Here to help.

[Keith]

As you can see, thanks to the hard work of Dai, the site is bounding along nicely. Those teething issues that were apparent at the very start are falling away quite quickly and the hard work and investment put into it are definitely paying off, but that doesn't mean there aren't still issues, and even if we are mostly old enough and hardened enough to adjust ourselves to the way things could be, we don't want to put off new friends, or exclude the less tech invested among us.

If you know of anyone (including yourself) who is struggling to get on the site, or who can only log in to chat as a guest. Please post here, and provide us with the following details

Computer Operating System: Windows (7/10/11 etc...) or Linux - (Debian/Ubuntu etc...) or MacOS (Mavericks/Big Sur etc...) or ChromeOS
Browser: Chrome/Firefox/Brave/MS Edge etc...
Problem: Can't log into chat/on to the board etc...

If you don't want to post these details on the forum, no problem. Feel free to PM me on the board.

No promises that I, or anyone else here can fix your problem, but let's see what we can do.

[HenrySwale]

Sorry to say that I can only log into chat a a guest, help would be great thanks.
macOS Mojave
Version 10.14.6

Kind regards, Henry Swale

[Keith]

Hi Henry,

You don't say what browser you are using, but given you use a Mac I'll assume it's Safari. I personally find that to be a really fickle browser and Mojave doesn't support the latest edition of it.

I would suggest you first download and install Mozilla Firefox. It's a really good browser, fully html5 compliant and it's secure and lightweight (compared to Safari).

You can find it here -> https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/n ... ozilla.org

Or, if you prefer not to download things suggested by a balding chap from a spanking site, just use the app store, and search for 'firefox', or use safari to google 'firefox download' and you should get the same thing. Depending on how you get it, it should offer you a .dmg file on your desktop or your downloads folder and if you double click on that, you can 'move' the firefox application into your applications folder to install it.

Once it's installed, go into your applications folder and click on the firefox icon to start the browser. Then follow the below list.

1: Come to the site https://britishspankingchat.com.

2: Select the login button to login to the forum first.

3: Select the chat button to login to the chat. If you are automatically logged in from the forum, you should be logged in on your site login and from here on in, the chat system should have permanently fixed your BSC forum cookie to the chat software and you should be fine until you next clear your cookies.

4: If you are not automatically logged into chat and you get the login screen on the chat box then instead of using 'LOGIN' on the screen, select where it says 'REGISTER' (to the right of 'LOGIN'. This should give you a page to fill in your details and update the site cookie.

5: Fill in the user and password forms using the same login name and password you use for the forum.

6: Click on the 'SUBMIT' button.

7: The BSC cookie should now be linked to both systems and you should be able to login to chat or the forum as you would expect.


If it doesn't work, try clearing your recent history in Firefox, by clicking on the drop down menu of Firefox (top of the screen) and make sure 'cookies' is ticked. Click on OK and then try the process again.

If that doesn't work, let me know in here and I'll move on to stage two.

Mojave is a really old copy of MacOS, but I'm using an older one (Mavericks). I can use the site, but I had to really put in a bit of work to sort it out. There are tricks and tips to get you going comfortably.

[HenrySwale]

generally I use firefox / google, I've tried using googe chrome, no joy, and I've tried using saffari, no joy. I've cleared history, cookies etc which has made no differecnce. I've used macs and pcs at work for over 40 years and thought I'd found my way around them, clearly not !

Initially, on joining teh site worked perfectly but the last 3 days or so has posed a problem

I'll be grateful for any advice you can offer.

Kind regards

HenrySwale

[Keith]

Hi Henry,

I worked in IT for many years, in almost every field, from tech support, to database management, to system and web design, it still takes me a while to figure some things out; it's what makes IT such an interesting field.

I hope you don’t feel I’m being patronizing at all by being so verbose, I really don’t mean to be, but there are others having the same problem, and writing in the clearest language possible is intended to help everyone access the site as easily as possible regardless of their level of technical knowledge, rather than to make any individual user feel like they don’t know what they’re doing.

