You aren't alone. Many of us have had troubles running the streaming videos in the past. Here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to fix the problems easily and instantly by yourself so you don't have to wait for tech support to respond to your e-mail.

The 3 most common feed (streaming videos) problems are:

1) The AOL Browser

PROBLEM: AOL sometimes has to place its members behind a proxy server in order to accommodate such a large client volume. Since it's the largest Internet Service Provider, their volume of people dialing up at the same time is incredible. So they'll pass you off to a proxy server to handle the demand. The proxy server will prevent you from seeing certain streaming videos because the videos cannot determine that you are in fact coming where you say that you are, and they'll block you from viewing.

SOLUTION: Fortunately, the solution to this problem is very easy. Just use a different browser! Since we can't control where AOL decides to place you during your online session, work around it by using Internet Explorer (recommended) or Netscape. You can recognize Internet Explorer by the little blue 'e' in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. Dial up to AOL as normal and once you are connected, then click on the 'e' to start Explorer.

2) Internet Explorer 6

PROBLEM: It's telling you that you have a problem with cookies or you're getting an "access denied"? Well, don't worry. This has happened to the best of us. With its new version of Internet Explorer version 6 (which comes automatically with WindowsXP) Microsoft has added a new "privacy" setting to your browser. They didn't have this setting in their previous version of Internet Explorer 5, so IE6 users will have some difficulty running certain video streams.

SOLUTION: Just start your browser and go into:

A. Tools from the top menu:

B. When the drop down box from "tools" opens, select "internet options" and then choose the "privacy" tab. The default is set to "medium":

C. Turn it to "low". In rare instances, some people might have to turn it all the way down to "accept all cookies". This isn't a security risk on your computer, this is just a privacy issue.

Can websites find out my name and address from low privacy settings? No, absolutely not. There is no way to find out someone's name, home address or email address from a web browser. The only thing the lower setting is doing is placing a "cookie" on your computer. A cookie isn't a virus and in most cases it's just websites looking to gather information for their own statistics.

What kind of information? Your web browser version and your Internet Service Provider mostly. Nothing confidential or insecure. They can't get your credit card information or anything of that nature this way. Besides, you can always reset the privacy settings later after you leave our sites. We don't gather statistical information, we just track people as they come in to prevent hack attempts. It's sort of like you need a ticket to get admittance to the show.

3) Firewalls or Proxy Servers:

PROBLEM: Most of the time your problem will be firewalls. Proxy servers don't exist in peoples' homes unless you set them up yourself or you are using the AOL browser as mentioned above. However large corporations will use proxy servers frequently so if you are trying to watch the feeds from work and you can't get them to come up: 1.) Shame on you, get to work! 2.) You are probably behind a proxy server and there's nothing we can do.

Firewalls are another story. A lot of people (especially Broadband users) are using personal firewalls when they are connected to the Internet because with fast Internet connections, you are continuously logged into the Internet. There is no dial up like with a modem. This causes more potential for hackers to access your computer because you have to be connected to the Internet for them to get in. By all means we want you to use your Firewalls, but be aware that they sometimes will restrict you from watching certain streaming videos.

SOLUTION: Well, this is a tough one. If you're an experienced computer user, we suggest you set a rule in your firewall to allow the stream to connect to your computer. If you don't know how to do that, the only other way around it is to temporarily turn off your firewall while you watch the streaming videos. Then you can always turn it back on when you're finished watching. If you seem to have a firewall problem all over the Internet and not just at our site, we'd recommend getting a hardware firewall instead of using firewall software. The most common home hardware firewall is a router. This protects your computer because the router connects to the Cable/DSL modem and your computer connects to the router. So it puts itself in harm's way of the hackers and they cannot get to your computer. Also with this option instead of software, you don't have to continuously set rules about which connections to accept and which connections to deny.

Other Feed Issues:

Other current known issues with some of our feeds are people using a program called "Download Accelerator". This program is integrated into your browser to help you download files faster. This program is really meant for you down download actual files faster, not streaming video which won't be saved on your hard drive. So what you need to do in this case is go into the options for Download Accelerator and edit the file types in which it automatically downloads so that you remove all streaming file extensions such as .WMV .MOV and .ASF This will fix your problem with Download Accelerator.

One more common feed issue is people trying to access the feeds at high traffic volume periods. Just like a traffic jam, the streaming video servers can get bogged down and will make the videos seems slow or sometimes won't connect at all. This doesn't happen that often because we have enough bandwidth to accommodate all of our users but when you all try to log in at once it can get pretty bogged down!

We've tried to address them all here, but some of the time the feeds are simply down. Like everything mechanical, these can break sometimes too. Just report it to us and we'll get it fixed promptly. Or if you have any other questions or problems that aren't addressed here, please feel free to contact our tech support.