Hey guys! Those of you who read my Chamber of Secrets Spoilers live blog yesterday know that I myself had to do a bit of trouble shooting to get CoS to work correctly and allow me to explore. With the rest of the school getting in about an hour I thought that a trouble shooting entry was probably a good idea. For starters I will be posting things I’ve already been asked about and helped others with, and as I get more questions I will be adding to it.
If you are having difficulty and you do not see an answer here, please leave a comment or tweet me @ElmBlade43 and I will be glad to assist you in any way I can. Then I will post the found solution here for others to use.
I will also be posting help for each of the moments where you must complete something to move to the next moment. Don’t read below the spoiler tag if you don’t want to get spoilered. (IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE ITEM LIST CLICK HERE)
Okay, lets get started.
The new chapters appear locked, how can I get them to unlock for me?
This has happened to a few, they could see friends in the new chapters but they themselves did not have an “Explore Chapter 1″ button on their Gateway. Go back to the last chapter of Philosopher’s Stone and proceed through it using the arrows in the bottom menu. Once you pass the end of the last chapter it will return you to your Gateway when you hit the final arrow. After you have done this you should be able to click on the big Philosopher’s Stone icon and find that the chapters have now unlocked for you.
I can get into the chapters, but I can’t zoom properly or pick up anything. What am I doing wrong?
Yesterday I was attempting to browse the new chapters on Internet Explorer 8 and could not zoom at all. I could select some objects but I had no sound and no zoom. Turns out you must have IE9 at a minimum. I ended up browsing it completely on FireFox. As far as I can tell you need IE9 or higher, Safari 5 or higher, Firefox or Chrome. I’m not sure on version of Chrome and Firefox but I can tell you that neither my Chrome or Firefox are fully up to date and I checked and the moments were working fine on both. I have had reports of certain Chrome users having issues but so far FireFox has been the winner. I have yet to have a single FireFox user say they could not properly see things in the moments.
Official statement from Pottermore via e-mail about system requirements for CoS:
To ensure you have the best experience using Pottermore, we recommend that you use one of the following web browsers:
- Internet Explorer 8+
- Firefox 3+
- Chrome 5+
- Safari 5+
You will also need Adobe® Flash Player 10+ if you want to experience everything that Pottermore has to offer. It’s free to download and should only take a minute or so. You can download Adobe® Flash player 10+ here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer.
However, if your device does not support Flash (if it is an Apple device, for example) you can still enjoy all aspects of Pottermore with the exception of the Potions and Wizard’s Duel activities.
Finally, make sure that Javascript is enabled. You will also need to enable cookies to enjoy the Pottermore experience. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information on how we use cookies. We ask for your consent to our use of cookies when you accept our Terms & Conditions at the point of registration.You can check whether these settings are currently enabled on your computer – or find out how to change your current settings – here:
- Javascript: http://www.enable-javascript.com
- Cookies: http://www.whatarecookies.com
As I have already said from what I’m seeing IE9 is required, this^^ is what HELP e-mailed me the first day when I was locked out. I was on IE8 at the time.
I have all the books on my list, but it is still showing incomplete and I can not buy anything else in Diagon Alley, what is going on?
Unfortunately this has happened to a good friend of mine and we have not yet found a way to fix it. In their circumstance a kind friend gifted them the Lockhart books before they themselves had a chance to purchase them. Though the books are showing crossed off on the list, the list is not showing as completed and they can not purchase anything in Diagon Alley until the list has shown complete. DO NOT GIFT THE SCHOOL BOOKS TO SOMEONE WHO HAS NOT PURCHASED BOOKS YET. If this has happened to you and you are locked out there is not any work around we are aware of , visit the Pottermore Help Page and click the “Other” heading followed by the “What’s Next?” heading and then finally the “Need more help?” link so that you can send a bug report to Pottermore and hopefully they can unstick you. Unfortunately I do not know how long it will take to have it fixed. My friend is still awaiting and is unable to buy anything until they do so.
