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« Blogs Index < Game Guides < HATPC Guides
« Livio's Blog

LEAVING ALL OF THIS UP FOR HISTORICAL PURPOSE, BUT REALLY YOU CAN IGNORE ALL OF THIS AND JUST USE FLASHPOINT TO PLAY HATPC. SEE THIS POST IF YOU WANT MORE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS


Once again, I'm rewriting an existing guide. Or rather, instead of making a "How to open" guide, I'm making one solely focused on the problems you can face when trying to play Hannah and the Pirate Caves (HATPC). I designed this guide like a flowchart to make it easier and faster to work through.

STEP ONE: Try Again

Just open and close the game window until it finally works. If it still doesn't work after about three tries, move on to the next step.

STEP TWO: DGS Error?

If you get a DGS Error, it is most likely the fault of neopets.com. Although, this theory has never been proven. Wait a few hours or a day, and if you still get the error, move on to step three.

STEP THREE: Which browser are you using?

HATPC is a very old Shockwave game, so it does not work properly in all browsers anymore. We find that HATPC works best in Google Chrome (download: here) and Apple's Safari (download: here). Many users on this site prefer to use Chrome for HATPC. EDIT: Chrome has betrayed us. Use Safari.

If you are currently using a different browser, that may be the reason why you cannot play HATPC. Download either Chrome or Safari, then try opening HATPC from one of those browsers by clicking here. If you still can't play, move on to step four.

Side note: If you do not want to change the browser that you normally use, you may be interested in some added convenience in another of my guides, which teaches you how to create a desktop shortcut that will open HATPC from any browser.

STEP FOUR: Do you have the latest version of Shockwave Player?

http://get.adobe.com/shockwave/
Visit the above link and download the latest version of shockwave. Beware of any offers to download a free toolbar or security scan. I suspect them to be safe, since they are from Adobe, but they are an annoyance.

Try opening HATPC again, by clicking here. If still nothing, go to step five.

STEP FIVE: Try visiting the game files directly

Click here: http://swf.neopets.com/games/g349_v9_99392.dcr

This is known to work in every browser except Internet Explorer  9.

If it still doesn't work, see the next step.

STEP SIX: Try clearing your browser's cache

Your browser saves a cache for many web pages in its attempt to cut back on loading times. Some of our users have found that clearing their cache enables them to play HATPC again.

To clear your cache in Chrome, click on the wrench icon at the top-right corner of the screen. Then click on "Options". An Options window will open up. Click on the tab called "Under the Hood". Right under the "Privacy" heading, click on the button that says "Clear Browsing Data...". Another window will open. In this window, uncheck everything except for "Empty the cache". Under "Clear data from this period:", select "Everything". And finally, click the button "Clear browsing data".

To clear your cache in Safari, click on the gear icon at the top-right corner of the screen, and click on "Reset Safari...". A window will open. uncheck everything except for "Empty the cache". Then hit the "Reset" button.

Try opening HATPC here.

If it still doesn't work, you can also try deleting all other forms of browsing data, and this usually works for most people.

Finally, if it still doesn't work, try clearing it again! Surprisingly this does make a difference quite often.

If even that doesn't work, move onto the next step.

STEP SEVEN: Maybe it's not your fault

There have been times in the past when HATPC wouldn't work for anyone because something would go wrong with neopets.com's game servers. This is similar to the DGS Error problem in Step Two, but neopets is clever, always finding better ways of screwing up HATPC. While in the past, the game used to go down occasionally, it seems very rare these days. However, the possibility is still there. To make sure if something is only happening to you, try asking other Interguild members if they are having any difficulties opening HATPC. If they are having the same problems as you, then it's possible that something's temporarily gone wrong with the game.

STEP EIGHT: Try downloading someone else's cache

We've now moved on to a daring step. We will now attempt to get HATPC to work for you by downloading almost 290 MB 755 KB of my own cache so that HATPC will always work for you. However, this cache is for Google Chrome only, so if you do not have it, download it here. However, Chrome must be closed while you follow these steps.