What changed with the site this week was the Blab!AX chat system. Chat looks the same as it was but it has been upgraded, it's possible that this change has had an effect on your site cookie or your cache (credentials) and one of the two are no longer working as expected, this is why I always suggest something as simple as a new browser and a cookie clear out first; it's the easiest process and honestly, it usually solves the problem.

However:

- If you get the login screen for chat when you enter the room, you need to do the following:

1: Click on the orange key icon to swap from guest login to user login (this button is located directly above the words ‘FORGOTTEN PASSWORD’ on the login screen. Doing this will show you a password field.

2: Use the exact same login name and password details as you do for the forum, this should get you in, and update the cache so that you don’t need to login to chat again as your username.

- If however you do not get the log in screen automatically and instead you login as ‘anonymous’ you will need to do a complete credential reset. To do this...

3: Logout of the forum and the chat.

4: (On Firefox) Go to the Firefox accounts drop down menu (the little person in a circle icon to the right of the URL field).

5: On this drop down menu select Logins and Passwords. This will open a page with your Firefox saved password storage.

6: On the list to your left, select the details for ‘britishspankingchat.com’

7: On the right side, select the eye next to your password to view it and write down your username and password to keep them somewhere safe.

8: Click on the ‘REMOVE’ button above your login details, if a warning box pops up, saying this action cannot be undone’, accept it and click on the popups little red ‘Remove’ button.

9: Go to the ‘History’ pull down menu at the top of your screen. Select ‘Clear Recent History’

10: In the popup that appears, make sure that the time range to clear is set to ‘Today’ and all of the following boxes have been ticked

- Browsing & Download History
- Active Logins
- Form & Search History
- Cookies
- Cache
- Data
- Offline Website Data

11: Click ‘OK’ on the popup box when all of these are ticked.

12: Log in to the forum again, and re-enter your password details. When the pop up box appears to ask if you want to save these details. Select the Save button.

13: When you are logged into the forum, click on the chat button and you should either get the login page, or go directly into chat with your proper name.

If you get the former, go back to the start of this list, and do points 1 and 2 to login under your username.


If neither of these options work, I’ll try something else. Let me know how you get on.

[Cally_]

I experienced problems logging out of chat and eventually asked to be kicked out. I also seemed to have double logged on as anonymous as well as Cally_ and was posting as anonymous for a time. I found the whole thing confusing.

[Marker]

I am sure that it will get easier it's just teething troubles

[Cally_]

I am sure that it will get easier it's just teething troubles

Thanks for your advice during my time in chat and also Candice and Keith for trying to help. Going in was just an experiment after reading all the posts about problems entering chat. Pure curiosity on my part. But I don’t think I’m in there now because I received a notification that I’d been “kicked out and gagged.” Before that, there was still an ‘anonymous’ in the room. I don’t THINK that’s me but if it stays there permanently maybe that needs kicking out as well.

[Keith]

Hi Cally,

I'm really sorry you didn't have the best experience of the chat room. It has a lot more bells and whistles than the old site's chat and that can be really confusing to start with (it confused me a bit anyway).

I'm going to write up some documents over the week, like how to do x,y and z to make it easier for everyone.

I only just arrived when you were trying to leave and I'm really sorry I couldn't manage anything to help you quickly enough.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure you weren't the anonymous login, that's not really how chat works, but they were kicked shortly after you, just to make sure that under any set of conditions you didn't have a lingering connection to chat.

[Cally_]

Hi Cally,

I'm really sorry you didn't have the best experience of the chat room. It has a lot more bells and whistles than the old site's chat and that can be really confusing to start with (it confused me a bit anyway).

I'm going to write up some documents over the week, like how to do x,y and z to make it easier for everyone.

I only just arrived when you were trying to leave and I'm really sorry I couldn't manage anything to help you quickly enough.

That’s really perfectly okay, thanks. Teething troubles are probably inevitable.