I don't know if you are still having issues with chat....

but....

I updated my computer to IE7. Turns out it has a compatibility issue with Java 6?
I uninstalled IE7 and rarely get booted from chat any more. (Sure hope that was the problem.)

Also (did I say this somewhere?) you need to allow pop ups for the chat. If you have more than one task bar, there might be a pop up blocker still on (on ONE of them ) I run with 3 task bars and the ISP task bar adds another!

good wishes!