This method was developed when I noticed that there was something in my cache that allowed HATPC to work for me, and when the cache was cleared, it no longer worked. Luckily, I saved a backup of my cache, and I tried to find out what file was in there that was allowing HATPC to work. However, because I did not know what I was doing, removing things from the cache made it very unstable, as Chrome would sense errors and automatically change things to fix them. Therefore, I was not able to reduce the file size of the overall cache that you must download.  However, so far this method has managed to fix HATPC for two people: jellsprout and Yaya.

Also, I am sorry I cannot provide any support for non-Windows users.

Here are the steps to successfully replace your cache with mine:
  1. If on Windows Vista or Windows 7, go to:
    C:Users[USERNAME]AppDataLocalGoogleChromeUser DataDefault

    If on Windows XP, go to:
    Cocuments and Settings[USERNAME]Local SettingsApplication DataGoogleChromeUser DataDefault

    The [USERNAME] represents the name of the user that you are currently logged into on your computer. There will be a folder named after that user name.

    If you are having trouble finding some of these folder, it may be because they are hidden. Click on the Start menu at the very bottom-left corner of the screen and type in "folder options" into the search. Click on the "Folder Options" program that comes up. Click on the "View" tab, then look under the group of options under "Hidden files and folder" and select the option to "Show hidden files and folders". Now try again to find the above folder locations.

  2. Delete the following folders entirely:
    Cache
    Media Cache
    (if you don't want to lose your caches, for whatever reason, you may want to just rename those folders in case you want to keep a backup).

  3. Open this: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0By4BC80t6oOoNzQ5YjZhNzctNWY1NS00M2ZmLWEzNWYtNjk3NGI2Njk3YjY4&hl=en&authkey=CN3A8PAK

  4. Take the two folders inside that zip file and extract them to your "Default" folder, mentioned in the first step. Make sure that the Cache and Media Cache folders within the zip file are placed directly into the Default folder. You do not want them to be inside a new folder (which may be automatically called "ChromeHATPCcache").
Now that you have successfully replaced your cache, try to play HATPC here. If you have any problems with this complicated step, please ask for help in the comments below.

If this doesn't work, try going through this step again, but instead use this cache: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0By4BC80t6oOoNzlkNGIzMjktMWUwZC00YTgyLWJiOTUtNjk5YzMyMjAxYTZh&hl=en
Be aware that this file is nearly 290 MB.

STEP NINE: Ask for help

If you still can't get HATPC to work, just post a comment below. Try explaining in detail what happens when you try to load the game, and I or some other members will try to figure out what's wrong.
[?] Karma: +2
User Comments (290)
« Forum Index < The Hannah and the Pirate Caves Board
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Darvince
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Friday, December 9 2011, 10:46 pm EST
sea level change

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Haha, you got a high.


"Time is a circuit, not a line; cybernetics instantiates templexity."

Thomas
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Friday, December 9 2011, 10:46 pm EST
the clique shall prevail

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Was that much history actually made from this for another blog? Well I guess the new site will be turning 3 years old in a few days as well...
Livio
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Friday, December 9 2011, 10:57 pm EST

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I was already thinking of making an addendum to fill in some of the stuff I forgot to mention in the past articles, and I also haven't said anything about Minecraft yet.
shos
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Sunday, December 11 2011, 12:59 am EST
~Jack of all trades~

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'Thomas' said:
I was looking in Chrome's cache and I found the following URL:
http://swf.neopets.com/games/g349_v9_99392.dcr
From there I was able to play HATPC from FF, Chrome, and Safari. It didn't work in IE 9. My guess is that because this bypasses the launcher, you don't get the error about shockwave because it's the launcher that is falsely detecting that you can't play the game. So, could this be the new way of playing HATPC?

Also, I just found out the game grabs the COTW level from the following URL:
http://www.neopets.com/games/cavemaker/pirate_level_load.php?caveoftheweek=1

By the way, this thought occurred to me a while ago and it just came back to me. So when you search for a user level, the game takes what you entered and sends a request to neopets for the level. There's got to be some way to intercept the HTTP request and have the browser return a different file. This new file would contain a level code and it would allow for us to play uploader glitched caves. Whether it's a browser extension or a java code (can you do that with java?), there IS some way. Anybody wanna look into that?
that post has 16 karma. I think it's a record that will never be broken. come on, even my spam karma dud topic reached only 20 votes. I feel proud of you thomas! lol


