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Dynamic Problems

This page aims to provide visual instructions to help you retrieve information that our support staff may need to diagnose your problem. If a problem does occur please do contact us either by phone, email or via our online feedback form. Our support staff will attempt to determine whether the problem has an obvious cause or whether(and what) information is necessary to achieve a solution. They will then guide you through retrieving that information.

Introduction

Dynamic data is provided on the Weblink website using dynamic 'applets'. These are small applications that run within another application(in this case Internet Explorer). Weblink's suite of dynamic applets is continually being updated and expanded to provide more information, in a more concise display, while being faster and smoother than ever. The development of these applets is often prompted by the input of customers who contact us.

Unlike many other programs, however, applets must be able to run on every platform(from Windows 95 to Windows XP) and every browser(from Internet Explorer 4.0 to Internet Explorer 6.0) that our customers use. Often problems that occur for a customer turn out to be specific to their platform, or browser. For this reason tracking down problems with dynamic applets often involves finding out a lot of information about our customer's system in order to diagnose an incompatibility.

Quick Fix

Dynamic applets are loaded only once each time you load Internet Explorer and while pressing the Refresh button will reload the page you are using it will not reload any dynamic applets you are using. To refresh the dynamic applets you can press the two buttons Ctrl and F5 at the same time.

Please Note

Ctrl+F5 loads a fresh copy of the file the dynamic applets are in and then runs the dynamic applets from scratch. We find that in 9 out of 10 cases this will resolve a problem.

Be aware that you must have the Internet Explorer window selected at the time you press Ctrl+F5 or this will not work. The Ctrl+F5 command is sent to the window you are using when you press it, if it gets sent to the wrong window it is ignored and nothing happens.

The tricky thing is that the dynamic applet is like a window within a window. This means that if you have the dynamic applet selected and not Internet Explorer the command still gets sent to the wrong place, so you must click on Internet Explorer but outside the dynamic applet area.

If you have pressed Ctrl+F5 correctly you should see the rectangle the dynamic applet appears in flash and briefly go grey while the blue loading bar at the bottom right of the window shows how much has loaded.

If all of this seems too complicated there is an alternative. Closing every copy of Internet Explorer you are running, waiting a couple of seconds and starting a new one will achieve the same thing. However you will have to login again.

Retreiving Information

When Ctrl+F5 does not solve a problem often the only way to diagnose it's cause is to find out as much as possible about the system on which the problem occurs. Information which is important includes the following:

When the problem began to occur, and precisely what the symptoms are.
Whether you are on a network that uses a firewall or you yourself have installed a firewall system.
Your internet service provider (ISP, eg. Telstra Bigpond, Ozemail etc.).
Whether you accessed the site using a bookmark.

Further information can be retreived from your system and emailed to us. Below are instructions for finding information that is often useful.

Enabling and Getting messages from your Java Console (Microsoft JVM):

Go to the Tools menu
Select Internet Options:
Then select the Advanced tab.
Scroll down till you see the option Java Console Enabled(requires restart):
If the box is not ticked, tick it and press the button.
If you had to tick the box then you will have to close Internet Explorer and start it again before continuing.
Open the page where the problem occurs.
Go to the View menu
Select Java Console:
Use the mouse to highlight all of the text in the Java Console(make sure the top row is included as it contains important information about the version you are using):
Press Ctrl and C, to copy the text to your clipboard.
Open an email or an online feedback form and use Ctrl and V to paste the text into it.

Please Note: You will probably want to disable your Java Console after you've finished. Having the Java Console enabled can degrade the performance of the dynamic applets. To disable the Java Console follow the above instructions but make sure the Java Console Enabled(requires restart) box is not ticked, then press Apply. When you next restart Internet Explorer your Java Console will be disabled.

Enabling and Getting messages from your Java Console (Sun JVM):

Go to the Tools menu
Select Sun Java Console:
In the window that opens, click the Copy button:
Open an email or an online feedback form and use Ctrl and V to paste the text into it.

Finding the version of Internet Explorer you use:

Go to the Help menu
Select About Internet Explorer...
Look for the line beginning Version:

Finding the version of Windows you use:

On your Destop, right-click on the My Computer icon.
Choose Properties
Make sure you have the General tab selected.
Record the information under the heading System.

Testing various systems

Testing your Java installation

Below, you should see a paragraph with a green background and white text. If it says "Sun Microsystems" or "Microsoft" and a version number, your Java installation is working perfectly. If you see any thing else (a red x, a grey box or the message "Your browser is not capable of displaying Java applets"), then your Java installation is broken, or your browser is not capable of displaying Java applets, and you will need to install a Java plug-in.

Your browser is not capable of displaying Java applets.

Testing your HTTP connection

Click on this link. If you see a message saying "You have reached the WebLink dynamic server" then your HTTP connection is working properly.

Testing your Java VM's HTTP connection

Below, you should see a paragraph with a green background and white text. If it ends with the word "Succeeded", the test passed. If you see a paragraph with a green background whose text ends in "Failed", your Java installation has a problem with HTTP connections. If you don't see a paragraph with a green background at all, you might not have a proper Java installation - see the first test, above.