Hi David!...
That hourglass means the puter is trying to do what you're asking of it and something is not letting it do so...most likely the firewall.
Which O/S are you using......Which firewall...
My O/S is Windows XP here and my firewall is ZoneAlarm Pro...
An example of a firewall problem I have...(well...not a problem, just the firewall doing what it's supposed to do)...is that if I go to a website to download a .pdf file, the firewall stops it cold and I'll get the hourglass also...Then after a bit...it'll throw a box up saying that Windows can't find that site.
It will do this under other scenarios too....
To make it work, I'll have to open the firewall,
go to the privacy button,
then under privacy I'll click the Site List tab,
then find the URL for that site,
then click on the URL to bring up the menu for that site,
and click to allow Mobile Codes for that site.
After doing the firewall/computer combination will then allow me to download the .pdf file with no hold-ups or problems.
Basically...the firewall was not allowing the computer to go to where I was telling it to go because the firewall was sensing the mobile code on that site.
There could be something similar going on with your system.
Another thing to try is to switch off your pop-up blocker in your browser to see if that might help.
Hopefully, we can get you through this...
My firewall can lock this puter down so tight that nobody can even tell it's online!...It's VERY stealthy...
Incidentally...The firewall will not allow the SMF pages to work at all without me making those adjustments to the firewall...only had to do it once...everything has worked fine at SMF ever since I adjusted those settings.
Hope something I've said will help you with the problem you're having...
Until later...