[kennedy]

I bought 3 iSight's for 3 of our Macs: my PB12, my wife's PB12, and my kid's PowerMac.

My own PB12 can consistently video iChat with my kid's Power Mac.
My wife's PB12 can consistently video iChat with my kid's Power Mac.

But my PB12 has NEVER managed to video iChat with my wife's PB12.
When one of us tries to initiate a video iChat, we are always told the other side has failed to respond. The other side never sees the request. But our PB12's do see requests from our Power Mac and can connect just fine.


So, it can't be an issue with our routers or network connections.
And it can't be an issue with one of the three computers... they all have worked.

Any ideas on why our two PB12's would not be able to connect?

[Diggory Laycock]

Are you running any other SIP software?

e.g. VOIP client.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Are you running any other SIP software?

e.g. VOIP client.

No.

[kennedy]

More information...

If I try to initiate a video chat with her, she gets the invitation... but when she accepts, I never see anything and it tells her that I failed to respond... but then she gets disconnected from AIM.

If she tries to initiate a video chat with me, I never get an invitation... and it tells her that I failed to respond... and she gets disconnected.

I have never gotten disconnected. Hence, it appears that the problem is that whenever she tries to send a "video packet", that she somehow gets disconnected. (But remember, she has no problem video chatting with my kid's PowerMac... so, its just when she tries to send a video packet to my PB. Oh, and my PB and my kid's PowerMac are on the same LAN, FWIW.)

When she gets disconnected, she has to restart iChat to get back in. When she does, AIM complains that she's connected more than once... she then tells it to leave her connected just once, presumably it kills off the zombie connection, and then she can continue just fine.

Any ideas?

[proton]

You might want to tell us about your network setup. Nothing in your information tells me that it can't be a network connection problem. Quite the contrary in fact, they seem to suggest that it is a network problem. Small differences in network connectivity can quite easily cause iChat to get confused.

Check Firewall settings. Check Audio menu -> Connection Doctor for information about what connections iChat attempted.

- proton

[kennedy]

Originally posted by proton:
You might want to tell us about your network setup. Nothing in your information tells me that it can't be a network connection problem. Quite the contrary in fact, they seem to suggest that it is a network problem. Small differences in network connectivity can quite easily cause iChat to get confused.

LAN1 = netscape router serving DHCP with both PowerMac as 192.168.0.2 and my PowerBook as 192.168.0.4.

LAN2 = apartment building's router serving DHCP with both my wife's PowerBook in one apartment and a friend's PowerBook in another apartment.

My PB can video chat from LAN1 with the friend's PB on LAN2.
My wife's PB can video chat from LAN2 with my PowerMac on LAN1.
But my wife's PB cannot video chat from LAN2 with EITHER my PB on LAN1 NOR the friend's PB on LAN2.

Check Firewall settings.

I've tried manually opening ports 1024-5000; then even completely turned off both the PB firewalls. I haven't messed with the router's firewalls as it is seeming specific to my wife's PB.

Check Audio menu -> Connection Doctor for information about what connections iChat attempted.

I tried Video menu Connection Doctor a few days ago... it never showed anything while I was trying to connect.


All ideas are greatly appreciated... I'm just about out of options other than trying to talk her through a archive & install and hope that magically fixes it and doesn't cause any other problems. Sigh... Macs aren't supposed to do this weird $#it!

[philm]

Swap the ethernet cable of your Mac with your son's Mac and see if you can connect to your wife. If yes - it's a network thing. If no - must be a software thing.

[kennedy]

Definitely a software problem...

My wife can only video iChat with my kid's AIM account!

From my PBook, my Mac account, I have tried connecting to AIM with four different AIM screen names... she gets the same behavior with all but one... my kid's. So, it has nothing to do with which machine or with which Mac account... only which AIM screen name.

Any ideas?

The only thing different about my kid's screen name is that that was the first account she tried to connect to... connected with no problem. That was done originally while they were on the same LAN, FWIW.

Is there an AIM forum somewhere where the AIM gurus hang out?

Any suggestions are welcome; though I now at least have a partial work-around.

Thanks.