Chat Room Help
See also: Chat Room Features
I can't log into chat, my password does not work
You have to be registered in the Forums and be a dues paying
PT Cruiser Club Member to use the chat.
Log into chat with your forum username and password.
Use this tool to check if you are registered for all of our services,
and to guide you if you are not registered in any of them including the forum.
Check Your PT Cruiser Club Services
If you are having trouble, you may have typed your username and password incorrectly. All usernames and passwords are (CaSe SeNsItIvE). If you would like your Forum/Chat username and password E-mailed to you click here
If you are a registered forum user and join the club (using the same email address you registered into the forum with) our system will automatically give you member forum and chat privileges. Use this tool to check if you are registered for all of our services, and to guide you if you are not registered in any of them including the forum. Check Your PT Cruiser Club Services
If you still need assistance, contact us.
I need to report a chat room user for misbehavior
To report the incident contact us.
Please provide details of the incident like the date/time,
your username and the username of the chat room user you are reporting.
We may not be able to respond right away so the best response you can do is log off the chat room for awhile.
All chat activity is logged, we will investigate the logs and see what happened.
I can log into chat but it is slow or kicks me out
Net lag is the main reason for slow chat symptoms. Our
servers can handle the chat loads, the problem is most likely not at our end. There are many reasons for net lag.
Net lag could be caused by overloaded internet service providers who have so many users their systems slow down.
If you typically have a slow connection, try a different service provider. Temporary slowness, and unreachable web sites:
Things like email or server worm viruses sometimes cause internet slowness because of the extra traffic they cause while they are massively sent from computer to computer
across the internet. Hackers can cause internet traffic slowness by sending large packets of data to a host computer or web site. This is called a Denial of Service Attack (DOS) and can render web sites completely unreachable for a period of time.
Sometimes service is temporarily interrupted by equipment failures or
scheduled maintenance. The trouble spots could be anywhere in the many hops between your internet connection and the web site you are trying to reach.
Usually is little you can do, but try again later.
To test your internet
response time while in chat: type /ping
/ping
The command has to be on a line by itself.
You can also check another chat
user's response time by typing /ping username
/ping username
(replace "username" with the other person's username)
The test results will be
returned to you in a private message from the chat system. Here is an
example:
Ping test results for user "Mike" using ISP (centurytel.net)
39 milliseconds (Under 100 is very good, 100-200 is marginal, over 200 may
cause chat delay.)
This will test how long a packet of information takes to get from our server to a user and back. This may help you, for example, to determine if there is net lag between your internet connection and our web site. If you are running firewall software, your software may interpret the incoming test packets as a hostile "port scan" originating from this server. Rest assured, your system is not being attacked. Also some Internet Service Providers block ping requests, so this test may not be available to you.
Chat rooms are more sensitive to "point to point net delay" because you are constantly looking at the screen for a response from our server and other users. Each message from other chatters travels from other users to our server to you, so this means the connection is compounded beyond just our server to other users as well. Some users may be experiencing a fast chat response and some may be having some delay, many times this is temporary and there is nothing we can do about it. If you would like to study why the internet is such a dynamic factor with chat rooms, read up on the subjects of "Ping" and "Traceroute".
Some things you can try if you are having slow connections:
- Reboot your computer, log-on and try again.
- Empty your temporary internet files and history for your web browser, check the free space of your hard disk, maybe it is near full and causing slowness or instability. Maybe your hard disk files are badly fragmented, you may need to optimize the hard disk with Microsoft Disk Defragmenter or Raxco - PerfectDisk.
- Evaluate your computer hardware, maybe it needs more memory, a faster processor, or in some cases a whole new faster computer. If your computer is older than two years there are newer considerably faster ones available.
- Call the support department at your ISP and tell them you have slow access and ask them for suggestions, be at your computer when you call because they may have you check things on your computer.
- Consider using a cable modem, DSL, or other high speed connection. Dial up modems are no longer considered a fast way to use the internet.
- It could simply be temporary internet traffic lag, in that case, try again later.