CLICK HERE TO SKIP TO THE COMMENT FORM WITHOUT VIEWING SPOILERS
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How do I play the Pudding minigame?
Just keep clicking the bottom of the pudding to keep it in the air for 14 seconds and then reap your reward and move forward.
How do I play the De-Gnoming minigame?
Wait for a gnome to pop his head up and click and hold. You do not need to move the mouse around it will not do you any good because you can not move the hand on screen. Hold while the gnome is spun around your hand until he is at a good speed then release the mouse button to fling him in the direction is pointing. You want to let go when he is swinging up between 5 and 2 on a clock depending on how fast he’s spinning and how far from the wall you are. The one closest to the right wall is the hardest and if you can aviod him, do so .
What order do I click the envelopes in the Envelope minigame?
Click the above image for a larger version. Once you have clicked the envelopes in the proper order a cup will move allowing you to collect your Second Year Shopping List.
How do I use the floo powder?
I had problems with this in Chrome and as we already know in IE. In some browsers you can literally pick up the floo powder and drop it into the fire. In some you will click collect and it will automatically unlock the path forward. In others you will click the pot and then the fire and it will go. I have not figured out why it is different for everyone, but it is for some reason.
How do I get the items in Harry’s cupboard under the stairs?
Once you have made it all the way through to the fourth moment of the fourth chapter you will have collected a hairpin. If you return to the first moment of the first chapter you can use this hairpin to open up the cupboard and get the Sprout Flavoured bean and Corenelius Agrippa chocolate frog card.
That is all I have for now. If you have any other troubles browsing Chamber of Secrets feel free to leave questions here, or tweet me @ElmBlade43 and I will be glad to help in any way possible. And happy Chambering!
I am at the end of Chapter 4 and have my shopping list, why can’t I purchase books or anything now?
BOOKS HAVE JUST BEEN UNLOCKED
Ce sa nu faci in promovarea site-ului online
i am unable to sign in into pottermore site via IE 10. why is that? and am unable to find fluxweed on CoS chap 5 moment 2. i tried double clicking 5 times ,wait for the car to go back and more my mouse all over the right side as shown on the youtube. still no avail.
I am still stuck in chapter 4 of COS. No matter how many times I play the letter game it will not let me pass to the second moment. Anyone have any ideas?
Is it coming up wrong every time?
Nope, I’ve gotten it right, gotten the shopping list and purchased all the books.
And the forward arrow is still locked?
Yes, it is. And by the way I so appreciate your fast response!
You caught me online prepping to live blog thru PoA. I’m a little mystified by this one though. If you trust me enough I would be glad to log in to your account and try to wiggle past it. (If you want me I don’t post your info here, email it to elmblade43@gmail.com.) you can always change your password.
Have you tried going to the beginning of that chapter and clicking the moment after that?
No, but I will try that now
I tried that and it didn’t work. I also went back to chapter three and went through the whole chapter to see it that would work. I’ve logged off, logged on, tried different browsers. Nada!
As in no matter what pattern you click the cups in it says it is incorrect?
I’m stuck on CoS chapter 12, for some reason I get a black screen on Google Chrome, while playing on Opera, it just loops back around to Dumbledore’s Office, so there’s no way for me to move on to chapter 13 and progress like everybody else. I’m getting fairly annoyed now. I was so excited about the new chapters and now I don’t even feel like being a part of Pottermore anymore. I’m fed up of all the stupid bugs and glitches. It takes all the fun and enjoyment out of it.
What moment is giving you just a black screen? Or is it when you try to move forward from Dumbledore’s office? Honestly, I’m done with CHROME it has been glitching on sites other than Pottermore for me recently. I don’t even know what Opera is…. have you tried FireFox?
This is very helpful! I have IE8 and it wasn’t working, but is better in FireFox(9). Still have a few problems. The main one is that the shed door won’t open in Chapter 1, Moment 2. Half of it disappeared once, but it won’t open. That and no matter how many gnomes I pitch over the wall, I can’t go on. When I try to force it with the url, it says the page has disappeared. Maybe it’s overloaded? Oh, and when the new book came on, all my House Points went away!
