chat is limited to a certain time each month, if it were free open chat trolls and unpleasant characters whould overwhelm the mods (actually tested and occured) and ruin it for everyone else
Pssst... this is AC, not MFK.
I connected without a problem this AM using chrome, have been seeing issues if I try to use IE 8 though.
seen the same error messages on the top of member pages also, so it's probably something due to a recent upgrade or change, and I'd expect will be sorted out shortly.
I am assuming though that someone has reported this to the administration. But I do currently see people connected to chat on the main forum page, so I assume that it's working or there's a usable workaround.