Hi guys,
Thanx for all your responses, and Big Red L, thanx for the tip

It has been duly noted (frustration at two months of not being able to access the chat room has driven me to it)
I've tried all those things including disabling the firewall and removing the virus protection software but nothing seems to work. Have also downloaded the latest Java stuff as well which also didn't work
The only thing I can think of is that I have recently switched to broadband.... although for the first few weeks after I switched there weren't any problems at all. I've also checked with a few other PPrune users and they are having exactly the same problem (there are lots of them at work and most of them can't access chat), so I'm wondering if its something that has changed since the crew did the software alterations.
Any opinions and advice would be hugely appreciated
Thanx
Halo