Troubleshooting onCue

Platform Compatibility

onCue has been tested on:

The software should work on other Java 1.1 virtual machines that support JNI. i.e. earlier versions of the Sun JDK/JRE and perhaps later versions of Microsoft jview.

Please let us know what works for you!

We are currently working on a version for Linux, and are investigating the feasibility of a Macintosh version.

Problems and Solutions

When I use the Scoot service, it asks me to register.

Scoot requires you to register in order to use its People Finder.

Simply register, and the service will be available to you.

The Royal Mail postcode system asks me to allow my browser to accept cookies. What's this about?

Cookies are tokens that identify you to the web server. You can change your browser preferences to accept cookies.

Whether you are already configured to accept cookies or not, this message always appears. It's a problem with the Royal Mail service. Simply click search, and it should all work okay.

The Royal Mail postcode service doesn't appear and I get an error message instead.

This could be because the service operates on a non-standard port (8080) on the web server, and you are behind a firewall that blocks access to it.

If you think this might be the solution, ask your systems administrator to open up the firewall to allow you to access this service.

onCue always uses the same web browser window - I'd like it to open a new window for every web search that I do.

If your default web browser is Internet Explorer, try holding down the SHIFT key when you start a search from onCue - you should find that it starts the search in a new window. Unfortunately, this does not work with Netscape.

I was working with onCue when suddenly it disappeared and a window talking about a JREW and some gobbledygook appeared. When I clicked OK to get rid of it, an error message appeared. This all sounds very nasty - what did I do wrong?

Absolutely nothing! On certain system setups (usually earlier Windows 95) the Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) can crash. If this happens to you, you've been unlucky - but if you send us the details of your machine setup and exactly what you were doing at the time, we'll pass on the details to Sun.

Unfortunately, there isn't likely to be a lot that we can do to fix this. However, it won't have hurt your machine in any way, and you should just be able to restart onCue and carry on from where you left off. In certain circumstances, we have found that upgrading to Internet Explorer 4 can help. However, as this sometimes brings its own complications we don't recommend that you do it unless you were planning to anyway.

I have Microsoft Office on my machine, but I don't get the spell-checking or Excel services offered to me - why not?

There are two possible reasons for this. 1. These services only work with Microsoft Office 97 or above, so if you have an older version you won't be able to use them. 2. With certain earlier versions of Windows 95 our software sometimes can't communicate with Office even if it is the right version.

There is little you can do to rectify the first case - except perhaps upgrade your version of Microsoft Office. We hope to be able to support older versions of Office in future releases. The second problem is sometimes solved by installing Internet Explorer 4, which updates certain Windows files; however, this can bring problems of its own.

I copied the word 'C++' to the clipboard, but onCue didn't suggest anything - why not?

onCue tries to be clever about suggesting appropriate services, but unfortunately in this case it doesn't recognise 'C++' as a word.

Try copying 'C++ programming language' or something slightly more descriptive to nudge onCue in the right direction. There are likely to be other situations where onCue will either not suggest services, or suggest inappropriate services - in these situations please forgive onCue and try copying some slightly different text to get the behaviour you're after.

I was using the SumIt service to add up some numbers and it got it very wrong - why?

Currently the SumIt Qbit is not as intelligent as we would like it to be - in particular it will add up every number that it finds in a selection - including dates (which are usually the problem).

We will be looking to correct this in future releases, but in the meantime, as with any calculator, be aware that SumIt may not have added up quite what you wanted it to.

Why, when I choose a web service from onCue, does my web browser window open but the results take a long time to appear or don't appear at all?

The web services that onCue directs you to are run by many other companies, and as with any web site, thay are sometimes unavailable or slow to use.

There is not much that anyone can do about this - you could try sending an email to the web service provider if you have a lot of problems with a service. If all your web browsing is slow you should contact the organisation that provides you with access to the web (your Internet Service Provider or ISP). If you do have persistent problems with any of the services suggested by onCue, please email us at the address below with details.

Sometimes tooltips and menus seem to have fallen behind the main onCue window - they're not much use there because they're mostly hidden!

This is completely harmless, but it can happen on very rare occasions.

Simply click on the onCue window, and it should correct itself. If you can get this to happen repeatedly then please tell us how you did it, and we should be able to fix it in future releases.

I like using onCue, but I keep forgetting to start it up - can I get it to start automatically when I start to use my computer?

Yes you can. See More ways to access onCue to find out how.

Something really weird just happened. I was using onCue, and when I started typing again a little window with the words Clipboard Data appeared - what's that all about?

Ah - you've stumbled across a secret feature! If you click on the onCue window and start to type, the text will appear in a window and automatically be copied to the clipboard ready for onCue to suggest some actions. Once we'd implemented this, we realised how useful it would be, and it will be included as a proper feature in future releases. However, at the moment it doesn't work 100% of the time, so if you make use of this feature you may find it loses the odd character.

If you want to get rid of the window, simply close it and paste (or type) the text into the location it was originally meant for. The window will never appear if you always click on the window you want to type into before hitting a key.

We hope you won't have any problems with onCue that aren't covered here, but if you do please let us know about them so we can fix them in future releases. Either send an email to problems@aqtive.com with details of your machine and operating system and what you were doing at the time the problem occurred. Or go to the user community area of our website and leave us a message there. In either case, please try to give us as much detail as you can!