Toontown, IE & Macromedia Flash
 

ok, so my kidlet (10 yr old) likes to play Disney's Toontown Online. Has a subscription that she has been using at Grandma's house. Now that she's here with me for the summer, she wants to play it, of course. I have no problem with that, but my machine does.

The symptoms: I go to Disneys site and click on Toontown. Window opens saying IE cannot start Macromedia Flash 6, click "next" to install. So I click "next" and the new page says "if you can see the OK button below, Flash has been installed successfully. Click OK to begin playing." So I do, and get the same page as before: IE cannot start Flash.

The solutions attempted. The page also suggests checking my activeX controls. I have them set exactly as required. Have tried installing Flash from Macromedia's site. No dice. Have tried uninstalling and reinstalling IE. No dice. Tried using my Mozilla browser. Disney dont like it, says IE is required.

Anyone run into this? Got any solutions?

sys specs:
Win98se, fully updated with all service packs/critical updates.
IE 6 with SP1
ZoneAlarm Pro 2003 firewall
AVG anti-virus
NOD32 anti-virus

Have you tried Flash 7.0?

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/...ShockwaveFlash

yes I have. Flash seems to be installing ok. The trouble seems to be with IE not being able to initialize it.

try reinstalling IE.

have you tried installing the shockwave player too? do you get the same problems?

update:

Flash IS installing correctly. However, for some reason, IE can not initialize it for that site. I've seen some comments on the Macromedia forums that suggest it might have something to do with anti-spy/ad-ware and/or pop-up killer applications. Have tried adjusting these/shutting them down to no avail.

someone please HELP! my kid is getting very impatient.

so flash is working on other sites, just not this particular site?

grabbing at straws here, but have you cleared the cookies for that site?

I'm not seeing anything helpful here either: http://play.toontown.com/knownIssues.php

if its just THAT site, check your internet settings in IE to be sure that it isn't a blocked site, or lower your security settings.

have you tried a browser that is IE-compatible (like avant browser or myIE)?

Something like this happened to me. I forget if I was still using IE or if I had switched to Firefox. Installing Flash (the actual program to make flash files) fixed it. Odd.

If nothing else works, try installing the trial from the macromedia website.

You could try installing a trial version of Flash MX 2004, it may help the problem.

Slightly off-topic: ZoneAlarm is a pretty low-quality firewall in my opinion. I used to use it, but it was giving me hell when setting up my home network. Give Kerio a go if you have a good knowledge of the working of the internet.

it seems to be only that site that is giving me trouble. any other Flash sites I've visited work fine. tried the deleting cookies trick, but it did not help. maybe I'll try downloading the FlashMX trial version and see what that does.

SUCCESS! using Belarc advisor (GOOD program) I was able to determine that there were some windows updates that needed reinstalling. did that, and reinstalled IE6, and now Toontown works.

my kidlet is very happy.

thanks for the suggestions all.

windows updates that needed reinstalling. eeenteresting. thanks for the follow up, and glad you're back up and running!

Use Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.org