Help

[Thomas Helwys]

I am hoping someone can help me with something: Seemingly all of a sudden, I am not able to put smilies or other emoticons in my messages. When I click on them, nothing happens. And that's not all: I can't highlight text and make it bold, or put italics, or change colors, or any of that. And the avatars of people are not showing up. Did I mistakenly hit something and disable all this? I have searched my CP but can't find how to correct this. I've restarted my computer to see if that would do any good, but it didn't.

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[Don]

What browser are you using? Internet Explorer, Firefox, or something else?

Have you made any changes to your browser? Installed any add-ons to block advertisements or other things?

My first trouble-shooting attempt would be to disable all add-ons in your browser and see if that fixes things. If it does, then you go back and re-enable each add-on, checking here after re-enabling it to make sure it's still fixed; and that would indicate which add-on is causing the problem.

IF disabling all add-ons doesn't fix it, you might need to install another browser and see if the problem exists in that browser as well.

And if the problem exists in another browser, then we might need to look at using Malwarebytes or another anti-malware program.

 

[Winman]

This is a good time to use System Restore. This will restore your computer to an earlier time when it was operating properly and will not cause any harm to your computer.

Go to Start

Go to Programs

Go to Accessories

Go to System Tools

Go to System Restore

A box will open welcoming you to System Restore. It will ask if you want to restore your computer to an earlier time. Choose this option and click on Next at the bottom of the page.

A calender will appear that shows earlier "restore points". Pick the most recent date when your computer was operating properly and click on Next at the bottom of the page.

It will show the restore point you selected, click on Next at the bottom of the page.

Your computer will now go through System Restore, this will take a few minutes. Your computer will automatically shut down and restart.

When it restarts it will ask you one last time if you want to restore to the date you selected. Click OK.

This should restore your computer to when it was operating properly. This will not harm your computer at all, and you can even go back and undo any changes you made if you are not happy.

This is an excellent function to correct many computer problems.

 

[Thomas Helwys]

Don and Winman, thank you both for your very good suggestions.

Before you posted, I decided to do some more experimenting with the browser I'm using (Opera). I went to "Settings", then "Preferences", and "Content". The "Enable JavaScript" box was unchecked, so I checked it to see what would happen. That solved the problem! I had just installed a new version of Opera a day or so ago, and I guess that box came unchecked.

Anyway, your suggestions were excellent and I'm sure would have solved the problem if I had not stumbled onto a solution.

Thanks again!