iChat MAC to PC Video Freeze after 6.5 min

Question

iChat MAC to PC Video Freeze after 6.5 min

I'm iChatting (Calif) with a PC (windows XP and AIM) user in Canada and his incoming video drops (actually freezes his frame) every chat session at 6.5 minutes into the Chat (per Connection Doctor window, video drops to 0%). Audio is still fine both ways and he can still receive my video. Both of us have cable modem hookups.
Any ideas??

Posted on Sep 17, 2004 2:07 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 17, 2004 7:03 AM in response to James Woodward

What are the tested Internet connection speeds on both ends?

Who is you cable Internet service provider and what is the brand and model number of your cable modem?

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 17, 2004 4:51 PM in response to James Woodward

The PC is a 2.5GHz Celeron with 256K of RAM, using a Terayon modem speed tested at 1.3 Mb/sec.
The Mac side is a Motorola Cyber Surfer modem speed tested at 2 MB/sec.
Hope this helps.
Thanks!

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 17, 2004 4:58 PM in response to James Woodward

Try connecting to my Mac account at jawestonb@mac.com if you like.

We can then try connecting to my PC account after making the Mac to Mac connection.

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 17, 2004 6:57 PM in response to James Woodward

I have the identical problem, with my 800 MHz iMac G4 on DSL and an new XP laptop on cable modem. MY video goes thru fine, audio is great in both directions, but incoming video freezes after 6.5 min... without getting into the technical details, let me say that I'm REALLY interested in the solution to this problem.

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 18, 2004 7:45 AM in response to John Davidson

On the XP laptop end, who is the cable Internet service provider and what is the brand and model number of the cable modem?

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 18, 2004 9:42 AM in response to James A. Weston

Hi John and topic poster James,

Are either of you getting your pulic IP address from a DHCP server form your ISP service ?

You might be subject to lease renewals form the server.

Does your ISP limit your service in any way. Here in Britain there are service that limit the downloads (in various ways)

Ralph

Reply

Answer 7

Sep 18, 2004 12:02 PM in response to James Woodward

Yesterday my friend in Canada connected via another Pentium III (similar system speed) that has 1 Gig of RAM (instead of 256K in the other computer). He didn't hook up a microphone, so there was no audio, but the video was up the whole time (over 15 minutes).
Can this be a PC RAM issue?

Reply

Answer 8

Sep 18, 2004 12:36 PM in response to James Woodward

PC RAM issue... no... that's not it... my buddy in SoCal has 2 GB of RAM in his new Toshiba laptop running XP...

Right up until his video feed freezes, his frame rate is better than mine..

Reply

Answer 9

Sep 18, 2004 1:33 PM in response to James Woodward

I've thought this problem resides on the PC side. Now I'm thinking there is either an overflow or underflow of video signal coming into iChat that causes the freeze. If the problem was the cable provider, wouldn't both video ends freeze up? The 6.5 minute mark must be some sort of timeout or over/under flow issue. Is it hardware or software based?
I have the cable modem networked to my G4 and a PC, but I have two IP addresses. My friend in Canada has at least two computers on his network, originally hook up problems were due to his firewall.
Does any of this information lead anywhere??

Reply

Answer 10

Sep 18, 2004 2:13 PM in response to James Woodward

My buddy in SoCal is (so far) a monogamous video chatter: he has only v-chatted with ME (a Mac guy)... if a windows XP user can successfully chat with with other windows XP and AIM users without the video freezing, then the problem is clearly on the iChat end...

I don't know how iChat buffers a video stream, but next time I v-chat with my buddy in SoCal, I'm going to ask him to turn UP the video quality at his end which should lower his frame rate (which is sometimes almost TWICE mine) and see if that resolves the problem.

