We have been working with apple level 2's and in turn they has been working with her engineers for over 2 months now on this issue, We work with apple every week for hours trying to understand this issue, Here is the approximate sequence of events related to messages.
About my setup
I have 4 retail locations all using iMacs, plus personal macs, my managers also have macs. (So - many macs / users involved) WE have used messages and before that ichat since the software was created. We use the video conferencing, audio conferencing, remote login and texting for communication countless times through a day, We also use message to drop send files back and forth many times a day. We are all set up with aim/aol accounts.
We are in Ontario, Canada. All computers are using Bell for the internet provider.
Approximate sequence of events
1. January 15 using mavericks we lost the ability to remote log in to computers. Most systems upgraded to Yosemite. Remote login is restored.
2. Feb, March - we could no longer send files that contained pictures between any of the at lest 10 systems. ( So Excel files could be sent and received , but screen shots, jpg files etc would indicate that it was sent but no one could receive.) (Still cannot receive any file with pics- tried many formats)
3. March - Began working with Apple to resolve the receiving of files containing pics in messages.
4. March - April time frame video conferencing becomes extremely unreliable, 50 % of the time we are experience connection issues. Work with internet company for many hours trying to understand why. At this point we feel it is networking.
5. May - we loose remote log in capability, still working with networking company and apple to understand issues. Video conferencing still working about 50% of the time.....Symptoms - will ring at other end but will not establish connection
6. Early July messages stops working completely except for basic texting. We set up using jabber accounts thinnking it may be an aol account issue, No success, We use older os versions mavericks to early 10 yosemite thinking it was the apple 10.4.4 update.... will not work.
7. We partitioned drives, so we have clean drives to rule out software compatibility issues. Clean drives running only messages will not work.
8. Try several configurations with apple for hours this week - still no luck.
Still working with apple, at this time no one seems to be able to resolve. We are using FaceTime for now, however don't like it, team viewer for remote log in, messages still for text, and email for pictures. We need it all back in one reliable software.
Side Note
Was told by apple that they have discontinued the multi video conferencing recently in messages.. This is terrible - we used the multi video with 4 chats at once, daily for meetings.
WHEN we get messages back to normal, we need apple developers to restore the multi video conferencing back, I was told by level 2's that they would restore if there is enough feedback requesting it.
Will post any new results, we are scheduled to work with apple next week.
Anybody, ideas ???