Puzzle Not Loading?

Are you having problems loading the puzzle into your browser? Can you see the puzzles on your 'Daily Puzzles' list, but then not load them up? Are you getting one of these problems?

If so, here are a couple of things you can try:

Internet Explorer 8

During 2009 Microsoft started automatically updating users' copies of Internet Explorer to version 8. This version, while at least more secure, has caused many sites to break - including Indigo Puzzles.

Fortunately all is not lost! Internet Explorer 8 has a 'compatibility' mode which allows it to view pages as if it were still IE7.

To activate compatibility mode: There should be a green button to the right of the address bar (where you type in the web address). If you click this, the page should refresh and this time will be treated as an IE7 page.

If you can't see the button, go to the 'Tools' menu, pick 'compatibility settings' and Add the indigopuzzles site.

Internet Explorer 7 and Google Toolbar

Another problem users are seeing is down to the combination of Internet Explorer 7 and Google Toolbar. It's hard to know exactly why this should be a problem, but it is. If you have IE7 and are seeing a blank page, then try this:

Javascript

The Indigo Puzzles site uses javascript to drive the Assistant, and you must have Javascript enabled in order to use the site.

Different browsers have different ways to enabled/disable Javascript, but it's almost always on by default so if you don't know, you probably have it enabled.

Java?

The Assistant does not use Java, so don't worry about it. Some users have asked if this is important but it's a red herring - Java and Javascript are really not the same thing at all.

The Cookie Problem

This is a problem that a few users have reported; the site works fine and then suddenly doesn't! Although we've been unable to repeat it ourselves, a couple of eagle-eyed users spotted that it's related to the cookies that Indigo Puzzles uses.

Cookies are small pieces of information held on your browser to help the site keep track of what's going on. Each time you click a link to the site, your browser sends this information. The Assistant uses cookies for two reasons: to check that you're logged in so you can access your puzzles, and to store the state of the puzzles you are working on.

Each game you open results in a cookie with the values. In this way, even if you forget to save (or your browser crashes, or your login times out, or whatever) there's still a good chance you haven't lost your work. Unfortunately since the site never knows when you might come back to a puzzle, it doesn't clear them out until you completely restart the browser, and users don't do that very often these days. So after a while... you can have hundreds of these cookies!

If this is what's causing the problem then you can fix it with one click, here:

Delete Game Cookies

This should delete all the Game cookies from your browser (after you've deleted them, try clicking again to check).

You should now be able to go back to the Assistant (you may need to refresh the page) and everything should be ok.

Something Else

If that didn't work, you may need to get in touch. There are some things to check: