How to Make the Webcam Pages Update Automatically

New Update as of October 13, 2009!

After a crazy 2008 where Sun Micro and Java provided numerous updates that contained some bugs that made it such that a lot of our viewers were not seeing updating camera images—that is all behind us! Woohoo!

During a lot of 2007 and 2008 we had to suffer through a period wherein Sun MicroSystems was making tweaks to the way that Java played with the display of many of the websites like ours that display automatically Java-refreshed images on our personal computers.

They got all of those kinks worked out late in 2008 and we are also proud and happy to say that Sun MicroSystems, the creators of Java, actually called us personally and had their engineers work on some problems that THEY admitted were oversights within the later updates in 2008. Evidently we get enough traffic on this site that enough people were complaining to Java.com and mentioned our website!

Their engineers looked us over, called us and released their newest updates complete with tweaks that make our images (and others that use Java-updated camera images) begin working smoothly again! Pretty cool!

So, if you cannot already see our cam pages updating automatically, read on for the fix.

Let's Get Started

First, make sure that you cannot see ANY cameras updating, because sometimes there are cams that are down for any number of reasons.

As a test, see if you can see the image updating on this page: Ski Beech Cam; then you should see them running on other cams. If none of the cams are updating for you, then simply go to www.Java.com, download the latest update, and BOOM - you will be running fine.

Updated Java but the Webcams are Still Not Updating?

If you see a Java icon in the system tray when the applet is loaded, right click that Java icon and choose "OPEN CONTROL PANEL".
  • Step ONE: Under the General Tab in Java Control Panel, you'll see "TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES"; click "SETTINGS" under the "Temporary Internet Files" title.
  • Step TWO: Uncheck "KEEP TEMPORARY FILES ON MY COMPUTER" and click "DELETE FILES" button. Delete Applets and Applications, and Trace and Log files.
  • Step THREE: Then click "OK" and "APPLY." That's all!

NOTE: If the Java icon does not appear in the system tray, go to Windows Control Panel. In Classic View, there is an item named Java. Open it and follow above procedure.

(Hint for Vista: In windows control panel, type "java" in the search bar at the right top of the window.)

Closing Comments

Every computer is different and some of you are using older systems, Macs, etc. Your Java program may be different and we've heard of some situations where people can't seem to disable caching, etc. While we regret that you may not be able to see the live images, there is nothing that we can do to help you. The issue is not with our programming, Java's programming, or our cameras. The issue is within your computer.

Drop us an email to let us know that it worked for you! mike@appnet.com