Skip navigation

Site Help

Help, tech support & troubleshooting

Here are answers for our most frequently asked questions along with useful support information. If you don't find your answer here, we have included instructions below for reporting technical issues. Please follow the instructions to enable the MSNBC Technical Support team to respond more accurately and promptly to your issue.

  MSNBC.com FAQ

  Technical Support & Troubleshooting

FAQ -

MSNBC.com Redesign: Click here to read Publisher's Note about our new design, features and functionality. 

Related Stories:  This new feature on MSNBC.com will compare the text of the story you are reading with the text of all other stories on the site.  Based on this comparison, our system determines and displays the five most related stories on the site.  This is completely automated and MSNBC.com does not modify the results; the computer does all the work.  This service was created to help surface more stories you might be looking for.   

Recommended Stories: The list of recommended stories on the cover will be determined by tracking the sixteen stories you most recently viewed in a cookie and suggesting similar stories that may be of interest to you.

Your personal history page (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7424354) will show what stories are being recommended for you as well as why they have been recommended.  In addition, you can modify your history list or turn off this feature altogether by clicking “Turn off this feature”.

This feature requires that you accept cookies on your computer. If you do not, no stories will be recommended for you. Conversely, if you opt out and turn off this feature but later delete your cookies, story recommendations will begin again. 

Personalized Front Page: You can customize the MSNBC front cover to include local news, weather, sports scores as well as stock quotes with business headlines.  Scroll down the front cover to find the personalization module. You can change your choices as often as you like by clicking Change Settings drop-down menu, which is located at the top of My News personalized module and choosing the category you would like to change.

NewsMenu Fly-out: The return of the fly-out menu is part of our continuing effort to use the best technology to make MSNBC.com your chosen news destination. We have re-introduced the “fly-out” headline menu, listing headlines for top stories throughout MSNBC.com. If you choose to disable the feature, please click on the “disable-fly-out-menus” button at the bottom of the NewsMenu.

Finding your favorite section: We’ve placed some of our popular sections under easy-to-understand headings, such as Entertainment, News, and Business. So you can find your favorite Movies section under Entertainment, Baseball under Sports, etc. Each one of these topics has links to all of the sections formerly found in the flyout menu.

Searching for stories by subject: You can use one or more search words to find stories in today's edition of the news. At the top left corner of our pages, choose the MSNBC radio button and then enter the word(s) in the blank field and then click Search

Find a story seen on NBC News: From the left hand navigation go to the front pages directly by clicking on The Today Show, Nightly News, Dateline NBC or Meet the Press.  From these pages, you will find the stories that were featured on the shows.

Find a story seen on MSNBC TV:  From the left hand navigation go to the MSNBC TV front page by clicking on MSNBC TV front page. From here, you will find both links to the different MSNBC shows as well as the stories that were featured on MSNBC TV.

Contacting MSNBC TV and NBC TV shows:  Please go to Contact Us for information about contacting MSNBC TV and NBC News shows directly. TV show comments sent to Technical Support cannot be forwarded to the show.

Find Your Local News:  MSNBC affiliates in many locations provide the latest local news and sports stories. To see the local news front page, click on Local News from the left hand navigation and from there choose the state and city that interests you.

Supported browsers and operating systems: To best view MSNBC.com, please use the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.  MSNBC supports the most popular browsers and operating systems as measured by viewer usage.

MSNBC Video: Videos on MSNBC use the MSN Video Player.  To see the current computer and software requirements for using MSN Video go to   http://video.msn.com. Choose Help then under All Topics expand Getting Started with MSN Video. Choose About MSN Video for computer requirements and choose About Required Software for MSN Video for software requirements.

Ads on MSNBC.com: MSNBC.com provides news free of charge by relying on advertising revenue. This is standard practice for most media such as television, newspapers and magazines. Send comments about ads to . 

Contacting us with your views, suggestions and comments: Send your suggestions and comments about MSNBC.com to .

Purchasing NBC News transcript or video: Please go to Reprints and Copyright Information.

Privacy: There is a link to our Privacy statement at the bottom of every MSNBC page.

Technical Support & Troubleshooting -

Firefox: If you are using Firefox to visit MSNBC.com we encourage you to update your browser to the latest version (2.0.0.3) for best results. To check what version you are currently running go to Help and then choose About Mozilla Firefox. To download the latest version, please visit http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/. For problems with the latest version, contacts us via our Technical Support report page.

