What Can Go Wrong?

Avoiding Damage to the Puzzle 
The manufacturer has provided several very important suggestions to help you avoid damaging your puzzle. lf you ignore this advice, you risk ending up with a handful of plastic squares, colored paper, and loose cords. Unlike Rubik’s Cube, Rubik’s magic is not simple to reassemble. 

Keeping the puzzle Aligned 
It is also important to follow the manufacturer’s suggestion whenever the puzzle gets slightly out of alignment. When this happens, 2 adjacent squares will tend to overlap slightly, and the puzzle in its original 2-by-4 shape will not lie flat. Try pulling the overlapping squares apart and moving them up and down with respect to each other. I have found that these puzzles get slightly looser as they are used, so problems with alignment and stiffness tend to go away 

Cords out of Grooves 
A minor problem can occur when the longer cord segments fall slightly out of their grooves.When this happens, Justgently nudge the cord back and then jiggle 2 squares a little bit. 

Twisted Cords 
Sometimes twists in the cords will accumulate in one place and prevent the pairs of cords from passing between each other as they should, which can prevent otherwise permitted moves from being made. In a normal permitted move the small segments of cord pairs pass between each other. If there are twists in the outer pair of cords, this movement of the inner pair may be block, and the squares will not reopen all the way.

The feeling will be much the same as when you try to move the puzzle improperly. If you ever have trouble accomplishing what should be a permitted move, you should consider the possibility that cords are twisted.

TWISTS IN CORD AT CROSSING.

TWISTS BLOCK MOVEMENT OF CORDS THROUGH EACH OTHER.

To fix the problem you must carefully push the accumulated twisted cords through to the other side of the puzzle.

PUSH TWISTS THROUGH TO OTHER SIDE.

 
This has the effect of putting the twists into the larger cord segment where they can be somewhat dissipated.