Well spotted flopsymopsy.

Ssabreman, you're welcome. Have you on radar now.

Our team has player zombipi, an ex-pat living in Thailand, that posted this question on our message board. I hope someone can help because I am clueless.

"I just got a new laptop computer. When I try to do a Funtrivia Crossword, I get that little icon that indicates that I need a plug-in to play it. The problem is, that I don't know which plug-in that I need and there is no instruction or link on the crossword page that I can find. It's very frustrating when a Crossword comes up the the Daily Challenges list. Anyone got any ideas?"

Any help appreciated.
Greg

They need to install Flash Player. Usually, if they click the plug-in area, it will take them to the one they need.

Mtnguy, I messaged them and let them know what to do.

I'm using my Dell laptop on W 8.1. I get continually frustrated by the way my settings change with each update.

Having done a lot of work with Excel, I have never (till now) experienced difficulty sending spreadsheets as attachments to my Outlook messages. I sent one successfully last night, then within an hour could not send a different spreadsheet to someone else. Kept going back to the original spreadsheet and checking it was in enable editing mode (that annoys me too, never used to get that prompt before) and I was sending the .xlxs version.

When I click on the spreadsheet after making it an attachment in Outlook, I find it's in Excel but a blank screen - no file, not even a blank grid.

The only way I was eventually able to send it was to copy and paste to the message - of course it was no longer an Excel file with any functionality.

Does anyone know what settings to look at? I used to be able to send direct from Excel (share as email) but now it doesn't take me to Outlook - instead it tries to make me set up an account in a different email program.

Have you updated your Outlook/Excel software as well as the operating system? I know that some older versions of Outlook (and Office) are no longer being supported but I'm not sure which versions you have. Which mail program is it trying to use? I googled for "windows 8.1 can't mail spreadsheets" and got references to various problems/solutions but I think this is something which is hard to advise on without being able to replicate the problem.

Thanks Flopsy. It is the Op system that came with the computer (a couple of years old) and I purchased the Office suite shortly after that. As I say, it was working perfectly till an hour before.

Oh, I understand you - I think - you're suggesting that the Windows update may have left the Office programs behind? I don't know how I'd fix that, short of going back to MS and buying another suite of software.

Is there anyone out there using Linux, and is it working well with FT? (she asked in frustration).

I've personally not used Linux with FT (I use it only as a server OS), but there's no reason it shouldn't work just as well as Windows as long as you get Firefox and Flash.

You can set up your Linux as dual boot - I strongly recommend doing that if you want to configure a laptop. Some older laptop models have problems with Linux because some device drivers are missing or buggy. Dual-booting will also help you in the transition period: You can always temporarily come back to Windows if you need something done NOW and don't have the time to figure out how to do it in Linux.

Before you rip Windows out, I'd suggest checking that you've set Windows Update to give you "updates for other Microsoft products" when you update Windows. That setting should be under Advanced options - just make sure it's ticked. This might just be something that has got out of whack when a Windows update missed out on a necessary change to Excel so I'd keep an eye on Update to make sure things are installed as soon as they're issued instead of waiting for the scheduled time.

Is there any reason why you didn't switch to Win 10? It's much better than 8.1 and seems quite stable to me. (*Touches wood, bows to mickeysoft gods, and wards off jinxes.*)

Just wondering, is the spreadsheet being attached to Outlook via the 'File > Share > Email' option from within Excel? If so, you could just try another way. Save the file to the Desktop, open Outlook and then attach it. Well, you never know your luck.



Google Chrome should be OK as well because it incorporates Flash Player. I've read that Google plans to stop support for Flash. I've also read the same about Firefox but both Chrome and Firefox are still letting Flash presentations work here at present on Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18. This being tested on a crossword puzzle. Perhaps the end is in sight for Flash in general, although true to say this has been said for a few years now.

Yes, TW, I tried both ways; both 'share - email' and opening Outlook and attaching. Result was the same. It has taken several days with occasional tries, but eventually it fixed itself. (About 4 days later).

I will go in and reset the update option as Flopsy suggests.

And thanks, Wesley, I have a friend who switched to Linux a year ago and is really pleased with it. The 'dual boot' idea hadn't occurred to me - I often test new software that way, but I had no idea you could rig up a laptop with 2 OS's. Do you have to create a partition in the drive?

I experienced some file sharing issues after a Windows update. What I found was that the file extension had reset to an extension that didn't play well with some of my programs. I especially remember for image files to having to set the default option to jpeg (rather than bitmap). Resetting was easy: just switch it once and it stuck.

So, before messing with program files, i'd check that you were saving the spreadsheets to the extension of old. If you can call up old spreadsheets, note their extension. If old spreadsheets are uploading to the excel program, you may just be storing the new ones in a place you're not looking at.

No, it's not the extensions, I too have been caught by that in past years. I can open it in the place I saved it and it's all okay, place it in an Outlook mail by either of the 2 methods I know, and I get a blank page when I open it. .xlxs is the extension I use, so it can be opened when it is received.

