I"m having the same trouble. I can't get chat to work.
i've upgraded Java, have the latest IE fixpack, although refuse to upgrade to ie7 because several sites I visit won't support IE7 until January.
even using firefox it doesn't seem to work.
I havn't been able to get chat to start for the last week. even when it did start, it would only start 'some times' usually after I posted something on the forum, but lately that trick doesn't even work.