Ichat won't allow me to initiate video chat

Thanks for that suggestion. We have now tried video chat initiation with the "Enable AIM Relay" switched off on one side, and then on both sides of the conversation partnership. No joy ... we are still only able to achieve one-directional invitation and session initiation.

Today I was on several phone calls with technical support for upc-cablecom, my ISP, they assured me that they do not block _any_ UDP or TCP port numbers. They agreed, however to send me, at no cost, a new cable modem to rule out any possibility that their premises equipment (specifically a Scientific Atlanta EPC-2203) was causing this problem. Note however that the new cable modem from upc-cablecom will be from a different vendor, UB.

In the interim, while waiting for the cable modem to arrive, I replaced the Apple Airport Extreme base station (that we use as a router/access point) with a new one.

After that component change, we have the same symptoms ... iChat/Messages video chat invitations sent from US to Europe will work, albeit after several tries. But reverse direction fails consistently, with communication error or a false report that the other side declined invitation. We are coordinating actions on both sides using text chat concurrent with video chat invitation attempts.

Those same partners cannot be invited from either our Mac mini or from the MBP. This was working beautifully for the past three years and suddenly we started having issues.

Replacement of the cable modem is next on the agenda... timeline is for new cable modem to arrive in 1 to 2 days.

If degraded equipment is the root cause of this problem, we will know after we have replaced everything possible ... we get there when the new cable modem comes. (all that is left to change is the cable modem)

Hi,

From Messages to iChat 3.1.9 I cannot get past the spinning "Waiting for response from..." Video chat window in Messages when the other computer does not show an Invite at all.

However in the other direction it works for 1-1 chats and 3 way chats with a Snow Leopard computer

(that is three computers using the same combined Router Modem giving different results to different older version of iChat)

10:24 PM Monday; August 20, 2012

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

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Replacement of my cable modem has been completed. Unfortunately, the same symptoms persist: cannot initiate video iChat with some partners, but can accept their invitations and can conduct a video chat session. No impairment to text chat capability has been observed and signin to AIM servers can occur. Also exchanging text messages across iMessage channels to mobile devices works fine.

Both our Wi-Fi access point / router (Apple Extreme base station) and our cable modem have been replaced with new equipment on this side. Our ISP technical support has run diagnostics on the new modem and confirms proper operation. My ISP Internet service levels have been tested as 25 Mbits/sec download and 2.5 Mbits/sec upload speeds with 20 ms ping times to several central European servers. Access to multiple international Internet sites and mail servers, etc. is unimpaired. Our ISP has, multiple times, assured us that no TCP / UDP ports are being blocked.

Thus, we have to conclude that something is happened simultaneoulsly on multiple partner's ISP networks in the US.

I have discovered today that our chat partners in US with whom we are having asymmetical video chat connection issues (although geographically quite widely separated) both have AT&T as their ISP .... Finally a common thread among affected partners.

We are now having our partners work with their respective ISPs, pursuing changes that may have occurred simultaneously in second week of August at AT&T in two widely separated markets.

This is truly mysterious stuff ...

Umm,

This reminds me of iChat 3's release.

For some reason Apple changed the way the Video was packaged over the internet.

It was compatible with iChat 2 but was supposed to be less demanding on the Network.

However soon after the OS 10.4 release many people east of a rough line from the Mississippi to Chicago had issues with iChat.

It was eventually tracked do to the "Backend" of the Internet connection between various ISPs mostly on sections run by AT&T strangely enough.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2592

As many people are reporting an issues dating from around the 8th August that would seem to tie up.

There was one of the few Standalone Updates for iChat at the time

See the box below the table http://www.ralphjohns.co.uk/page16.html

Nothing I have seen about Messages suggests that a similar change has happened at this time.

However I don not have anything that can inspect the packets that deeply.

10:16 PM Thursday; August 23, 2012

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

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously