Video chat UPnP problem
Hi there,
Since upgrading to Leopard, my wife and I have had no end of problems video chatting to others via iChat. Everything used to work fine in our older 10.4 installation.
When we connect in the morning, the first person to open up iChat is fine. They can video chat with others outside our local network no problem. However, the second person that connects can only text chat, video will not work.
Having read through the threads in here I think I can see the problem, but I don't know how to fix it. That's where I am hoping someone here can help.
When the first iChat client connects, the router automatically allocates a route through the NAT firewall on port 16402, the debug log says:
This is fine, iChat works perfectly on that port configuration.
However, when the next person opens up iChat on the next computer, we get the following entry:
In this instance the port the UPnP process allocates is above the range that iChat can use, ie 16406. Hence when we try to video chat it won't work.
In a previous posting ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1212655&tstart=0) Ralph Johns mentioned that:
+You will see iChat 4 uses only 10 Ports.+
+They are similar numbers but start from top Down (16402 being first choice)+
+(iChat 3 uses 4 from 20 ports bottom up with 16384 being first).+
My belief is that if my router worked the same in the older version of iChat, then the first port allocated would have been 16384, and then next would be 16388 - a port within the allowable iChat range. Hence everything worked fine with two clients.
Does anyone have any idea how I can change iChat to use to allocate ports for the bottom of the range, or adjust my router (a Netopia 3346N-VGx) to allocate UPnP ports in a downward direction?
Thanks in advance,
Simon
Since upgrading to Leopard, my wife and I have had no end of problems video chatting to others via iChat. Everything used to work fine in our older 10.4 installation.
When we connect in the morning, the first person to open up iChat is fine. They can video chat with others outside our local network no problem. However, the second person that connects can only text chat, video will not work.
Having read through the threads in here I think I can see the problem, but I don't know how to fix it. That's where I am hoping someone here can help.
When the first iChat client connects, the router automatically allocates a route through the NAT firewall on port 16402, the debug log says:
Mapped via UPnP, port 16402 to port 16402
This is fine, iChat works perfectly on that port configuration.
However, when the next person opens up iChat on the next computer, we get the following entry:
UPnP: TCPProc begin loop
UPnP eport 16402 already mapped: retry next
Mapped via UPnP, port 16406 to port 16402
UPnP: TCPProc end
UPnP shutdown
In this instance the port the UPnP process allocates is above the range that iChat can use, ie 16406. Hence when we try to video chat it won't work.
In a previous posting ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1212655&tstart=0) Ralph Johns mentioned that:
+You will see iChat 4 uses only 10 Ports.+
+They are similar numbers but start from top Down (16402 being first choice)+
+(iChat 3 uses 4 from 20 ports bottom up with 16384 being first).+
My belief is that if my router worked the same in the older version of iChat, then the first port allocated would have been 16384, and then next would be 16388 - a port within the allowable iChat range. Hence everything worked fine with two clients.
Does anyone have any idea how I can change iChat to use to allocate ports for the bottom of the range, or adjust my router (a Netopia 3346N-VGx) to allocate UPnP ports in a downward direction?
Thanks in advance,
Simon
MacBook Pro 2Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.1)