Did you receive the book for checking the gnomes and then it didn’t unlock? Also, everyone’s points were reset to zero when the cup was awarded in July.
It said I was awarded the book, and asked if I wanted to continue or go back to abusing those poor gnomes. The book is not with my other books in my trunk, however.
Hmmm. How long have you been stuck like this and have you tried other browsers/ computers?
As I mentioned before, I had to use FireFox to make it work at all, and I’ve been stuck at that page for hours. Even tried reloading it and tossing gnomes again. However. I just tried loading the site on IE and… ta da! Now, it works, and I can get past that page! (Sometimes I hate computers.) Thanks for the help, though!
Actually, I’m stuck on De-Gnoming chapter, all I can see is that sign of a lockpick which doesn’t allow me to explore more chapters. What could cause this problem?
Thanks so much in advance…
Have you tossed three gnomes out during the time limit?
I got more than enough gnomes out – twice – and it’s still locked for me.
I cant get past chapter 11 moment 2- I found two of the spells but all the others it says they were casted incorrectly! I think i see expelliarmus is the right back but when i click on it just says it was casted wrong.
I’m havin trouble collecting the dried nettles: I had collected it in book 1, chapter 8 moment 2, and in book 2 chapter 1 moment 2, but I gave them away as gifts. The first one is regenerated, but the second one isn’t visible anymore (it doens’t regenerate). I think this is a bug, caused by the fact that dried nettles are in both books. But how to resolve this? I tried to recollect the second dried nettles by using chrome, firefox and ie, but no difference, I couldn’t recollect the dried nettles in book 2 chapter 1 moment 2.
perhaps they wait until September 1st to begin the new school year.
There is a chance. I was hoping for today but looks like a bust.
has the chapter 5 of chamber of secrets opened
No I has not. You might see friends “in it” but it is not open ad nothing loads.
thanks for replying
Also, my bad on the typoes in the response. I typed it on my phone and must have been all thumbs at the time. LOL.
Dear Elm,
Thanks for helping me to unlock the new ‘Chamber’ chapters. I was confused and frustrated– confunded!
When you wrote, “After you have done this you should be able to click on the big Philosopher’s Stone icon and find that the chapters have now unlocked for you,” did you mean– the big Chamber of Secrets icon?
Thanks again!
Yes the icon of the two entwined snakes.
Elm Blade, great blog! and thanks for posting about the ‘locked diagon alley’ problem. i can’t believe how quickly PM fixed the glitch! in about 24 hours! (in PM terms, the same as the speed of light!)
that’s a first!
Hi Elm,
Noticed you mentioning being frustrated by the fact we can’t do the new spells yet and many people don’t seem to understand why…well I’m not surprised because we’ve not started back at Hogwarts yet and it’s against wizarding law to practise magic outside of school ;D I expect once the chapters open where we are in Hogwarts we will be able to use the new spells
x CatSun
I suspect spells will not unlock until Chapter 11 actually. Dueling club. We are frustrated because due to poor game design I’ve casted Full Body Bind thousands of times.
Does anyone else find the gnome game disturbing? They twitch on the ground…if they fall in the water they sink… I’m pretty sure we’re killing them and it’s really grossing me out.
I find it disturbing too, I don’t like to hurting them (or kill them), It’s a funny game, creative and everything I just hope that when you throw them they just go away running or something…
Thanks for this page, it is super helpful! I read through your bit on the Floo powder but it’s doing absolutely nothing for me. I tried clicking and dragging and right-clicking and clicking the fire and cursing at my screen, nothing. Tried Firefox and Chrome, both are up-to-date. I haven’t had any issues with the other chapters, just this. Is there another obvious secret I’m missing or is it just not working for some people?
Are you still locked in that moment? As in the right arrow is locked? I had one friend who used IE that worked terribly for everything else. But on this moment alone we went in and “collected” the flop powder and it unlocked.
