Help! Empire/Party technical problem

[stoxtrader]

About 2/3 of the time I load Empire, the lobby is empty of tables, I can log in (after a two minute wait, which is related to the size of my notes file I think), but can't access any tables or the cashier (when I click on cashier, my internet explorer opens up to yahoo :-(. weird)

Any one have any suggestions or solutions? I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the software.

My current workaround consists of rebooting and trying again until it works, which sometimes take 3-4 tries.
thanks in advance
stox.