# Solved: problem with pogo games



## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi, Can anyone help please? The thing is my mam bought a new computer on thursday, i gave her a 5 day guest pass for pogo but she is unable to load any of the games :-( it just says page loading and does nothing left it for 30 minutes today and was still the same, Anyone got any ideas what is wrong? I have updated her java and that doesnt help, anyone with any advice please let me know. She also on dial up aol at the moment, its soo slow:down: if she had broadband would that make a difference?
Thanks for reading
Lisa


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## Super-D-38 (Apr 25, 2002)

Welcome to TSG :up:

Pogo often gives problems, so I did a TSG search for you.. 
Read through some of these and see if any will help. If they don't post back and "we" can assist further.

http://forums.techguy.org/search.php?searchid=66626


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## lola2001 (Jan 29, 2001)

Search your computer for a file called imhosts.sam, should be in C:\winnt\system32\drivers\

You can open it in notepad if you want, then resave it as imhosts-old.txt, then delete the original one. Reboot. Pogo should work fine.


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## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi, Thank you for the replys both  Still cant get pogo to load thou Lola I tried searching for C:\winnt\system32\drivers\ but i was unable to find that file? I dont know what im doing wrong, I got to be honest i cant remember a pop up appearing when i 1st tried playing pogo say " always install software from pogo" like it says at the bottom of every page on pogo, Im not sure if me mam used it before and saw it she a complete novice with computers, Im not much better mind you lol but i know a little bit more than her  if either of us did click dont download software from pogo how could i go about getting computer to accept downloads?? 
Anyways thanks very much both for your replys
Lisa


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## lola2001 (Jan 29, 2001)

You could go into Tools>Internet Options>Privacy.....at the bottom it says Web Sites and you can choose Edit to see the websites you blocked.

The file you need to search for will be hosts.sam or something similar. It should be in that directory I mentioned above. If you just rename it and reboot pogo should work. I've had this problem twice where the game just wouldn't load or it said Action Cancelled and this has worked for me. Good luck and let us know.


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## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi Thanks again for reply Lola but im still unable to find that file  , Im in the Uk would that make any difference? another thing i was looking at is my java is :

Java 1.4.2_05 (Sun Microsystems Inc.) 
Windows XP 5.1 (x86)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 9.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; (R1 1.5))

my mams java is 
Java 1.5.0_06 (Sun Microsystems Inc.) 
Windows XP 5.1 (x86)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 9.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Im not sure but the last digits on the end are different could that be the problem? 
Thanks again for the reply
Lisa


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## Cheeseball81 (Mar 3, 2004)

Make sure the latest version of Macromedia Flash is installed.
You can download it here: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

Please click the "Install Now" button near the top of the screen. Depending on your security settings, you may see a Security Warning dialog box. Click "Yes" to accept the ActiveX control. Once flash is installed, you will need to close your browser and restart it.

Another thing is make sure a pop-up blocker is not interfering. 
As a test, you can temporarily disable one by simply holding down one of the following keys until the new window appears: Control (CTRL), ALT, or Shift.


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## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi Cheese, Thanks very much for reply i updated Macromedia Flash and tried block up test and it still wont work  It now seems everytime i try to load a room and give up waiting after 10 minutes and try to shut the room, The screen freezes and aol not responding appears and i have to restart aol. I really dont know what else to try now  
The thing is it was me who kept on to her to get a computer as she retired last year and thought it would give her something to do now she as a lot of spare time, And everytime she called here she would love to have a game bingo on pogo and eventually she gave in and bought one but i cant even get it to work and feel awful about this she saying she sorry had computer now :down: which is making me feel worse .
Anway thanks again for reply will have to keep looking for an answer 
Lisa


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## Cheeseball81 (Mar 3, 2004)

Does anything load at all? Or is it just a white screen?


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## treespirit (Oct 19, 2004)

I don't know if this is your problem or not, but with both of our computers, that Sun java wouldn't work with pogo at all. It works fine now with the microsoft virtual machine. And my daughters computer only has the sun java and she has pogo problems. Might be something else to check out anyway.


