iChat video chat won't connect anymore

Hi,

Which port the Account logs in with is immaterial.

Generally the connection are Peer-to-Peer.

However with AIM accounts you can set it to relay though the AIM server.

Try that.

10:03 p.m. Monday; July 13, 2015

OK,

8:30 pm Wednesday; July 15, 2015

Around July 1, 2015, video chatting with my parents in Estonia, via Mac Messages/iChat over AIM accounts, stopped working, same symptoms as DaveCotati described in his first post. This connection has worked fine over the past several years. I verified that my iChat (running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on a Mac Pro Quad) was working properly by connecting to Messages on my MacBook Pro running Yosemite 10.10.4 over a WiFi connection, works fine.

When thinking through my parents set up in Estonia I remembered that their internet connection is via a high speed cellular router (37 mbs down, 11 mbs up). To test if the problem may be due to the cellular network connection I turned off WiFi on my MackBook and tethered it to my iPhone 5. Sure enough, the video chat session fails to connect every time at "starting video chat with: user". I have tested it in both directions, i.e. initiating the chat from the MacBook and then from the Mac Pro with consistent failures either way.

I suspect some recent software update may have broken video chatting over a cellular internet connection, but I don't know which one.

How can I find out if Apple is aware of this issue, or where can I report it to Apple? Do they monitor the discussions?

Tom.

I am experiencing the same problem. Someone I connected successfully with for years--suddenly cannot connect via messages video chat.

Hi,

This is the actual page http://www.apple.com/feedback/ichat.html (it has not been renamed)

In fact it needs a lot of updating so put all details in the free text area.

To be honest Apple's Monitoring of these discussions is minimal.

The Hosts (moderators) are paid for by Apple but are concerned about Terms of Use breeches rather than anything else.

More recently there are Community Specialists who are supposed to "catch" unanswered Posts after 24 hours. Their expertise seems to be in know the Apple Knowledge Base really well (or at least how to make good searches in it).

People who have achieved Level 4 and Above can post in the lounge and tag it as "Notable New Technical Issues" and bring to the direct attention of the Hosts.

In most cases this does at some point make it to the Engineers although there is no direct feedback on if it is done or the progress.

I would tend to set the Messages App. > Preferences > Video section > Bandwidth Limit t0 500kbps no matter what your speed (or their's).

500kbps is fast enough for 4 way Video chats but does tend to stop the natural variance in the service or the differences in speed at each end get in the way.

8:21 pm Thursday; July 16, 2015

I'd like to keep this discussion going... as I too, am having iChat issues. I'm running MacOS 10.9.5 with Messages 8.0 using Port 443 (AIM) with SSL on, Bandwidth Limit set at 500kbps. Yeah... iChat used to work like a charm, now its broken - with me, my sister and father (age 95 - who need to help with his Mac issues from across the country). I've tried just WiFi and WiFi off - same results - iChat can't connect - and I send a report to Apple.

Has anyone had any luck tossing out the iChat/Messages preferences and starting over? It used to work back in the OS7/8/9 days for various apps. If so, does anyone know the path to the prefs?

hi,

Since this Question was posted it has become a bit of a "known Issue".

It is affecting all iChat versions from iChat 5.0.3 through to Messages 9 in El Capitan beta (that's both versions of version 8 as listed in Mavericks and Yosemite).

It is affecting both Jabber (Google and Facebook Buddies) and AIM buddies over the internet.

LAN based connection such as Bonjour to another Mac on your LAN or AIM to AIM to another computer on your LAN appear to work.

Testing shows that the Apple SNATMAP server that connects these A/V chats and Screen Sharing via these Accounts is not responding to tests the way it used to.

Some of the logs generated by failed Connections also point to SIP being a problem (SNATMAP makes the SIP connection).

The Hosts have been made aware and say that they have passed it on.

It is unlikely we will hear whether anything was found or what has been done (when it is fixed) but that is normal for Apple.

Add your name to the feedback they had have so far http://www.apple.com/feedback/ichat.html

8:21 p.m. Sunday; August 23, 2015

Some months ago I did a bunch of testing with the same result: the Apple SNATMAP server appears not to be doing what it used to do.

The problem seems to be only for Macs behind NAT IP address routing/lookup. Now that it's deprived of the SNATMAP service, iChat/Messages AV is incapable of determining the correct IP address to perform final handshaking with the peer computer.

Machines reachable via LAN without NAT should work. In my organization we have a VPN that accomplishes the same thing, our machines in disparate locations can still use iChat/Messages AV as long as the VPN is turned on. Some have software VPN, others hardware VPN, no problem. Without the VPN we are only reachable via NAT and iChat AV does not work any more.

I have not tested, but I would assume that machines directly exposed to the Internet without being behind NAT service should be able to use iChat/Messages AV fine.

This has been going on a long time now. I wish I knew if Apple was thinking of looking into someday, or if they are deliberately starving their product of maintenance in order to accomplish some business goal, or if they are just completely unmotivated.

Hi,

On my iMac this changed to working in Mac OS X 10.11.3 and has worked since.

I have had successful chats over AIM since this time.

I have yet to try other computers still running iChat as to whether ti works there.

It does seem though that the SNATMAP server is working for Audio and Video chat again.

7:43 pm Saturday; April 23, 2016