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Level 1

0 points

Lion to Snow Leopard missing audio during video chat

Hello,

After upgrading one of my MacBook Pros to Lion, I've been encountering a consistent problem when attempting to engage in a video chat with my parents who are using a MacBook that is still running Snow Leopard.

Prior to the Lion upgrade, video chats worked flawlessly, but after the Lion upgrade, the audio coming from the Snow Leopard machine is completely gone. Video alone works fine in both directions, and the Snow Leopard client is receiving audio from the Lion client, but the Lion client is not receiving any audio from the Snow Leopard client according to the iChat connection doctor.

Not a missing update/firmware issue-

Both machines have all the latest OS updates applied.

Not a hardware deficiency issue-

Both machines were able to engage in flawless video chats using iChat prior to one machine being upgraded to Lion.

Not a bandwidth issue-

MacBook Pro (Lion) is hard wired to an ethernet connection which ties into a fiber optic connection 100Mbit/100Mbit (down/up).

MacBook (Snow Leopard) is hard wired to an ethernet connection tied into a AT&T Uverse connection 24Mbit/3Mbit (down/up).

As a troublshooting step, each machine was tested with iChat bandwidth limitation set to 500k, 1Mbit, and 2Mbit.

Not a ports issue-

As a troublshooting step, both machines were placed into each respective LAN/WAN DMZ.

Not a firewall issue-

Both machines are not running with a firewall enabled.

Not a network configuration issue-

Video chat continues to work flawlessly between Snow Leopard only clients from the same networks over the Internet (tested with additional Snow Leopard clients on my end that have yet to be upgraded to Lion).

Not a microphone or sound configuration issue

First thing checked, double checked, and checked again.

After checking the connection doctor within iChat during one of the problematic video chats, it reveals that "audio quality" from the Snow Leopard client is always 0%.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Moreover, is there a solution?

BTW, Facetime video calls between all clients work fine, but we all hate Facetime and prefer to continue using iChat.

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Thank you.

iChat-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Sep 3, 2011 2:51 PM

21 replies

bvila

Level 1

55 points

Oct 11, 2012 6:13 PM in response to ESA

Ahh yes, I'm all too familiar with that fun command. I tried it to no avail. Same issue.

But here's something that might be revealing. I just upgraded my MBP from SL to ML and now my I'm having the same issue on the MBP that I'm having on my iMac. They can hear me, but I can't hear them, if I initiate the video chat. If they initiate it, all is well. Perhaps the solution is to upgrade them to ML :-)

Any other ideas?

Oct 12, 2012 11:05 AM in response to bvila

Hi,

I don't have any more ideas.

7:05 PM Friday; October 12, 2012

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

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

bvila

Level 1

55 points

Oct 12, 2012 11:10 AM in response to ESA

Thanks for all your help Ralph.

I'm starting to link this issue to something not going well between Lion/ML and SL. Hopefully with my dad's computer on ML, the problem will go away, and not get worse.

I'll post again if I clear this up.

Cheers,

Kevin

Oct 12, 2012 12:51 PM in response to bvila

Hi,

Getting a Video chat going from Messages to iChat 5 on Snow Leopard did take me several goes of inviting.

It seemed it just took Messages a while to remember it had "Spoken" to this computer before.

Now that is very left field, fuzzy logic but all I did was repeatedly send invite until it was successful.

I have little luck in Messages to iChat 3 although I can start a chat in the other direction.

(I have G4 tower with extra drives and partitions that have older version of the OS I can boot into)

8:51 PM Friday; October 12, 2012

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

bvila

Level 1

55 points

Nov 25, 2012 6:42 AM in response to ESA

It's been a while since I've done much experimenting with iChat, so here's an update. I upgraded my mom's computer to Lion, so we're now both on Lion. The problem went away. She can hear me and I can hear her regardless of who initiates the video chat.

I upgraded my dad to ML, but I haven't tried iChat to Messages or vice versa yet. Hopefully this was all just related to SL.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Nov 25, 2012 11:25 AM in response to bvila

Glad to hear you are making progress.

7:24 PM Sunday; November 25, 2012

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

Lion to Snow Leopard missing audio during video chat