All I can think is flash or JavaScript isn’t working properly if it’s doing it on all browsers.
I ended up getting it to work on IE. No matter what I did the arrow was still locked. But I’m all caught up now, hooray.
Yay! Might want to drop pottermore a line detailing your difficulty. Go to Help then Other then What’s Next? then Need more help? to send in a glitch report.
when I was there, it didn’t work for me either, then I reloaded the moment, and tried it again, and I think it worked,
perhaps you can try going to http://www.pottermore.com/en/book2/chapter4/moment3 that’s the link to the next moment
I seem to recall one of your tweets in which you had attached a message from PM which said that the opening of CoS would be informed to us by email. Seems so awkward that I just now received this particular email from PM about CoS opening – two days AFTER I finished exploring the first four chapters…
Yeah they have never quite gotten a handle on prompt e-mail notification. I just got mine as well. Lol.
thanks. turns out i DO have internet ex. 9. i didn’t check before asking you.
When’s the next Ask Elm?
Drowning in questions. Probably the weekend.
Is there sound for Chapter 1? I’m not getting any.
There should be sound in all the moments. Check the system requirements above. I was running on a computer with no flash and got no sound.
why isn’t de-gnoming game working? im using internet explorer 7
I just posted the info! You need IE9 or higher. But you could always install FireFox or Chrome both work find with the game.
I may be missing something here (or I may have even forgotten what was given in the book), but please clarify this for me. If all (but one) books this year are from that idiot Lockhart (how many galleons did those books cost me?!?
), is there even a book for 2nd year potions? What did Snape really use to teach his students??? Or do we collect ‘Moste Potente Potions’ from the restricted section of the library, and that becomes our potions book?
I just spent 40 bleeding galleon on Lockhart’s crap books. There was no new potion book in this year I guess, am hoping we COLLECT one, and it just might be Most Potent Potions.
Or we’ll just nick the new potions book from Snape’s office
This one is full of us stealing things so it wouldn’t surprise me! Or maybe we will be able to brew more than just Polyjuice from Most Potente Potions!
That’s exactly what I mean! I couldn’t believe that we were supposed to nick away the Remembrall when His Royal Highness Harry Potter was trying to catch it.
This is weird. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I could actually take a look at the names of the moments of Chapter 5. In the Gateway, I got the ‘Explore Chapter 5′ button (for Chapter 5). I clicked on it, and I got the starting page for Chapter 5, containing the names of the moments. I haven’t been able to explore the moments though (not loading properly), but I still do know the names of the moments (don’t worry, I won’t tell!). Last time I checked, 23 people have also ‘liked’ the chapter. So, does it mean Chapter 5 is coming sooner than we think? Or was it a temporary glitch on part of Pottermore (to mistakenly reveal stuff to us)?
Actually if you look I appear to be in Chapter 5 because of this. I think they have started putting things online but not entirely. And it glitched and let people see somethings. I have also seen the Chapter 5 splash page and end page. Glitchy glitchy glitchy
Since COS opened, all my old duels have disappeared, and I can’t start any new ones. Is that a server glitch?
You can’t start new ones? *goes to check*
It is allowing me to open new open duels. Dunno what’s going on.
Hi! Thanks for posting the information about unlocking the CoS! I couldn’t get in and was so happy to see your trick of replaying Ch. 17 from the PS. (Of course you’d find all these tricks; you’re ambitious and resourceful, the perfect Slytherin.) This is a great blog!
KnightIce30
Ravenclaw
Glad it helped!
Is there supposed to be sound on the COS chapters? The only sounds I can hear are the popping noise when you hit the cake and a splash when a gnome gets thrown in the pond. Apart from that, I can’t hear anything. No birds or background sounds. Is it meant to be like this or is it a fault? (my sound works fine on the PS chapters)
The new chapters are coded in HTML 5 with some help from Flash. I did not have sound in the computer lab at school and had sound everywher in FireFox at home. What browser are you using?