Reply

Answer 11

Sep 20, 2004 8:00 PM in response to James Woodward

I have the same problem. I'm connecting a mac to a pc and after 6 1/2 minutes the video freezes only my side. The audio is fine

Reply

Answer 12

Sep 20, 2004 9:03 PM in response to James Woodward

It finally occurred to me what the Frame rate and Bit rate (Remote and Local) located in the Connection Doctor (located under the video pulldown menu) represent (slap palm to forehead). When John was saying his friend with the PC had twice the rate as his iMac G4, that's when it finally sunk in.
I connected today, right at 6.5 minutes the incoming video froze. My friend then connected the video camera to his other computer and the video had no problem for over 26 minutes (the length of the connect). I noticed his (Remote) rates were (frame rate) around 12 and (bit rate) around 120. My rates were 10 plus and 110 plus. He didn't have his microphone connected, so I don't know if this would have changed his rates. On his other computer, I only noticed his bit rate after his video froze and it was ranging from only 20-50. Tomorrow we will connect one last time on his "slow" computer so I can watch his rates. Then he is going to connect audio & video to his "fast" computer and I'll check his rates again.
Maybe this is the issue. There has to be some sort of time out issue at 6.5 minutes.
Another thing. After his feed froze once, he opened another video chat and we had another 6.5 minutes. If this was an iChat issue, it seems to me that iChat would have been partially locked up and a new video feed wouldn't work. This points me back toward this being an PC issue.
One thing's for sure, we haven't had any video problems when he is connected via his "fast" PC.
Anybody know of timeout errors (6.5 minutes) in PC's??

Reply

Answer 13

Sep 20, 2004 9:52 PM in response to James Woodward

During my chat last night with my buddy Bob in LA (who has the fastest Windows laptop money could buy a month ago and a cable modem), I had him crank his video quality UP, lowering his frame rate (at one point it was down to 1 fps, which was so annoying that I had him adjust his quality until his frame rate was right around mine or just below it... 9 or 10 fps). His video feed FROZE at MY END right on schedule... but everything was fine at his end and the audio was good on both ends. His AIM software was handling my video and audio feed just fine, but iChat was dropping the video feed. As little regard as I have for Windows, the PC end of the video chat seems to be working fine, but the MAC/iChat end seems to be failing to cope.

If the video feed stays "live" when the audio is off, and freezes only on the MAC end with audio on, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the problem lies with iChat and some unidentified incompatibility with AIM that causes iChat to default to "audio only" at some point.

Reply

Answer 14

Sep 21, 2004 6:32 AM in response to James Woodward

Hi James,

It would also be worth checking if his PC is doing anything on line at that point. two or more computers on the same connection are going to effect the avilable bandwidth.

IF his mail check every 7 minutes or a Web page refreshes automatically this might be part of the ptoblem.

Have you tried with only one computer turned on at his end ?
Another way might be see if changing the ports on the router make a difference. (order the computers and see if the problem switches computers depending which port they are connected to.)

Ralph

Reply

Answer 15

Sep 22, 2004 3:47 AM in response to James Woodward

I've had exactly the same problem. I have only just recently found out that I can actually video chat with an AIM 5.5 user, but only if they invite me - if I invite them it fails. This is the first time I've ever had a successful PC->Mac chat with my Netgear DG834 router.

However, a certain amount of time into the chat (I don't know if it was exactly 6.5 minutes but I can check next time we have a meeting) the video stream I was receiving from the PC froze. Audio was not affected, and he continued to receive video from my iSight. The AIM user has a Draytek Vigor router, not sure exactly which model.

After the video froze, connection Doctor showed that we were both still pushing out about 150k/bps, even though the remote frame rate and video quality had dropped to zero. I normally have my iChat set to send up to 200k/bits, this works fine Mac->Mac.

I don't think its a bandwidth, ISP or router configuration issue. I suspect it could be a bug in AIM or iChat, that's my best guess.

Regards
Dave

EDIT: I have a windows XP PC here running AIM5.5 as well as my Mac - I can maybe help with a test if any iChat user is interested.

Reply