Every now and then it works okay, but most of the time not. I have checked very carefully to see if there is any difference in the saved spreadsheet (between the working and non-working one)but can't see any.

This isn't really a problem, but I'm curious and wondered if one of you tech experts could explain it. When I go to the global stats page in the Global Challenge, I get a pop up box asking if I would like to translate the page. This always puzzles me, as the text is obviously in English although there are quite a few numbers. I use Chrome, if this is relevant.

http://www.funtrivia.com/minigame/globstats.cfm

There's no pop-up on this stats page (using Chrome). It might be something in your add-ons and/or your pc.

I get the same message as Rossian. Chrome seems to think the page is in Danish.

Yes, Danish on mine, too. It's not a big deal but it just intrigued me.

Edit to add that I've disabled the auto translate add on in settings, which has stopped the pop up. It still doesn't explain why Chrome thinks the page is in Danish, although I suppose all the various user names listed there don't look particularly English if you're a machine.

I've had that appear on other FT pages from time to time. Instead of ignoring it, which I usually do, I've just accepted Chrome's offer to translate and it has made a mess of the columns, starting about half way down with user No 18 or 19. It happens in both tables and across all three columns. It also appears on the final rankings pages for several of the most recent GCs.

I've had a quick look at the source code for the page but can't see anything in the HTML except for a reference to "ai=" - but in a few places the coding has an error and where two angled brackets should appear there's only one and the code starts "i=". If those tables were coded in Illustrator first and transferred to the CSS, there might have been cut and paste error.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it, just do what Rossian has done and disable it or just ignore it, it's not doing any harm.

Can anyone help me with why FT has recently started to stall when changing screens, switching between games, or on pressing 'Submit'? This has been an occasional problem in the past, and I gather most players have experienced it, but over the past 3 days it is a constant problem with every screen change. Playing Duel and Global have become a nightmare.

I have checked my internet speed and it is reasonable, have run malware scans and general scans, cleared a number of suspect cookies, all to no avail.

I'd appreciate some ideas on how to proceed (you'll lose me if it's too technical :-))

It could be that there's a problem with a webserver in the network between you and FT, in which case there's not much you can do about it except wait for the (various) ISPs en route to identify the problem and fix it. It's not unknown for the dreaded cache problem to affect a webserver (which is only a posh word for a computer that hosts/transmits website information) in which case the chances that some techie will get off his chair to physically reboot a machine in a warehouse full of them are slim to non-existent - we poor customers have to sit tight and wait. Unless you fancy coping with the derision you might get if you rang your ISP to say "I'm trying to connect to a trivia website..."

Alternatively, you could raise this in the Feedback section (with the others) because the only way that Terry will see there might be a problem is to write something there. But while most people don't have a problem, the chances are that he'll say any glitches are happening elsewhere.

Thanks, Flopsy. Your suggestion seems the most likely one, as I am having no difficulty with other websites. Have just logged in with my first cuppa, and nearly gave up with the time it took for this page to open.

There could also be issues with embedded languages. I was yhaving slow loads to. Widely used software apps take a few days if not a wekk to get updates spread around the world into the various browsers and OSs. My speeds improved, but are still slow (because of my ISP route through a dial-up connection ... What connection type do you use?), The upgrade I r4eceived has to do with animations (I thinkl). It was a new Adobe AIR(?) So make wure you kepp apps at a current version.

edit: And there is the technology used by your ISP to service your node in the network. You may br in a ring loop of accounts that has one node that is a data/time hog. You may have been moved into their loop or them into yours. Your ISP may be servicing a corporate account which they know is a burden on its neighbors and so gets moved on occasion from loop to loop. Nothing you can do in this situation other than find a new ISP. Or, back out of your connection and come back in hoping to be shunted into a new loop.

Thanks for that, mehaul. I'm getting desperate. Back in January I was moved from ADSL2 to the National Broadband Network. Since then my data use profile has developed huge spikes - days with something like 20 - 50 times my normal use, with no change to my own laptop activity. I haven't downloaded a movie for over a year, and rarely stream stuff.

This problem has only started in the past few days. I have just gone into my Firefox account and once again put in the FT site address as an exception to stopping pop-ups. It hasn't helped. What would you suggest for browser settings?

I'm off to check that my Adobe Air is up to date; for some reason my AVG security has been stopping a lot of stuff happening since it upgraded last time. However, I have tried the FT site with AVG disabled, and it hasn't helped. So I'm inclined to think that Flopsy and you might be on the right track when you say it's external and I should be looking to the ISP.

I have a subscription with Telstra Platinum (advanced help with my ISP), and after a gruelling couple of sessions, he has told me (unofficially) that it's either the Telstra modem software (I tried two different models, both new) or a problem with Telstra itself. He also said that Telstra will categorically deny this, so I should put up with it or give up on FT. I'm going back to Telstra, and if they won't /can't help, it will be the Ombudsman to see if I can get my subscription cancelled, and find another provider.