You need to be logged in to be sure 'active topics' works. Sometimes someone can send you a link and when you arrive you are viewing it, but not as a logged in member.
Knowing forums intricately as I do, I'm sorry that I have no answer to "also my smilies are not working or when i need to scroll up or down on the posts from 1-7 eg nil do you think my new antivirus thingy as done something"
But then English is my language