Messages - An internal Messages error occurred.

I have the same problem. Rebooted numerous times. Performed fsck -fy to repair permissions. Zapped parameter ram. Reinstalled Lion. All to no avail.

Help sincerely appreciated.

Thanks.

I've done all the same as @codefish46 and still get the same error message

Just remove Sophos. Solved.

No doubt this did work for you, but the assumption that Sophos is installed on others' computers may not always be correct. For instance, in my case, it is not correct. But, perhaps another virus protection software may be involved and that is worth looking into.

Enabled connections in Firewall, but still no go. The error message pops up very fast when I start messages and refers to an internal error in Messages.

Thanks for your contribution.

I'm having the same problem, except that for me it's always right after a restart that I can't get Messages to launch. Often if I wait a while it'll launch, but sometimes that "a while" can be several hours!

Your note @codefish46 about "firewall" got me thinking (I have no antivirus installed) so I disabled the OS X Firewall and immediately Messages launched. I then quite Messages, re-enabled the Firewall, and re-launched Messages again — and it launched. So something about disabling Firewall, even just temporarily, got it working.

I went ahead and added Messages.app to the list of apps under "Advanced" to permanently allow incoming connections, so I wonder if that will help in the future.

FWIW, the option "Automatically allow signed software to receive incoming connections" is enabled, which makes me wonder if somehow the signature on Messages is corrupt or invalid?

-Joseph

I ended up uninstalling little snitch 3 prev.2 (I upgraded from LS2 after installing ML) and then reinstalled. Everything works fine now. ***** that I lost all my rules but easy enough to make new ones.

BigHum,

Doesn't "Little Snitch" just tell you what's happening — not actually change anything? Did you figure out something that was blocking Messages, or everything just magically started working once you installed?

-Joseph

I have to imagine that I had some rule that it wasnt liking, and yes once I used the LS uninstaller and then reinstalled LS, everything is working fine now. I wish I could tell you more.

I, too, am having the same problem after starting up.

My firewall was never turned on.

I turned off LS 2.5.3 network filter off via the preferences and it now starts up fine.

Don't like the idea of lossing of losing all 603 rules by uninstalling.

For now it stays off.

Upgraded to LS 3 PR2 and the rules were all there.

But now I get the same message again.

Little snitch is the problem in my case.

One suggestion from this post https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4101680 is to remove it from Login at start up and see if it will start up after the computer is up an running.

It is removed and I will report back.

Undecided.

With LS 2.5.3, turned off the filter and iMessage started fine.

LS 3.x turned off Filter: Restart, iMessage started fine. Shut down and restart, Got the error.

Turned off monitor, Restart fine, Shutdown, the message briefly appeared and then it started fine.

But it definately starts fine when LS removed from the Login items and started after the computer is started which suggests, according to the formentioned post, that is has something to do with the startup sequence connecting to the network.

That's all for now.

Ah, so you had Little Snitch already installed. I see.

I have never had LS installed, so that's not the cause on my end.

Removed LS today and on the restart, Message started fine. That settles it, I guess.

I'm glad to see everyone with Little Snitch installed found a solution, but unfrotunately for me I've never had LS installed, and I still have this problem.

I reported before that by temporarily disabling the firewall, I was able to get it to launch. That is no longer helping for me. I've just restarted, firewall is off, and I still can't get Messages to launch.

Frustrating as ****.

-Joseph