The root cause of video problems?

Question

The root cause of video problems?

Since upgrading to Leopard, I had been consistently unable to get video chat working using iChat. I have two machines (a Powermac G4 and a Macbook) behind a Netgear router, and nothing I tried would get either machine to connect to a video chat. Each attempt failed with a message stating that the other party failed to respond. I tried disabling the OS X firewall, the router firewall, setting port forwarding, setting the target machine as a DMZ router, and all without success.

Finally last night I managed to get video chat working seamlessly, simply by switching from my normal .Mac iChat account to a standard AIM account. Yes folks, as simple as that. With AIM account, video works flawlessly. Add @mac.com to the equation, and it's no video, no how.

I can offer no clue as to why this might be the case, but if you are having video issues, then rather than spend hours faffing with your router and firewall settings, simply switch to a standard AIM account, and see if everything works as it should. If it's not just me, then Apple need to take a long hard look at their .Mac servers.

Powermac G4 867MHz DP, Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Dec 11, 2007 1:44 AM

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Answer 1

Rod Fryer

Level 4

1,873 points

Dec 11, 2007 2:09 AM in response to Drawing Business

Just replying here to keep a subscription for this thread. I'm keen not to miss any further replies.

Thanks, again, DB, for the suggestion.

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Answer 2

Dec 11, 2007 8:10 AM in response to Drawing Business

It isn't just .mac accounts, but also AIM, and you don't have to be using leapord as iChat is also not working with Tiger. Why?

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Answer 3

Dec 14, 2007 1:18 PM in response to Tom Lyon1

Hi,

It could be the AIM normal pre-Christmas sort out.

Since about 2004 at least AIM have started to clear out what they identify as unused Screen names and allow them to be chosen again.

They did this about 4 times a year with a big one in early December.

Now AIM have links to the @mac ID lists as they are valid IDs as well

The process obviously impinges on some people's Buddy lists as they still list those screen names. It also takes place over however many servers AIM actually use and the fact they have different ones for doing different jobs.
How is On-Line comes back to you from a different server to the one you login with.

More recently there is some evidence that AIM do this updating more frequently and it is also less drastic (probably more organised) than in previous years.

There have been a spate of posts though that seem related.
Leopard can do an SSL login and this server has been patchy recently.
Leopard also added a rush or new and returning to try users.
GoogleTalk have added AIM Protocols to their service(s)
@mac names like this thread seem to be partly effected. (however make sure you have not just updated your password to more than 16 characters as this will not work with the AIM servers)
AIM Name users have also reported problems such as Tom has said.

The problem, if it is this, seemed to start last week and would normally be finished in a week (this Wed just gone 12th Dec for late comers).

If it persists try deleting com.apple.ichat.AIM.plist and restarting iChat

9:18 PM Friday; December 14, 2007

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