Apples
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 3:45 pm EST

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I've tried every single thing in this guide, but it still does the exact same thing when I try to play. I don't know if posting this will even get me anywhere because it looks like the last one was over a year ago ._. but, when I open the game, in any browser, the loading screen / cutscene thingy will freeze, and a message pops up a couple of seconds later. It says "This shockwave movie has errors that have caused playback problems. Please contact the author of this content regarding this problem. Shockwave is unable to continue." I've tried every single thing in this guide and it still doesn't work
soccerboy13542
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 4:05 pm EST
~*~Soccer~*~

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Are you playing this game for the actual in game levels or for user levels?


'Livio' said:
You know, I was thinking of getting an internship at Microsoft, but I'm not sure I want their lameness to rub off on me.
atvelonis
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 4:24 pm EST
Apocryphal Ruminator

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'Apples' said:
I've tried every single thing in this guide, but it still does the exact same thing when I try to play. I don't know if posting this will even get me anywhere because it looks like the last one was over a year ago ._. but, when I open the game, in any browser, the loading screen / cutscene thingy will freeze, and a message pops up a couple of seconds later. It says "This shockwave movie has errors that have caused playback problems. Please contact the author of this content regarding this problem. Shockwave is unable to continue." I've tried every single thing in this guide and it still doesn't work


Uh... That happened to me last year, (2012) but for me Shockwave wasn't updated. Make sure it's updated, although I highly doubt that's the main problem.


'jellsprout' said:
As a kid I always thought tennisballs looked delicious and I liked biting them. I still remember the feel of the fuzz on my teeth and tongue.
Apples
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 5:22 pm EST

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'soccerboy13542' said:
Are you playing this game for the actual in game levels or for user levels?


Both xD But, I think mainly the actual in game levels. *wants the avatar* D:
Isa
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 6:57 pm EST
No. I'm an octopus.

Age: 31
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Play via our launcher, which you can find at the Games tab. It bypasses the Shockwave error part.
soccerboy13542
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 7:46 pm EST
~*~Soccer~*~

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She's trying to open it up to get the avatar. You can't send scores for the in game levels using our launcher.


'Livio' said:
You know, I was thinking of getting an internship at Microsoft, but I'm not sure I want their lameness to rub off on me.
atvelonis
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Tuesday, January 1 2013, 8:11 pm EST
Apocryphal Ruminator

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'soccerboy13542' said:
She's trying to open it up to get the avatar. You can't send scores for the in game levels using our launcher.

I hate that. I hate not beig able to send scores.


'jellsprout' said:
As a kid I always thought tennisballs looked delicious and I liked biting them. I still remember the feel of the fuzz on my teeth and tongue.
affliction
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Thursday, March 28 2013, 8:41 pm EST

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Hey! I just wanted to say that I am so thankful for this! I was finally able to play after trying for so long before I found this! Step 8 was what did it for me! I was wondering if you have or possibly could make cache for Gourmet Bowls as well? I can not play that one either Hopefully now I can get the avatar! Please get back to me here or through email if anyone can provide cache for Gourmet Bowls [email protected] Thanks a ton!

Oh yeah I forgot to add that I am on a mac and I would be happy to provide instructions for replacing the cache on a mac   
icecavesplz
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Tuesday, November 5 2013, 12:51 pm EST

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'affliction' said:
Hey! I just wanted to say that I am so thankful for this! I was finally able to play after trying for so long before I found this! Step 8 was what did it for me! I was wondering if you have or possibly could make cache for Gourmet Bowls as well? I can not play that one either Hopefully now I can get the avatar! Please get back to me here or through email if anyone can provide cache for Gourmet Bowls [email protected] Thanks a ton!

Oh yeah I forgot to add that I am on a mac and I would be happy to provide instructions for replacing the cache on a mac   


i'm on a mac! please tell me how to replace my cache!
kinectking
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Tuesday, November 5 2013, 7:26 pm EST

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this is literally what i have been dying for. i am making a level and i haven't been able to test it. I too am on a mac, and would really appreciate learning how to replace my cache with Livio's to potentially fix my issues.


