Add Picasa to your firewall's "exceptions" list, and check that port 80 is not blocked. For Windows firewall, please follow the instructions at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/internet/sp2_wfexceptions.mspx. If that doesn't work, temporarily disable your firewall and try to upload again.

  Please be advised that you'll want to re-enable your firewall after trying this step.

If adding Picasa as an exception doesn't resolve the problem, and you're able to upload photos without your firewall, you may want to reinstall your firewall.

As a good practice, you'll want to use only one firewall at a time. Using multiple firewalls can cause serious conflicts for your system.

  Your workplace may have corporate firewalls or other Internet Security settings that prevent you from uploading. Try the uploading from home and see if you see the same problem.

Test whether you can upload to Picasa Web Albums directly using only Internet Explorer. See our instructions to do this with either the "Basic Uploader" or "Uploader Controls" features.

If you're unable to upload directly with the Basic Upload or Uploader Controls, please try the steps below:

1. Sign in to Picasa Web Albums with IE.
     Note: The first time you sign in to Picasa Web Albums, you'll be prompted to accept the Terms of Service. You'll need to accept in order to upload images through the Picasa desktop program.
2. In IE, go to Tools > Internet Options.
3. Select Connections > LAN Settings and toggle the Automatically Detect Settings option. (If it's checked, uncheck it. If it's unchecked, check it.)
4. Click File to open the File menu. Near the bottom of the menu, check to see that there is no checkmark beside Work Offline. If there is a checkmark, select Work Offline to remove it.

After you configure Internet Explorer, try your upload again through Picasa.

If you're still encountering errors, you may want to reinstall your firewall if you haven't done so already.

Sign out of your Google Account for Picasa Web Albums and exit your web browser. To clear your browser's cache and cookies in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, please see the instructions at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/howto/customizing/clearcache.mspx.

To clear your cache and cookies in Mozilla Firefox:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox.
2. Choose Tools > Clear Private Data.
3. In the Clear Private Data window, check the boxes next to Cache and Cookies.
4. Click Clear Private Data Now.

Visit http://picasa.google.com to download and install the latest version of Picasa. Uninstall the older version of Picasa first, before you reinstall the newest version of Picasa. Once it's installed, restart your computer.

Google Web Accelerator and other Internet accelerator programs route you through a proxy, and this process can disrupt connection attempts from Picasa and Picasa Web Albums. By disabling all web accelerators, you can restore the connections. See instructions on how to disable Google Web Accelerator.

First, please make sure you've tried all the solutions above. If you continue to experience problems uploading, please contact us.