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The Flypaper application prompts you to login or register after you download. The registration creates an account for you on the Flypaper community. Sometimes the connection between your computer and our servers cannot be made.

All of the current known issues and fixes for this connection are in the Please check your internet connection post

Currently, Flypaper accounts require a unique e-mail address for each user. In addition the Flypaper community remembers all the e-mail accounts ever registered with the system. We are fixing both of these issues to make it much easier for you to register.

In the meantime, please use a different e-mail. If all of your valid e-mail accounts are used, you may add a 1 to the end of the e-mail name to get the registration to go through. Once we fix the error, you can update your account with your correct e-mail. This registration does not effect buying the Flypaper application. Please enter your correct e-mail address on the purchase page, so we can send the confirmation information to the correct address.

Flypaper is a connected application. When you search in the Flybrary or download Templates or Stories, or share a Story to the community, the Flypaper application is connecting and communicating with http://community.flypaper.net.

Sometimes the connection gets interrupted or blocked by other elements on your computer, and you will get error messages to "Check your Internet Connection."

If you are not getting an error message, there are two possible causes:
1) The application has frozen. Use the task manager to close Flypaper and start again.

OR

2) In the last few days we have also seen great traffic on our community server, and it is possible during peak business hours, 11 a.m. to noon (PST) your copy of Flypaper may stop responding or freeze when you are trying to search, download or share. We will be upgrading our servers soon. In the meantime, we ask for your patience and to wait about 5 minutes and please try again.

Chances are you were trying to interact with the Flypaper Community or Image Search through the Flypaper application, but the cause of the message could be one of several things:

o An interrupted Internet connection

o Run Flypaper as an Administrator (Vista and XP).

o The unintended result of using a proxy server

o Your firewall lists Flypaper as a Blocked Application.

o Your computer clock is more than 5 minutes off (GMT).

o You have not done a Windows update in the last 4 months, and some of your Windows files are out of date

o Your username contains spaces or characters or exactly matches reserved words such as "Flypaper, Stories, Templates, Web.user, or community"

See below for more details on each item:

If you suspect a problem with your Internet Connection: The first thing to do is to open a browser and query something you haven’t previously queried.

If you can open a new Web page, or possibly a search engine where you can successfully query something new, then your Internet connection appears to be working.

If you cannot connect, check your PC’s network cable (or wireless connection). Then retest. If you still cannot connect, contact your IT professional.

The user privileges on the computer can affect this connection. Go to C:/Program Files/Flypaper and right click on Flypaper.exe and select Run As Administrator. We have found this clears up a number of issues in Vista and can fix connection errors for people running Windows XP -- especially if they have installed Service Pack 3.

It’s possible that your network employs a proxy server, a type of gateway server that provides many services, including:

a) Storing previously queried Web page contents for faster retrieval within your intranet.
b) Helping your firewall by “hiding” other computers within your intranet from scrutiny by possibly malicious external parties.

In addition, however, the proxy server may show you old content from previously viewed Web sites, or it may give you the impression that you are not connected to the Internet at all.

To bypass the proxy server, the following instructions may help:

1. In the Tools menu, select Internet Options, and then click the Connections tab.
2. Click the LAN Settings button.
3. In the Automatic configuration group, select the Automatically detect settings check box.
4. In the Proxy server group, clear all check boxes
5. Click OK.
6. Click OK again to close the Internet Options dialog box.

To watch a Story with this task, click below:

Proxy Settings Story

Check your firewall software. Some like Windows Firewall, Windows Live OneCare and AVG can list Flypaper as a blocked application. Usually you are prompted during the install to allow Flypaper, but sometimes a firewall can block Flypaper without a prompt. Open the applications list in your firewall settings, and make sure Flypaper is not in the blocked list.

Check your computer's clock. Flypaper is a connected application and tries to communicate with flypaper.net when you are searching the Flybrary, sharing stories and downloading other content. To make those connections as secure as possible there is a time out setting of 5 minutes. If you computer clock is off by more than 5 minutes, the security check will show that you need to "Check your Internet Connection." Go the Start/Control Panel to change your clock settings. Compare it to your cell phone to get the most accurate number.

Update Windows. Windows update should update all the key files that Flypaper needs to communicate with the server. If the update does not work, or you do not want to use all of the Windows update, the most likely cause is the "root certificate". Click here to update your Root Certificate

Change your username. Starting a username with numbers or including characters like "/ @ \ #$%^^&*?><" can break the communication between Flypaper and community.flypaper.net. We recommend using alpha characters that are as close to a given name as possible. This reduces the chance of getting connection errors.

We are working on all of these issues and we will make it as easy as possible for Flypaper subscribers to connect to community.flypaper.net. As we find more of these kinds of issues, we will continue to update these posts.