My butt is a failure

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Apologies for the cheap joke but I was desperate to attract attention.

After all the aggro and expense of buying the thing and setting it up, my water butt doesn't work and the rain still goes resolutely down the drainpipe. It's a Harcostar with one of their diverters that attaches to the downpipe. Does anyone know of any quick fixes, apart from taking it all apart and trying again?

::lazy gardener emotion::

Arrange it so that the down pipe goes directly to the water butt. We just cut the downpipe off and cut a hole in the butt lid for it to go into.

Make sure the butt overflow isn't then running out on to the wall of your house as it'll create damp.

is the catcher level with the top of the butt? is the connector too bent, so water has to go uphill between the downpipe and the butt? is there something stuck somewhere?

And finally ... has there actually been any rain???

Yes, there has been rain (including artificial rain, ie me with a hosepipe playing water onto the bay window roof, from where it is supposed to speed its way into the butt).

The connector is a flexible pipe which goes between butt and downpipe and does hang in a u-shape but that's what the instructions require. Everything seems to depend on both ends of the connector being level, which we took pains to ensure they were, so grrrr.