iChat server not delivering messages, bad green icons

Question

iChat server not delivering messages, bad green icons

Hi:

We're having some problems with our iChat server on 10.6.4 [about 40 users, client version is 5.0.3 (745)]

1. Some users are showing up on other users' screens as being logged in and available, even when they are not. Thus messages sent to them never arrive (and message senders wonder why they're being dissed….)

2. Camera and phone icons often do not appear next to buddy names/pictures for many users. All Macs in the office have multi-user audio and video capability.

3. After a recent restart, for some reason, the host domain disappeared from the list from iChat server's general settings (viewed using Server Admin), which kept clients from connecting. Adding the domain to the list solved that problem.

Sounds to me as though some settings file is hosed.

I've seen the list of six iChat config files on Page 24 of the iChat Server Administration manual, and I'm guessing the problem lies with one of them or one of the other files in the /etc/jabberd folder.

But the documentation is silent about what files need to be trashed and replaced or repaired.

I found this...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2220395&tstart=-1

…which suggests that…

sudo /usr/libexec/ichatserver inittool -i

…will reset the iChat server.

Anyone have any experience with this? Do existing files need to be deleted first?

I've also read online that is this command....

sudo rm /private/var/jabberd/sqlite/jabberd2.db

...might be enough to get the iChat server working again.

Anyone had this experience or used these tools to get things fixed?

Thanks,
mm

Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 25, 2010 4:52 PM

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Answer 1

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 26, 2010 12:55 AM in response to Mike Matthews

Are you using push notification services on the server?

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Answer 2

Oct 26, 2010 9:02 AM in response to Tim Harris

Yes, for the iCal server only. It's running on the same XServe.

mm

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Answer 3

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 26, 2010 9:13 AM in response to Mike Matthews

So - that is why you have what you see in item 1.

As for item 2 the capabilities of the 'client' are determined at the time the 'presence' is sent out (e.g. logging on). The ichat client does some test on opening to help it understand what it can and cannot do. Ralph will hopefully pick this up. Sounds like firewall rules - to me.

Item 3 - yep! annoying isn't it. Are you running the DNS on the same server?

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Answer 4

Oct 26, 2010 9:23 AM in response to Tim Harris

Tim Harris wrote:
So - that is why you have what you see in item 1.

Well, this is a relatively new phenomenon, I think. I believe that for at least a while, iChat and the Push Notification Server were operating together quite peacefully.

In any event, what's the fix?

Will sudo /usr/libexec/ichatserver inittool -i or sudo rm /private/var/jabberd/sqlite/jabberd2.db take care of it?

As for item 2 the capabilities of the 'client' are determined at the time the 'presence' is sent out (e.g. logging on). The iChat client does some test on opening to help it understand what it can and cannot do. Ralph will hopefully pick this up. Sounds like firewall rules - to me.

Not sure firewall is the issue here. In the office, all of our clients and the server are behind the firewall. And no users have the firewall turned on on their desktop Mac.

And who's Ralph? 😉

Item 3 - yep! annoying isn't it. Are you running the DNS on the same server?

No. We aren't running DNS on our network. I've had to start and stop and restart the server on many occasions (after running the autobuddy command when new users have joined our organization). But this is the only time the domain list was affected.

That tells me there's something amiss with the iChat server configuration files somewhere.

So what I need to know is how to fix it on the server. For good measure I can delete the iChat accounts on the desktops and start over, but I think the server needs to be fixed first, right?

Thanks,
mm

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Answer 5

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 26, 2010 10:48 AM in response to Mike Matthews

Re item 1 - you should register this a bug with apple.

Item 2 - it can be related to 1 in that is there are messages 'stuck' in the server as a result of above, then the 'presence' messages that contains the capabilities of the client are 'lost' If above was fixed, this would not happen.

Item 3 - register it as a bug with apple.

You best bet to 'clean it all up' is to shut down ichat, and push notification and ical server. mv /private/var/jabberd/sqlite/jabberd2.db to /private/var/jabberd/sqlite/jabberd2.db.old and restart them up again. this will create a new .db file, but the relationship between 'buddies' will be lost. so you will need to add them again.

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Answer 6

Oct 26, 2010 11:01 AM in response to Tim Harris

OK, I will give it a try and report back.

Thanks,
mm

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Answer 7

Oct 27, 2010 11:38 AM in response to Tim Harris

I stopped the iChat server, the iCal server, and the Push Notification service and ran the mv command above (it did rename the old database and a new one was instantly created).

I ran the autobuddy command to make all users buddies of each other (sudo /usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy -m) then restarted the three services.

I also restored the domains correctly in the iChat > Settings > General pane in Server Admin. Our XServe has two domains associated with it, one for the iChat/iCal/AFP services and one for VPN (don't get me started as to why....).

For some users, the green camera/phone icons do not appear. Some users' status indicators are also incorrect (green when they should be red, for instance).

However, having users restart their Macs (not merely logout from/login to the iChat server) seems to rectify the problem.

But not in all cases. Sometimes a green camera icon will not be visible, but starting a text chat with the user restores it.

But does anyone know if this command will work, once and for all:

sudo /usr/libexec/ichatserver inittool -i

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Answer 8

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 27, 2010 11:53 AM in response to Mike Matthews

But not in all cases. Sometimes a green camera icon will not be visible, but starting a text chat with the user restores it.

I assume you mean the camera icon is visible on the users own machine - but the other user cannot see the camera icon of a remote machine.

