As the internet expands and software continuously evolves to become more automated, sites like Kongregate look for ways to prevent spamming robots from making accounts and leaving advertisements or inappropriate posts in areas where users are looking for relevant content. One of the most common ways of preventing these robo-spammers from gaining access to the site is through the use of reCAPTCHA.
reCAPTCHA seems pretty simple to all of us non-robots, but spambots find it incredibly hard to get past. It's a piece of software whose purpose is to identify and bar entrance to all other bots. Kongregate uses reCAPTCHA to protect our forums, game chats and the gaming experience as a whole.
Like all robots, reCAPTCHA can be a bit overly aggressive at times. There are a number of errors that can prevent you from getting past reCAPTCHA, the most common of which are detailed out below!
- Make sure your software is up to date!
While there are many choices out there for browsers, we only provide support for FireFox, Chrome, Safari and Edge. Make sure that Javascript is enabled and that your Javascript Extension (if you are running one) is up to date! - Try turning off any adblockers or extensions, as these can change the way scripts on the page work. You can turn them back on once your account has been registered.
- Have you tried incognito mode in Chrome or a Private Session in Firefox? Did that fix the problem? These create new versions of the browser window that have better success with reCAPTCHA by bypassing previously stored site data.
- Are you using a VPN? If so, try turning it off. reCAPTCHA takes location data and compares it to your IP Address. A VPN may have a different IP Address and may be causing reCAPTCHA to reject your registration attempt. Make sure that your date and time settings are set to automatic as well!
- Try clearing your cache. Did that work? Captcha looks for repeated user creation attempts in your cookies, so clearing these may help bypass the error you're running into.
If you continue to have issues with creating an account, please contact us at support@kongregatesupport.zendesk.com
Please also note: If you see that an account has posted spam on our forums, chats or in game comments, please report the profile and mark the post as Spam! reCAPTCHA isn't perfect and some sneaky spambots do make it past the system, but our Admin team is always on the lookout for opportunities to shut down the spam!