iChat and FaceTime problem.

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Level 1

1 points

iChat and FaceTime problem.

Hi.. Long time Mac user. Bought a Macbook Air "base" 13" last month. Upgraded the software and recently I've been noticing some weird problems. Ill try to keep it simple.

1. My hard drive space keeps going down.. by a lot. Ill have it open and idle and a minute later, it'll go from 100GB free space to 97GB... 90GB.. 89GB.. 85GB etc etc.. If i leave this alone I'll eventually get a Startup Disk is Low on Space error message and forces me to restart. Not sure whats causing this.

2. My iChat will automatically login to my AIM account when i start the laptop. If i quit it normally and reopen, I cannot log in or access the preferances menus. I have set it up wiht my AIM and Me account initially, but with the auto start, it only shows my AIM account. I tried deleting it and then restarting the laptop, itll still auto start and log into my AIM account.

3. FaceTime does not work. I click on it, it bounces and then stops. When i click it again, it says FaceTime has encountered an error and needs to restart and tells me to quit/reopen.

4. Under my processes I see a process 'imagent' that uses 100% CPU. I force quit it and iChat would reopen. I force quit iChat and imagent, iChat would reopen or imagent would rerun itself again.

Any help? I just did a fresh install of Lion and that didnt help. The only apps i have on the MBA is VLC, Java and Logmein. All programs are updated and did the EFI update. Could that be the problem? I did one a week ago and the problems gotten worse after that.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Macbook Air 13" 2011

Posted on Oct 27, 2011 1:31 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Ralph-Johns-UK

Level 9

76,789 points

Oct 27, 2011 2:12 PM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

Hi,

IMAgent is used by both Face TIme and iChat.

It accesses the details in your Keychain about accounts and Passwords used ith those apps.

There have been issues with how people have go to Lion in that their Keychain seems to lose Ownership and Permissions.

In the Finder use the Go Menu > Go to Folder and enter ~/Library/Keychains

There should be at least one (login.keychain)
Check you Own and Read and Write Permissions.

If this appears to be OK then do ~/Library/Preferences In the Finder > GO to Folder spot
Delete the com.apple.imagent.plist (Drag it to the Trash)
Check for any .lockfile of the same name and delete that as well.

Restart the Mac (IMAgent starts when the computer does)

10:11 PM Thursday; October 27, 2011

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

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Answer 2

KwaZyLiLoBoY Author

Level 1

1 points

Oct 27, 2011 4:12 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi. Firstly thanks for the reponse.

login.keychain seems to be okay. I have read and write permission.

I dont have a com.apple.com.imagent.plist file. All i have is com.apple.imservice.FaceTime.plist. Doing a spotlight search warrants no file either.

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Answer 3

KwaZyLiLoBoY Author

Level 1

1 points

Oct 27, 2011 4:35 PM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

So, i tried doing a restort permissions. But that didnt work so i remembered something and tried creating a new user. I created 'Tester' and surprisingly, that works fine.

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Answer 4

KwaZyLiLoBoY Author

Level 1

1 points

Oct 28, 2011 2:47 AM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

Okay.. i did a clean install of Lion. Erased my hard drive and had my laptop download lion and install. Everything went fine up until i logged into my MobileMe account.

Pre-MobileMe: iChat and FaceTime works fine.

Post-MobileMe: iChat and FaceTime has problems and imagent is at 95%-100% CPU Usage.

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Answer 5

Oct 28, 2011 11:41 AM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

Hi,

IF Test Account works OK (providing it is using the same iChat Details) then the issue will be with the .plsts for either iChat or the IMAgent one in Your Home Folder/Library/Preferences.

As you seem to have found the login.keychain it would seem to follow that you used the same method to get to the Preferences folder.

IF it works in one Mac User Account and not in another the issue is not with the app or any part of the OS.

iChat used to use a support app called iChatAgent and Snow Leopard introduced IMAgent with Face TIme.

Lion has moved all functions that these two apps do to the IMAgent.

Anything you store in System Preferences > Contacts, Mail and Calanders that can be used by either iChat or Face Time will be accessible by IMAgent.

How and where are you logging in to MobileMe ?

Also if this is going to be used with iChat is the password 16 characters or Less ?

7:41 PM Friday; October 28, 2011

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

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 6

KwaZyLiLoBoY Author

Level 1

1 points

Oct 28, 2011 3:09 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

hi.

So, i did another fresh install because i dont know. So i added all my stuff on today one by one while looking at the Activity Monitor. MobileMe, FaceTime, Mail and accounts work fine. When i setup iChat with my MobileMe and AIM account, IMAgent starts going crazy. So i delelted the com.apple.ichat related files and restarted. Then i added each account on iChat separately. AIM makes IMAgent crazy while the MobileMe has no affect.

My AIM account password has 7 characters if that makes any difference.

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Answer 7

Oct 29, 2011 11:28 AM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

HI,

Providing the password is no more than 16 chararacters it should not be a problem.

When you register a Name it prevents you from using invalid characters.

AIM names can come in three forms.

The easiest to understand is any other email used as the Name itself.

An Email such as a Yahoo one could be use this way.

The second is any Name registered with AIM or a company owned by AOL

These tend to be names only (No @ symbol) when used with the AIM Service, although they maybe an email elsewhere.

My main name of ralphjohnsr is like this as it comes from having a Netscape Account at one stage.

The Browser had a chat option built into it.

You would rarely whatever suffix came after the username (As in @netscape.com) in an application that could log in to AIM such as iChat.

The Third type may not be directly registered with AIM but may come form an ISP or Dial-up service that did a deal with AIM similar to the apple one that gets @Mac.com and @Me.com name recognised.

I call these "AIM" names as well because from the outside you cannot tell if they were registered with AIM or are part of an agreement similar to the Apple one.

With these you would need to add the full name with the @suffix .com

7:28 PM Saturday; October 29, 2011

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

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 8

Oct 29, 2011 11:39 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Hi Again,

I would also manually change the AIM server Name listed in iChat Menu > Preferences > Accounts > Server Settings.

Turn Off the SSL option and list the server as login.oscar.aol.com

7:39 PM Saturday; October 29, 2011

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

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 9

KwaZyLiLoBoY Author

Level 1

1 points

Oct 29, 2011 1:40 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

My screen name is from back in the day and registered via AIM without @ISP.com. I unchecked the SSL and it automatically changed to login.oscar.aol.com. Still no fix. I am giving up and downloading adium. Thanks for your help.

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Answer 10

Oct 29, 2011 1:55 PM in response to KwaZyLiLoBoY

HI,

I sorry to hear that.

Does the Keychain Access say that the Keychain allows iChat to access the AIM details ?

9:55 PM Saturday; October 29, 2011

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

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply