ram88 has told you then you can just go directly to the part that says to create a symbolic link. Make sure your java is up to date too. It woulnd’t hurt to go through the whole tutorial to make sure everything is installed correctly.
So on Windows you can login in the demo chatroom too?
I can imagine that the firewall is blocking some port what your chat program want to use.
Why don’t you install a Windows to VirtualBox and try to reach the chat from there. If it fails then it’s caused by your firewall. If it’s working then it’s a platform compatibility problem what should be discussed with the chat room developers.
I operate a similar Java-based chat room and have seen this problem before, so I thought I’d check this out on the OpenSUSE side. Virtually the same OpenSUSE configuration as chyrania. I hit the stonewall at “Connected/Logging In” with Firefox and Seamonkey. No such problems in daily use with my existing no-banners commercial-level chat room. So obvious Java and browser configuration issues probably aren’t involved.
Suspecting the Banner Ads, I tested turning off blocking in both browsers completely, to no avail. For comparison, I use my existing vendor’s demo site Java Chat Software - AddonChat Live Demo and jump right into a demo chat room.
I added their free chat to my own website. Access failed in a similar manner using the administrator’s passworded account.
I am doubtful that client-side Java or browser/Firefox issues are the problem. That Windows works, and Linux doesn’t is important. The fact that the chat-forums stuff doesn’t work, but the addonchat does, suggests some Linux-specific configuration issue, maybe on the vendor side.
If you already have an operational chat-forum site with Linux-access, we can try to log in. That would be useful to eliminate their demo room as the problem.
Further testing of OpenSUSE Linux access at ChatShack.net has shown the same roadblock at the point of " Connected: Logging In" to exist in the Gold version and the Full version. So it is some across-the-board issue.
Ubuntu was mentioned as also having problems. Is this a general Linux issue ?
We would have to do extensive testing or invite input from the wider community to find that out if the problem affects other distributions. That said, I can tell you I experienced the same problem when I attempted connection using Ubuntu in a virtual machine.
The chat software developers got back to me today and suggested the following course of action, which hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference. Maybe some else will have better luck:
Hi,
I have been asked to ask you the following questions…
Do you have support for .au files, these are standard format for sound
files in java applets but require local system support for the file type to
function.
Can you load the demo chat room but prior to entering your username can
you select the options tab and check the “disable all sounds”, then enter
the forum.
This sound file format suggestion does not appear to be at all related to the problem. The chat software I use also requires Sun .au audio format and quite happily plays the referenced little file.
There is no ’ Options Tab ’ on the Demo Chat Room login screen, so no way to disable sounds (if desired) prior to login.
This remains an apparent Linux problem, since it appears to work in Windows access mode.