why are there no games available on msn?

This has been happening the past few nights. everytime i log on to play
solitaire showdown with my friend, it just keeps saying "no games available"

Does anyone know what the reason is for this??

And is there any other way that I can play card games like this against my
friend, on MSN site perhaps??

 

Greetings ste,

They should be able to initiate it too, if there's a big problem.

There's a number of reasons why nothing would be showing up here.

Firstly, if you've changed your Live ID profile's locale/country, some locales do not have
any games.

Secondly, when you connect to the service, Messenger needs to connect to its web
configuration service to download the game data for your locale. If it wasn't able to
connect, then no games will appear. As such, a third-party software firewall could be
blocking this from working too.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2007 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.

 

I also had some problems yesterday playing in WLMessenger, wirh errors such
as "Critical Error 3".
After some tries I finally got to play Minesweeper flags.
I suppose this is just a temporary problem due to server failure or simply
their maintenance.

 

Hi, thanks for replying.. only read this now.. I havent changed anything
about messenger, its always had Ireland as my country, and i havent changed
anything about firewall either. And my friend hasnt a clue about computers
so she never touches anything on her pc, except to play games or whatever..
Saying that, last night the games were working ok. Does the amount of RAM
being used on your pc affect msn's abililty to download the games?? Or if
your wireless connection isnt that strong, does that affect it??
The other night, when it was saying "no games available", I went onto the
msngames site for first time ever, and i loaded the solitaire game up from
there, and we were able to play it then..

Weird huh!

 

Hi ste,

Nah, Windows memory management doesn't work like that.

For the weak wireless signal, if say, packets were being dropped when you signed into
Messenger (when it tried to get your configuration data), or when you clicked the Games
button itself, there is a minute possibility but that's rather a rare occurrence.

Anyway, glad it's working now