iChat MAC to PC Video Freeze after 6.5 min

Continuing the saga... I arranged to video chat with my buddy in LA from work where there's a T1 line, which should pretty much remove any bandwidth issues at my end of the chat... video still locked up at MY end after 6.5 minutes.

At HIS end: his preview video was still live, video feed from me was still live, audio was live. At MY end: my preview video was still live, video feed from him was dead, audio was live.

I'm still of the opinion that there is a software glitch in iChat that causes it to drop from video conferencing to audio conferencing after 6.5 minutes when interacting with AIM software. I think the video only appears to "freeze"... I think iChat simply shuts the incoming video off, failing to update the last frame displayed.

And from other people's comments the trigger seems to be the audio signal. My next experiment will be to mute the audio and see if the video stays live.

I have the same problem but mine fails at exactly 5.5 minutes. I can set my watch to it. I'm near Toronto running a ichat on Powerbook G4 w/Panther and my friend in Thunder Bay is running XP and AIM 5.5. Both on cable modems albeit different companies.
Audio still continues but with no dropouts. She can still see and hear me but her picture on my laptop is frozen.
My mail automatically checks every 5 minutes so I will change that to 10. What can be done?

I shut down all programs that update in the background: mail, safari, everything but iChat... video still dropped out after 6 minutes. I took my 1 GHz iBook G4 and my iSignt to work, hooked into the T1 line there... video still dropped out after 6 minutes. Last time I video'ed Bob in LA, his mic was out (for some configuration reason), he could see and hear me just fine... video dropped out after 6 minutes.

No one seems to know why or what can be done about it... and what really ticks me off is that AIM for Mac doesn't do video because of iChat. I wonder sometimes if this time bomb is intentional... I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I'm beginning to wonder why nothing seems to get done about an obvious glitch. It's VERY annoying...

What do the Console and System Logs say is happening at the period when the Video drops out ?

Ralph

I had another meeting with a collegue who uses AIM on Friday. The video froze very early on in the conversation, I definately think we didn't even get five minutes - more like two.

Regards
Dave

HI All,

What is your DHCP lease time ?

Ralph

Help Ralph / James,

I experience the same timing as Mike Linkvist: (FIVE, not six, and-a-half) 5:30 seconds. Here follows all detail I can offer.

Since my first video contact with one PC friend, the video initially works fine, but it freezes a few minutes into every contact. Today, I actually checked the time on Connection Doctor on four separate video sessions with this PC. Each session, it froze at 5.5 minutes. This is the ONLY contact with whom I experience video freeze.

I'm running iChat AV 2.1 on my 1.8 DP G5 Panther -- all updates (condition unchanged by recent security update) -- and my friend in California is running XP Pro w/SP2 (we have tried firewall off and on to no effect) and latest (last week) AIM 5.9 download. We are both on cable modems albeit different companies. We use the identical make and model of router (in both Apple and AIM approved lists) with latest firmware upgrade. We are both running hard wired to our LANs, and neither of us had any other LAN computers operating while we were in our Video sessions.

At 5:27 seconds into EVERY video session with him today, my Connection Doctor reported Audio go to zero momentarily, then incrementally begin to return. By 5:30, video freezes, and Connection Doctor reports Video fall to 0% while audio is still not back to 100%. Neither of us can tell that there is an interruption in audio for us, but the video freeze is obvious to me. Connection Doctor "Audio" returns to 100% within three more seconds and seems to continue with no audible dropouts, either during the incremental return to 100% or afterward. However, video stays at 0% for the duration of the (now One-Way) video session. PC still sees moving video of me and can hear me, but his picture on my Mac screen is frozen until we stop and restart the video session. We continue to talk with good audio; however, every few minutes, I do notice the audio quality level in Connection Doctor drop precipitously, then return in jerking improvements of 10%-25% each until back to 100%, again without noticeable interruption to our (less than perfect) hearing. When we restart, we have 5:30 of good video followed by a repeat of the freeze.

We have both stopped Energy savers and mail auto-retrieve.