Newsletter subscription problems:
MSNBC Text Only Newsletters: For problems with your Text Only subscriptions, contact us via our Technical Support report page. Tell us the e-mail address you would like the newsletters(s) sent to and the name(s) of the newsletter(s) you would like to receive. For unsubscribing problems, please send the name(s) or the newsletter(s) that you no longer wish to receive and the email address used for the subscription(s). 
MSNBC HTML Newsletters: You may unsubscribe from any MSNBC HTML newsletter by clicking on the UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of all MSNBC HTML newsletters. If you subscribed to an MSNBC HTML newsletter using your .Net Passport account, please go to http://newsletters.msn.com/signin.asp to make any changes to your MSNBC HTML newsletter subscriptions. For technical support issues, please submit a technical support request with MSN Newsletter Technical Support.

Not receiving Newsletter(s): Please check your junk-mail inbox settings to see that your newsletters are not being flagged and auto-deleted as junk mail because they are bulk mailed. Many mail programs, such as Hotmail, have a junk mail folder that you should also check.

Network/connection problems: If you cannot connect to MSNBC.msn.com, a trace route should be included when you submit a Technical Support report. Trace route instructions:

  • For Windows XP, 2000, NT: Go to Start / Run, type in Cmd then click OK.
    In Command window, type in: tracert msnbc.msn.com
  • For Win9x:
    Go to Start/Programs/MS-DOS prompt
    In MS-DOS window, type in: tracert msnbc.msn.com
  • Copy the results and send to us in your report.

MSN or MyMSN problems: Please go to MSN Support.

Broken link found on the site: Please tell us the URL of the page that contains the bad link in addition to the bad link’s URL itself when you submit a Technical Support report.

Video player problems: To make sure your computer is configured properly to view videos go to   http://video.msn.com. Choose Help then under All Topics expand Getting Started with MSN Video. Choose About MSN Video to view requirements and special notes.   

If you see a "Content Unavailable" message after selecting a video, there may be a problem with the MSN Video server or software. Try viewing the content again later. If the problem persists, please submit a Technical Support report with the name of the video.

Problems playing Macromedia Flash: MSNBC slide shows and other Flash applications require version 8 of the Flash player. Click here to download Flash player 9. Sometimes, problems with a Flash Player that's already installed can prevent your upgrading to the latest player. Click here for details from Macromedia.

Ad blocking / Personal Firewall software problems: Some ad blocking and personal firewall programs may break some of the functionality on MSNBC.com.

Can't download pictures: We appreciate your interest in saving our pictures and stories. However, all material within MSNBC is copyrighted and cannot be legally reprinted, republished, duplicated, or used for anything other than personal use without permission from (and perhaps payment to) the holder of the copyright. Please identify the correct copyright and contact the appropriate photographer, author, or news service credited. For more information about our copyright, click the Terms and Conditions link at the bottom of this and every MSNBC page.        

Newsweek Support: Please go to Newsweek customer service.

Unable to vote: You must have cookies enabled to vote on MSNBC's Live Votes and other surveys. You must also have Scripting enabled.

Personalized settings don't stay: If you do not accept cookies, you will not be able to personalize MSNBC. You will lose your personalized settings if you delete your MSNBC cookies. If you have deleted your cookies, re-enter your zip code and stock information to return personalization to the MSNBC front cover.

Old content on web site: You may have old content cached (saved) in your browser’s temporary file folder. To clear your Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) browser’s cache:
1. Close all browser windows then open Internet Explorer (IE).
2. Click on “Tools” in the browser’s menu bar.
3. Select “Internet Options …” from the drop-down menu which opens the Internet Options window.
4. Select “Delete Files …” from the “Temporary Internet files” section on the General tab.
5. In the Delete Files window, click on the “Delete all offline content” check box and then click “Ok”.
6. Close browser window and then reopen your browser

Disabling/Enabling IntelliTXT: IntelliTXT is displayed only when a user mouse's over a double-underlined word of interest on our stories. To read more on how this feature works, or to disable this feature, click IntelliTXT Help.

Other: For all other technical problems concerning MSNBC.com, please submit a Technical Support report. Be sure to include all relevant information including steps to reproduce the problem. Let us know if you have recently installed or upgraded any software or internet utilities (personal firewalls, ad blocking software, virus protection, etc.) 

Any non-technical questions or comments sent to Technical Support cannot be forwarded. To submit comments to MSNBC TV or NBC News shows, please go to Contact Us for information and email addresses. Submit comments and suggestions about our MSNBC.com website to .

Rate this story LowHigh
 • View Top Rated stories