iChat over bonjour problems in Lion

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iChat over bonjour problems in Lion

Before Lion, in snow leopard, I used iChat bonour accounts for 4 of my office computers to communicate between staff members. I was able to use MobileMe to sync bookmarks, addressbook, and iCal. Each computer had it's own "address card" and so each iChat account showed up uniquily as it's own person in the bonjour buddy list.

Now, after an upgrade to Lion and migration to iCloud (and syncing iCloud between 3 of the 4 computers) iChat bonjour accounts behave strangely. Here's how:

All 4 computers call themselves by the same name "Front Office 1". I have gone in to address book on each computer to change "my card" on all 4 computers hoping to get the iChat name to change, but even after that, they all stay named as "Front Office 1" and the cards don't change. In other words, I find the card I want to be that particular computers, and say, "Make this my card" and moments later, so "go to my card" and it goes to the "Front Office 1" card. I'm wondering if that is a iCloud sync issue.

The weird thing is that one of the computers, mine, does not sync with this iCloud account but with my pesonal iCloud account, but it keeps assigning the "front office 1" card as my own personal card in address book and therefore in iChat bonjour. So it seems to be an iCloud syncing problem on the other three computers, but I can't figure out why my computer, which syncs with another iCloud account, keeps assigning my card as "front office 1"

Any thoughts on how I can get iChat bonjour to work with iCloud syncing and how to get each individual computer it's own name in iChat?

Posted on May 2, 2012 9:21 AM

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Answer 1

May 3, 2012 1:08 PM in response to Daniel Peck

Hi,

Bonjour as Computers show up in the Shares Section of the Finder's side bar is taken from System Preferences > Sharing (See Name at top)

For iChat the Bonjour "Buddies" should be using the My Card or each computer and Broadcasting it.

However there are issues about syncing the info across iCloud which keeps updating/syncing continuously.

If you are saying that the Address Book My Card on one computer is this Front Office 1 and this is syncing across the others I am not sure how that is syncing to the 4th computer that is using a different iCloud Account.

I would tend to get each computer it's own iCloud ID.

There are ways to use a Server's Directory services (I am not sure of the correct terminology) that can then have global Address Book that can be access from each individual Address Book.

However if there are only 4 computers this extra step may be a step too far.

9:08 PM Thursday; May 3, 2012

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

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 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

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