There are only two iChat entries in my Console log for today:

(1)
2004-09-25 06:53:43.551 iChat[530] WARNING: Couldn't find sound at path (null), looking in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/InstantMessage.framework/Versions/A/Resources instead

(2)
2004-09-25 12:55:39.804 iChat[530] WARNING: Couldn't find sound at path (null), looking in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/InstantMessage.framework/Versions/A/Resources instead

I could find NO system log entries for today on ANY subject.

Is there any other info I may be able to provide?

EZ Jim

Ralph / James,

b Correction

re: above statement:

"We have both stopped Energy savers and mail auto-retrieve."

Apparently the PC Outlook Email settings were actually set to look for
mail every 5 minutes (I think) whether Outlook was online or offline.

Will disable, see if there’s a difference next time we get Video going,
and post back the results.

EZ Jim

Ralph - I use static IP addressing. No DHCP at all.

Regards
Dave

Hi Dave,

That scuppers that idea then.

Ralph

At first I thought that the video drop-out was due to some process running the in the background, either on the PC end or my end, but now it seems clear that it's not... I'll explain my reasoning.

I've begun keeping the Connection Doctor (which is really more of a Connection Monitor since it doesn't make anything better) running all the time when I'm v-chatting. Video drop-out occurs not at 6.5 minutes, but at 5 minutes and 10 seconds according to the timer in the incorrectly-named "Doctor". My friend Bob in LA and I have been making fun of the problem: I'll count down to freeze and he'll make memorable faces which I can then copy and send him afterwards.

At any rate, my reasons that the problem lies with iChat... if a background process is routinely stealing bandwidth or cpu power every 5 minutes, say, then the video drop-out timing would be dependent on how my initiation of the chat fit in with that regular cycle. If I started a chat 3-minutes into the cycle, video would drop-out 2 minutes later, but that isn't what happens... the video fails at the same point every time, 5 minutes 10 seconds (based on the chat timer). When I'm chatting with Bob and video drops out, we often continue for a few minutes on audio-only until we finish the thought or subject, and then I re-initialize the vChat. Last night I let the timer run to over 7 minutes, with 2 minutes of dead video, then re-started the chat... then, blam! 5 minutes and 10 seconds later... same thing.

While background processes definitely affect video and audio chat quality and may indeed cause a chat to fail (though I've never seen it happen), the cause of this particular regular video drop-out is inside iChat and directly wired to the time that the particular chat has been running. This is not a cable modem issue, an ISP problem, an Outlook activity... this is a glitch in iChat's video module that relates to it's interaction with AIM.

HI John,

I seem to remember with 10.2 that there was a Broadcast time delay on something that was to do with a work around for sharing printers to Windows.

It was something to do with how long it takes for changes to SMB files to be cycled and take effect.

Is this a PPPoE problem ?

IS there anything that can be spotted in Activity Monitor ?
smbclient ?

Ralph

While I agree that there could be a software problem in iChat, I don't think it is in connection with AIM. This problem usually or perhaps only appears when the PC or Mac (I've seen this happen on Mac to Mac connections) user on the problem end has cable Internet service as opposed to DSL.

It almost always involves a high-speed cable connection, and sometimes the problem will go away if the cable modem is swapped out for another brand of modem.

I think the problem is the interaction of iChat and the cable modem and cable Internet service on the other end.

This problem doesn't occur when I video chat with the same guy with Yahoo Messenger, which is definitely not a much fun as iChat. True, the two chat packages are wildly different, but the same cable modem and internet connections don't present Yahoo Messenger with the difficulties I experience with iChat, so I have to put the blame right back on iChat.

It may very well be true that Apple has produced a great piece of video conferencing software that only works if everyone connected has DSL. If it is true, it makes iChat basically useless: I can't go around telling everyone I want to chat with to get DSL or switch out their cable modem.

No one has ever said that iChat works only with DSL. I regularly and successfully connect to both DSL and cable users without problems from my Macs and from my PCs.

In addition to blaming Apple, perhaps you should also blame Yahoo for not providing better video conferencing software that works with both Mac and PCs.