I’m using ‘mozilla firefox’.
It’s alright! I opened Pottermore on Google Chrome and the sound works now
I think they are having compatibility issues I have switched browsers a couple times to get things to work right. Glad you got sound though!
Have you gotten your galleons yet? It says that my galleons for COS are deposited into my Gringotts bank account already but I didn’t get anything.
Mine appeared after I completed chapter 4. Or maybe midway through. It is 150 galleons.
Haven’t gotten mine. Hmm.. maybe I’ll start from chapter 1 again.
Let me know if you figure it out.
Sure
I have completed the first 4 chapters and have my shopping list but I can’t buy the books? I also can’t buy any potions ingredients…
I’m having the same problem Matt :-/
We must wait until tomorrow. Added question above.
Books will be unlocked tomorrow. Until then we can not buy anything once you have the shopping list. An unfortunate side effect.
Thanks
I wonder if the realised that would happen…. It seams a bit dumb if they did.
I’m not sure it occured to them. Have added it above to the questions now for others. I’m looking forward to buying them. New spells and potions!
Elm, but how did you find out that you could open the cupboard with a hairpin?
When I was live blogging I had a fabulous team of commenters who tipped me off. Word of mouth is a fabulous thing!
Oooh…. that’s really cool!
But Elm, how in the world did you find out that we could use the hairpin to open the cupboard?
When I was live blogging my way through yesterday I had a wonderful team of readers and they tipped me off about it. Word of mouth is a fabulous thing!
That’s totally cool! Thanks for your blog again
did you notice the license plate on the car??
Weird! “CoS207″? What does the 207 mean I wonder?
207 – okay, if it means the 207th day of this year is July 25, will chapters 5-11 actually be released on July 25??? I’m only speculating…
I’m hearing that on page 207 of Chamber of Secrets is when the car comes to rescue Harry and Ron in the Forbidden Forest.
Maybe it can be July 20?
Just checked my book and it doesn’t correspond to that moment. The page does contain Fawkes burning and rebirth, so maybe it’s a hint that pottermore will use something concerning Fawkes once that chapter is open.
I have the signature version, and there p207 (of CoS) is the page where the car saves them from the spiders!
I think a few people were trying with ebooks and books in other languages.
Did you check a physical UK copy? I don’t have one to check and that’s the one they were looking in.
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Will some of the locked stores in Diagon Alley get unlocked tomorrow as well when we purchase our school books?
I suspect yes but I don’t want to say yes and be wrong. We do know for sure that tomorrow we will be able to purchase our School List Items. My gut tells me there is more though!
new chapters just opened!!!
Yes Chapters 1-4 are now up for all!
What is the bonus for throwing the gnomes past the stump?? I Have thrown at least 4 gnomes past the stump per session but have never gotten anything other than the Lockheart-book.
I’m not sure what the “bonus” is supposed to be. I got one past the stump and didn’t see anything special. No points are anything. We should send a help query.
I got a Lockhart book as a bonus for getting it past the stump.
I thought you just got the book for completing the challenge in general.
I think it said on the pop up that the Lockhart book was the bonus gift. I don’t know if those who didn’t get any past the stump got the book or not though.
I have talked to a few people who say they got it without passing the stump. My friend is going through the chapters tonight and agreed to let me do the gnome game once and NOT pass the stump to see if we get the book anyway.
Interesting…I guess I just assumed the book was the reward since I got one past the stump.
not a question, but just a useful thing to use
if you quickly want to travel between chapters and moments, you can easily change the link in your browser, for example http://www.pottermore.com/en/book2/chapter3/moment2 will get you to book 2, chapter 3, moment 2, so if you want to go collect a certain Item which you forgot earlier, instead of having to scroll trough all the moments and chapters, this is a quick and easy way to move, note that you probably won’t be able to use it to go to moments which are still locked for you,
some people probably already figured that out, but I just thought I’d share it
Thank you, SandRune
You’re welcome!