Smoking fireplace
First, check to see that the damper is open all the way. If it is, then try the window trick. If this doesn't help, it could be that the cap is too close to the opening of the chimney and has reduced the amount of opening for exhaust to a space smaller than necessary.
Also, if this is a situation you are experiencing just now it could be that you are not building a hot enough fire to really heat up the chimney and get a good draft going. Sometimes, in the early fall, people build a small fire to "just take the edge off" and this creates a problem in that the products of combustion basically, creosote) aren't fully exhausted and precipitate out onto the walls of the chimney. Then, a little later, when you build a much more robust fire you run the risk of igniting these precipitated by-products and experiencing a chimney fire (not fun).
I would check the draft as a first line of diagnosis.
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