Technical Support
I need help with...
Accounts
When I try to log in, I am logged in as the last person who played/a guest.
We track user logins using cookies. If you're seeing one of these problems, it's possible that the cookies stored in your browser have gotten confused. You can easily solve this by deleting all of the cookies you have stored:
- Most browsers will have a "delete browsing history" option or similar. Choose this.
- It should show you a list of what is being deleted - make sure that cookies are selected.
- Some browsers (Internet Explorer, for example) also give you the option of saving cookies from your favourite websites. If you see this option, make sure it is NOT selected. This will force the browser to delete everything.
- Choose to delete, then reload the Sumdog page.
You should also make sure that your browser is not preventing Sumdog from saving any cookies. You can usually do this by adding Sumdog to your list of trusted sites.
My students are constantly being logged out or logged in as each other while they are playing.
We store the login information for the students in your temporary web browser files. If the browser information is shared across multiple computers, each computer will pick up the login information from all the other computers. Some school networks are set up like this.
The only way to get around this is to separate the browser information - you should speak to your IT admin about this. One easy solution for this is to have the students switch to using private or incognito browsing.
System Requirements
What are the system requirements?
To see if you have everything you need, see our Browser Check. If you're working at a school which uses filtering on its network, you may also need to whitelist Sumdog (*.sumdog.com). You should contact your IT administrator for more help with this.
We also recommend that your web browser be as up-to-date as possible. If you are using an older version of a browser (for example, IE5), we cannot guarantee that Sumdog will work correctly.
I see an warning telling me to enable my cookies, but I have already enabled them.
This warning means that the website is unable to write the cookie containing your user information. If you have already enabled cookies, then you can also try the following:
- Lower your overall security settings
- Add Sumdog to your "allowed" sites
If you use a firewall on your computer, you may also want to check the security settings on this. Add Sumdog to your list of allowed sites here as well.
Performance
Sumdog is slow.
- Check to make sure that you do not have any other programs running in the background and close any extra browser windows that you have open.
- Make sure that you are using the latest version of Flash.
- Ask your students to play against the computer instead of against classmates or other users.
- You may experience a poor connection if your school network uses a proxy to connect to the internet. Ask your IT administrator for help in improving your connection speed.
When I try to load a game, I just see a black screen/the game starts loading and doesn't stop.
This happens because some of the necessary files for the game are being blocked by your network. Because some of the files are getting through you will not see a "blocked" warning, but it prevents the game from fully loading. You can fix this by asking your IT admin to whitelist the Sumdog website (*.sumdog.com).
Games/other features on Sumdog don't work for me.
- If your problem is a slow or intermittent connection, try some of the suggestions above.
- Sumdog has a list of requirements it needs in order to work on your computer. Use our Browser Check to see whether you meet these.
- You may be unable to view Sumdog content if your school network uses filtering. For example, they may block websites with the word "game" in the address. Ask your IT administrator to whitelist the Sumdog website (*.sumdog.com).
I keep seeing "error connecting with the server", what does that mean?
This error indicates a problem with your internet connection.
- If all of the website is slow or contains errors, see "Sumdog is very slow" and "Games/other features on Sumdog don't work for me", above.
- Check with your IT administrator to make sure that no part of the website is being blocked or filtered.
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