"insufficient bandwidth" error

The "insufficient bandwidth" problm still occurs when I try video chatting with my father. However, I have no such error when chatting with my mother (on her iBook, 10.3.9, iChat 2.1 and wireless DSL) or sister (on her PC, Trillian Pro and wired DSL).

My system: a MacBook Pro (10.4.8, 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDRS SDRAM), iChat (3.1.6) with DSL and good speed (I checked it with the test at http://www.theedge.ca/myspeed/ and got the typical DSL listed results). I've got a wireless system in my house (Airport Extreme and two Airport Expresses).

My dad's system: PowerBook G4 (10.4.8, 867 MHz PowerPC G4, 1MB L3 cache; Memory 768 MB SDRAM), iChat (3.1.6) with a cable modem with good speed (he checked it with the test at http://www.theedge.ca/myspeed/ and got the typical cable modem listed results) and a Wireless G Broadband Router.

All the ports for iChat are opened on our Mac's firewalls. We've both done the Quicktime streaming fix and the associated iChat bandwidth limit adjustment. We can both successfully start and run the test video chats with all three Apple video chat test channels (appleu3test01, appleu3test02 and appleu3test03).

Whenever we try video chatting with each other (my inviting him or him inviting me) we get the "insufficient bandwidth" error (Error 22, I've check the logs).

Any ideas on what's going wrong?

yeah, i think something is wrong with the service.

What service are you talking about? iChat? The cable modem ISP?

I totally agree it is the service. My brother and I
both startted having this problem right after the
last Apple update and it hasn't worked since.

Not for me. The problem I'm having occurred before and after the last iChat update. I was hoping the update would fix things, but it didn't. Similarly, video chats with my mother have worked perfectly before and after the update.

"What service are you talking about? iChat? "

yes

Thanks for the opinion, though it's not very helpful.

Any indications that Apple knows (or cares) about this and will fix it?

Seems funny that the problem only occurs (for me) with some video chats, but not others.

Ralph,

Thanks for the information. I'm not sure my dad is capable of finding the settings on his router and modem let alone changing them. I'm not sure I can walk him through it from 2000 miles away, but it will give us something to chew on. I sort of thought the router/modem might be a problem even though he can get the Apple test video chats going and this error isn't the same old one I got when working on my router and DSL modem.

I send the error logs whenever asked. I agree that it shows Apple is gathering some information. iChat is such a great thing, when it's working, that I feel it's worth the pain. I'm not sure others agree and Apple has to appeal to the others, which they usually do. I'm sure in a few years iChat will really be a plug and play item and capable of (easily, and Jabber is not easy! 🙂 ) talking to many other IM services (MSN, Yahoo, etc.).

Tell me how your Dad has got his Modem and Wireless
router set up ?

If the modem can route (Do DHCP) and the wireless is
also doing this he can have problems.

As iChat uses ports above the port 1024 then NAT is
often used to direct the data to the right computer
(IP) on your network.
It becomes more important that the network is sorted
out.

iChat like an On-line game will have problems with
two DHCP server on one LAN.

It also has a problem if there are two devices at one
end using NAT (Port Forwarding or Port Triggering).

I'm going to have my dad concentrate on the port forwarding/triggering first. I found a dencent web page here:

http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_triggering/Gateway/WGR-200G/iChat.ht m

with instructions on what to do, how to do it and what ports to work with. We'll see what happens.

The question that still bugs me is why can my dad get a video chat going with the Apple test chats, but can't get a video chat going with me?

I can also get the Apple video test chats going as well as video chat with my mom and sister.