But does anyone know if this command will work, once and for all:

sudo /usr/libexec/ichatserver inittool -i

it does a bit more than you did already in that it clears all the settings back to defaults and creates new secrets (like a password). run it by all means, but it will not fix this problem.

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Answer 9

Oct 27, 2010 12:08 PM in response to Tim Harris

Tim Harris wrote:

But not in all cases. Sometimes a green camera icon will not be visible, but starting a text chat with the user restores it.

I assume you mean the camera icon is visible on the users own machine - but the other user cannot see the camera icon of a remote machine.

User A has a camera icon next to her name at the top of the iChat window.

User B sees that User A is online and available, but no camera icon appears next to User A's name in the buddy list.

User B can start only a text chat with User A. User A's first reply in a text chat makes the camera icon appear next to her name on User B's screen. User B can then conduct a video chat in the normal fashion with User A.

When User A closes the text chat window, the camera icon disappears.

I've tried deleting the account from User A's Mac and reentering the details, restarting, logging out and back in. Noting seems to fix this.

But does anyone know if this command will work, once and for all:

sudo /usr/libexec/ichatserver inittool -i

it does a bit more than you did already in that it clears all the settings back to defaults and creates new secrets (like a password). run it by all means, but it will not fix this problem.

Any idea what will?

How about running this command, deleting the account from the user's iChat preferences, and deleting com.apple.iChat.Jabber.plist in ~/Library/Preferences?

Thanks for all the help. I feel like we're almost there.
mm

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Answer 10

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 27, 2010 12:56 PM in response to Mike Matthews

There is no simple fix for this - currently.

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Answer 11

Oct 27, 2010 1:37 PM in response to Tim Harris

Tim Harris wrote:
There is no simple fix for this - currently.

OK, so how about the complicated fix? 😉

Seriously, some combination of resets, trashing preference files, etc., must be able to solve this. Otherwise, no iChat server and clients would work out of the box.

Unless you're about to tell me that a server software reinstall is the only solution....

Thanks,
mm

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Answer 12

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 27, 2010 1:43 PM in response to Mike Matthews

It works as it should - there is nothing broken. Issue it is - it does not work how one would want it to. The answer is not overly complicated and involves setting it up 'correctly'.

Here is a near real example. My server is called server.domain.com. my email is tim@domain.com my ichat is tim@domain.com and my ical is tim@server.domain.com. iChat server is hosting server.domain.com and domain.com.

ical uses tim@server.domain.com, ichat uses tim@domain.com

get it?

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Answer 13

Oct 27, 2010 1:56 PM in response to Tim Harris

Tim Harris wrote:
It works as it should - there is nothing broken. Issue it is - it does not work how one would want it to. The answer is not overly complicated and involves setting it up 'correctly'.

Here is a near real example. My server is called server.domain.com. my email is tim@domain.com my ichat is tim@domain.com and my ical is tim@server.domain.com . iChat server is hosting server.domain.com and domain.com.

ical uses tim@server.domain.com , ichat uses tim@domain.com

get it?

My set up is as follows:

XServe is named alfred.company.com
It hosts the iCal, iChat, and Push Notification servers, and the iChat host domains are alfred.company.com and bentley.company.com.

Mail is hosted on a separate Mac with the domain mail.company.com. The DNS record for mail.company.com points to company.com.

My email is mike@company.com
My iChat is mike@alfred.company.com
My iCal is mike@alfred.company.com

Why couldn't the iChat and iCal domains be identical (alfred.company.com)?

Thanks,
mm

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Answer 14

Tim Harris

Level 4

1,481 points

Oct 27, 2010 2:22 PM in response to Mike Matthews

My iChat is mike@alfred.company.com
My iCal is mike@alfred.company.com
Why couldn't the iChat and iCal domains be identical (alfred.company.com)?

because of the problem you see. iCal uses the iChat server to log in and receive push messages. that is why you see people online on iChat when there are not - 'cos iCal has logged in as them. As iCal does not support video, etc the buddies of that user does not get to see the correct info.

if you were ichat mike@company.com then you will not see this problem.

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Answer 15

Oct 27, 2010 2:55 PM in response to Tim Harris

Tim Harris wrote:

My iChat is mike@alfred.company.com
My iCal is mike@alfred.company.com
Why couldn't the iChat and iCal domains be identical (alfred.company.com)?

because of the problem you see. iCal uses the iChat server to log in and receive push messages. that is why you see people online on iChat when there are not - 'cos iCal has logged in as them. As iCal does not support video, etc the buddies of that user does not get to see the correct info.

if you were ichat mike@company.com then you will not see this problem.

OK, I think I get the part about iCal appearing to log in a user to the iChat server.

Two things:

1. So if a user is logged in with both iCal and iChat simultaneously (using mike@alfred.company.com for both), then the iChat status would be correct and camera icons would appear?

We have users who are doing that, and the camera icon still does not appear correctly. In my previous example, User A was logged in to both iCal and iChat using the same ID.

2. I have a second domain listed in the iChat server host domain list (bentley.company.com). When I try to change the iChat setting on the client to connect to that domain, it prompts for a password repeatedly and never connects. (This is one of the problems noted at the top of this thread that was fixed by reentering alfred.company.com into the domain list.)

So how can I add a domain for use just with iChat? I don't want to use company.com since the mail server is doing that.

What's puzzling about this is that everything was working correctly until recently. A byproduct of the 10.6.4 server update perhaps?

Thanks,
mm

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