Spoiler:
kinectking
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Sunday, November 10 2013, 3:29 pm EST

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ok guys, i was recently having an issue and i found the solution! go to neopets and try playing a different shockwave game. assuming the game is able to load, close it, then come to the interguild and attempt to run hatPC. This should fix it (or at least it did for me). Hope this helps


Spoiler:
icecavesplz
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Wednesday, November 13 2013, 7:13 pm EST

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tried that, didn't work. my flash is updated and i tried using safari and chrome. i'm on a mac and i really want to play this game, please help! seriously there has got to be a way
Silver
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Friday, October 9 2015, 12:34 am EST

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Quote:
EDIT: Chrome has betrayed us. Use Safari.

Wait, so, is it impossible to use HATPC on Chrome now?

Also, one of the links to open HATPC -- http://www.interguild.org/blogs/; -- returns a 404 error.
Darvince
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Friday, October 9 2015, 1:18 am EST
sea level change

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http://swf.neopets.com/games/g349_v9_99392.dcr is the link I always use. Note how the guide has a later step which links directly to the dcr file hosted on Neopets, allowing it to load even when Neopets the site isn't functional. I have it as a bookmark.

Chrome works fine, but I use a modified version called SRW Iron so that may make the difference as you have to manually update it and it doesn't have the tracking software that Google has in chrome to collect statistics and such. Also, it has become mandatory to use Fiddler to play levels as Neopets is lazy and hasn't transferred the HATPC level databases over to their new servers and it is unlikely they ever will. I'm not sure if uploading caves is still an actual function or if it's been disabled, however. I haven't tried as I have the latest Fiddler and it autoïnserts the
Code:
bpu http://www.neopets.com/games/cavemaker/pirate_level_load.php
so I don't have to memorize it.


"Time is a circuit, not a line; cybernetics instantiates templexity."

soccerboy13542
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Friday, October 9 2015, 1:24 am EST
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Whenever i open that link, chrome downloads it as a file... is that the same problem everyone else is having?


'Livio' said:
You know, I was thinking of getting an internship at Microsoft, but I'm not sure I want their lameness to rub off on me.
Silver
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Friday, October 9 2015, 1:57 am EST

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'soccerboy13542' said:
Whenever i open that link, chrome downloads it as a file... is that the same problem everyone else is having?

Yeah, I'm having this problem as well.
Darvince
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Friday, October 9 2015, 2:57 pm EST
sea level change

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Go to chrome://plugins. Do you have Adobe Shockwave Player as a plugin? If you do, then open Details, and check the MIME types for Shockwave. For file extensions, it should have .dir, .dxr, and .dcr.


"Time is a circuit, not a line; cybernetics instantiates templexity."

Silver
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Friday, October 9 2015, 4:27 pm EST

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'Darvince' said:
Go to chrome://plugins. Do you have Adobe Shockwave Player as a plugin? If you do, then open Details, and check the MIME types for Shockwave. For file extensions, it should have .dir, .dxr, and .dcr.

Despite installing Shockwave twice now, I don't have the plugin. I have one labelled Adobe Flash Player (and further labelled Shockwave Flash 19.0 r0), but it only does .swf and .spl files.
Darvince
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Friday, October 9 2015, 4:32 pm EST
sea level change

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https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6213033?vid=1-635800193778687988-235427159 This may be why. So Chrome has actually betrayed us, not only for Shockwave plugins, but for a variety of other content as well, such as Unity, Java, and Silverlight content. So you should switch to a browser that still supports NPAPI, such as every single other browser out there.


"Time is a circuit, not a line; cybernetics instantiates templexity."

Silver
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Friday, October 9 2015, 4:36 pm EST

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Blargh. Isn't there any way to bypass that? I don't really want to switch browsers just to be able to play one or two Shockwave games.

Guess I can do one of those shortcut things, but with Safari instead of IE, maybe?
Darvince
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Friday, October 9 2015, 4:49 pm EST
sea level change

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Google doesn't care, so I just haven't updated SRW Iron. There may be a way to go back to Chrome 42 or whichever one allowed NPAPI plugins to run. Also, you're not only disallowing those two Shockwave games but any Java apps you may want to run, and the occasional encounter with Unity you'll have.


"Time is a circuit, not a line; cybernetics instantiates templexity."


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