AOL Instant Messenger Login ?????

Hi,

Welcome to the  Discussions

When you go to the iChat Preferences > Accounts and hit the + Button lower left you get a pane that offer five options.

The three above the line are AIM Logins with either AIM, @Mac.com or MobileMe (@Me.com) names

Below the line are the Jabber options that includes GoogleTalk.

The Google ID to use is the one you see when you go to the Google Mail web page.
IF this reads @gmail.com then you should use that same format. (or Googlemail.com if it shows that)
iChat is fussy about this but Mail is less so.

You also need to have visited your Account Settings at Google's web pages and set the Talk option to be Enabled.

The reason Google Talk is a separate option is because of the Server Name that Google uses.
Google don't follow the normal Jabber convention. You normally get a Jabber server that gives you a name in the format of username@aJabberServer.com
iChat then strips away the username@ bit to name the Server in the Server Settings tab. However Google use a server called Talk.google.com which since iChat 4 the iChat software has dealt with by having a separate entry point.

I am not sure what you mean by this bit:-

She has a gmail account and now an AOL sign in with her gmail account.

Do you mean she has registered her Google Email as an Email type AIM name ?
This is in fact possible even if somewhat confusing. (I have seen a Hotmail one registered before which would normally be used with MSN/Windows Live)

Specifically:-
Does she have a Googlemail.com ID or a GMail.com ID ?
Which did she enter in to iChat ?
Did she enter this as a Google ID for "GoogleTalk ?
IS Google Talk (Talk) option enabled at Google ?

As iChat recognises something@mac.com and/or something@me.com or any email you have registered at AIM it will accept you entering a something@g(oogle)mail.com as a valid style of Name - BUT - if you have not registered that email Address/ID at AIM and set iChat with the name as an AIM name it will ask you for the password but not connect.



8:15 PM Monday; October 25, 2010

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Ralph,
I have a similar problem. My MBP hard drive crashed yesterday so I bought a MacBook Air (the MBP was an old G4). Because the HD was gone (and, i discovered, my Time Machine backups had not worked for some time) i was unable to bring over all of my settings to the new computer (however, i did do a sync with an old MobileMe backup and got old bookmarks, Address Book, etc).

Even though I have a .Mac account, my Apple ID is my AOL account. When I try to log into iChat and enter my PW, it tells me that my PW is not correct. Yet, I can log into AOL and AIM with my PW. I can't figure it out. I tried repairing permissions and repairing keychain. Any ideas?

Ralph,
I think I just figured it out...I had my iChat ID as "xxxx@aol.com" when I took off the "@aol.com" it logged right on to iChat. Thanks anyway.

Hi,

Welcome to the  Discussions

I am glad to see your Second post that says you resolved this.

Some Notes for other readers as well.
A G4 Laptop is more likely to be a PowerBook which is what the top of the range Laptops were called before MacBook and MacBook Pro were brought out with Intel Chips. (the Lower Spec one was the iBook).

It can get confusing between the various names you can get from AOL/AIM.
AS LOLo2 says if you have an AOL Account and therefore an @AOL.com name you only need the username part as the AIM ID/Screen Name

Registration direct with AIM is normally a letter and/or number mixture of characters but can be an Email address you use elsewhere.
(Email ID are allowed as that allows @Mac.aom and @me.com (MobileMe) names to be Valid Screen Names)

Just to confuse things even further, if you have an AIM name you can convert into an Valid @AIM.com email address without having an AOL account.

The place that would have shown you the Screen Name and the Password would have been the keychain.

In Normal circumstances Keychains are accessed with KeyChain Access in the Applications/Utilities folder.

They are kept in The Users Home Folder/Library/Keychains if you are trying to recover them. (Hard Drive/Users/(your account)/Library/Keychains)

Time Machine is useful if the Drive and the Backup drive are working.
There can be issues with trying to extract info form another computer Time Machine Backups.
I would suggest at least one Clone (Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner) that is Boot-able from and External Drive, in addition to using Time Machine.



8:38 PM Monday; November 8, 2010

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Ralph,
I have a MacBook Pro and I have been trying to log in to iChat and it keeps telling me I have the incorrect password. I went to the AOL site and downloaded AIM and still nothing. Can you help?

Hi,

Welcome to the  Discussions

What sort of name is it ?

MobileMe (and @mac.com) accounts/Screen Names allow you to create Passwords of something like 20 characters, however when used with iChat these cannot be used with the AIM servers - that have a limit of 16 characters - so you need to shorten your Password.

Also in iChat even though MobileMe and @Mac.com names are valid with the AIM servers as Scree Names you have to enter them as either a MobileMe of @Mac.com Name when setting up iChat for the First time (Start Up Screens) or adding a new "Account" in the iChat Menu > Preferences > Accounts.


It is also easy to enter the wrong type of Screen Name as an AIM name in that Jabber ID's look like Email addresses (much Like the Google Mail IDs) and the AIM server accept this style of name (As in @Mac.com and @Me.com for MobileMe but you can also register an Email as Screen Name).

Basically I need more info to guide you in the right direction.

Which part of iChat are you up to ?
Have you completed the Start Up screens so that when you Launch iChat it appears as the Items in the Menu Bar ?

If you have not completed them, is it an AIM valid name you are trying to enter in the Second Screen (The first is just a welcome Screen) ?
Or is it a Jabber or Google Name that needs entering at a later Screen ?

Which Version of the OS and which version of iChat would help.
(There is a variant action to enter Google name sin iChat 3)



7:45 PM Tuesday; November 9, 2010

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"