[MacBook91]

Hi y'all:

On a Powerbook G4, and I use Yahoo Instant Messenger to chat and webcam with my husband in the UK on a daily basis - and have been for the past year.

Starting 2 days ago, when I tried to broadcast my cam (which is an iSight) - it connected for 5 seconds, and then just went dead - it said the webcam was stopped, and none of the buttons were enabled for me to click for it to connect. So I couldn't broadcast out, even after:

a) restarting YIM
b) restarting my laptop
c) uninstalling, downloading and reinstalling a fresh
version of YIM
d) checking my Firewire connections (which worked
because I was able to use the iSight for iMovie or
Quicktime
e) checking my network connections

So all of a sudden, I've not been able to broadcast out my iSight, or view the webcams of others.

In addition, I've had 3 different YIM users turn on their webcams and invite me to view them - but now, when I try to view webcams of online users, whose webcams are online and broadcasting, I get an error message saying that the user is offline, and that their webcams are not online.



As a married couple separated for long periods of time (I'm in California, he's in the UK) the YIM webcam feature is very important to us, and I can't understand why I can't broadcast or view anymore after I've checked the YIM software, uninstalled and reinstalled it, checked my hardware (iSight) and also my network connection (no firewall, no proxies, has been the same for the past year so no change to it.)

I'm not sure what else to do, and I'm hoping somewhere someone has some tips/answers to resolve the issue?

Thanks so much for any help!

[tooki]

While I can't provide a solution to the Yahoo problem, perhaps I can suggest an alternative till you figure it out: use iChat on the Mac(s), and AIM 5.9 on Windows. It has even better video quality than Yahoo.

tooki

[yoyoman]

I can't use yahoo video any more eather. I need it for work. Some of my cliens have a older computer that can only use yahoo. Also do you know if yahoo brought back chatting with the chat rooms yet for chit chat etc now that they do not use java?!?!? This is quite upsetting.

[houstonmacbro]

i noticed this same problem about thursday of last week. not sure what happened but it appeared to not just affect mac users, but all users (mac and pc alike). however, i have chatted with several friends over the weekend (mostly pc) and their service has slowly returned. unfortunately, the mac yahoo video service has not.

i think yahoo is slowly trying to kill off messenger for mac as the client has not been updated since 2003 and it has very few of the features windows users have.

it's really sad, because i haven't seen any notice of this on newsgroups. i guess most mac users abandoned yahoo video chat for aMSN or iChatAV.

please keep me posted if you hear anything.

[sushiism]

Originally Posted by yoyoman

Also do you know if yahoo brought back chatting with the chat rooms yet for chit chat etc now that they do not use java?!?!? This is quite upsetting.

I emailed them about this, they told me while they had removed the Java system they had a replacement using HTML and Javascript (AJAX) but then went on to say this only works in internet explorer (not even firefox which is dead easy to develop for) and their excuse for it not working on a mac was "internet explorer is no longer supported on a mac" even though we all know IE on a mac is massively different from IE on windows and they wouldn't have supported it anyway.

Basically you should go and harass them by email about their incompetence.

[Thorzdad]

How many of you have Comcast as your ISP?
Last month or so, Comcast made some changes to their DNS servers. All users had to change their local settings to allow dynamic DNS settings. This had the unfortunate side-effect of rendering webcamming under Yahoo Messenger inoperative.
The fix is to go back in to your DNS settings and plug-in static DNS server addresses at your router. I did this and Yahoo now broadcasts my webcam again. This may be a bit more difficult (or impossible) for those of you in offices, of course.

Even if you aren't with Comcast, you should check your DNS settings for your ISP and see if it isn't set for dynamic addressing.

Here is a page listing the actual DNS server addresses of major ISPs worldwide. Scroll down a bit for the US.

[houstonmacbro]

well i just think yahoo is pitiful. what is the email address you used to contact them? i honestly have sent them message before but not even gotten a reply.

fyi, my cable provider (ygnition) is not listed in that group of dns addresses you sent.

[Thorzdad]

I didn't contact Yahoo. I know better. They rarely reply with anything more than a canned response. I got this fix from others on the Comcast user boards.

Sorry that ygnition isn't on the list. I have no control over that. You might call ygnition's customer support and see if they will give you the DNS addresses.