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## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi Cheese thanks again for replying, When i first click on a room for example fortune bingo, Its says loading and picture of dottie with the dots going across like if loading then in the left hand corner it will say "Applet started" and the picture of dottie and dots stays there for however i long i leave it, Have left it for about 30 minutes and still nothing, If i then click x to shut the window it freezes my screen and knocks me off line. Hope you understand what i mean.
Thanks very much also Tree and im going up my mams sometime this weekend and will definately download the microsoft java 
Thanks again for the reply
Lisa


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## Cheeseball81 (Mar 3, 2004)

I noticed that many users have been complaining about Pogo loading excrutiating slow the past few weeks. It seems Pogo engineers have found new information about some of the loading issues experienced in recent weeks by users on pogo.com. It appears that applet caching or "Fast Access" is not working correctly at this time. While this is most noticeable on dial up connections, many games at this time will likely load more slowly, even on quick connections. 

They are still working on the issue of course. So there is no fix yet.

There are several types of maintenance that can be taken on a regular basis to try and prevent problems from occurring. This included Deleting Temporary Internet Files/Browser Cache and Deleting Game Objects. 

For Club Pogo members, you can follow these instructions on deleting objects in Internet Explorer. This is where the game files are actually stored with Fast Access on Club Pogo. Here's how to do that:

"Open Internet Explorer (even if you normally use the AOL or MSN browser)
"Go to the 'Tools' menu in Internet Explorer
"Choose 'Internet Options'
"In the middle of the Internet Options window, look for the 'settings' button in the middle, under 'Temporary Internet Files'
"On the Settings screen, click the 'View Objects' Tab. This is where your browser stores the actual game applet.
"Look for any files in the list that are Pogo games. Things like 'PopFu by Pogo', 'Freecell by Pogo' and so on, and delete those.
"Click 'Yes' to confirm the deletion of each file.

Be aware the Pogo does weekly updates, usually on Tuesdays. So hopefully in time, they will have resolved this problem.


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## GentsBabe (Jan 31, 2006)

I tried to find my imhosts.sam file and couldn't either. Did a search for it and finally found it in my C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc folder.

Tried a little experiment and it doesn't disappear if you have 'Do not show hidden files and folders' checked and/or if you have 'Hide protected operating system files' checked, so there's no need to mess with those.

Hope this helps, Lisa.


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## johnnyno8 (Feb 6, 2006)

Hi all, Just wanted to say Thank you very much to all who replyed to my ad, The good news is me mam can play games on pogo :up: The broadband arrived today and tried it and it works fine now, So many thanks to all who took the time and replyed to my ad 
Take care 
Lisa


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## Cheeseball81 (Mar 3, 2004)

That's great. Thanks for letting us know. 

You can mark your thread "Solved" from the *Thread Tools* drop down menu.


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## ANGELDUMPLIN (Jun 7, 2006)

Johnny go into your Java, find the browsers and unchecked all the browsers then try playing.


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## skatterbrane (Jun 22, 2006)

Cheeseball, I tried the following instructions that you left in a previous answer:

Open Internet Explorer (even if you normally use the AOL or MSN browser)
"Go to the 'Tools' menu in Internet Explorer
"Choose 'Internet Options'
"In the middle of the Internet Options window, look for the 'settings' button in the middle, under 'Temporary Internet Files'
"On the Settings screen, click the 'View Objects' Tab. This is where your browser stores the actual game applet.
"Look for any files in the list that are Pogo games. Things like 'PopFu by Pogo', 'Freecell by Pogo' and so on, and delete those.
"Click 'Yes' to confirm the deletion of each file.

I found no Pogo files, however, I found several that were "damaged" --  I didn't know what they were, so I didn't do anything with them.

I have checked my VirusScan and Firewall and have made sure that Pogo is an accepted site, I have downloaded the latest version of Java and I have found the "imhosts.sam" file, renamed it as "imhosts-old.txt" and deleted "imhosts.sam". Nothing works! The funny thing is, I am a member of Pogo and have played on a daily basis for the past several months. I only started having trouble about a week ago when our McAfee was acting up (we couldn't get the current updates, etc.) -- FINALLY, got that taken care of, but now....no Pogo! I have tried repeatedly to use their "support" or "help" and it won't load (I believe it's called EA Sports). 

Do you have any other suggestions?


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## dotty999 (Feb 3, 2006)

can anyone tell me how to get a game pass for pogo?


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