[Hawkeye_a]

I've scoured the interwebs and i cannot find a simple explanation/fix to this issue i have been having.

The situation:
3 different macs, with 3 different people (A, B, C) in three different locations(different networks).

A is running on Tiger, B is running on Leopard, C is running on Snow Leopard. All software is up-to-date on each system.

A and B can have an audio/video chat. B and C can have an audio/video chat. But A and C cannot. When either tries to invite the other, and accepts the invitation, a connection is never established. and an "Error-8" shows up in the logs.

All the advise i have seen is to open ports on the firewall, which i am not too keen to do, until i know what is preventing A-C audio/video communication.

Text communication is fine between all 3 users.

Does anyone have any idea why this is not working ?

Cheers

[ibook_steve]

Well, why don't you at least try opening the firewall to see if that works? Then you would have the cause of the problem and you could look for an alternate solution.

Steve

[Hawkeye_a]

Here's the deal.....

B can connect and have an audio/video chat with both A and C just fine. So why can't A and C ? i doubt it is the firewall, but i will give it a shot at this point.

So far.....
-changed aol login ports in iChat, changed bandwidth limitations
-and now i've been trying to enable "NAT port mapping" in the Airport Admin, which is inexplicably grayed out on the other side. I wonder what other feature/service gets broken when we finally figure this out.

This has quite possibly been my worst experience on a Mac to date.... so far, i've had to do tech support for iChat, System Preferences, Airport Admin and MacOSX over the phone. it doesn't help that with every iteration of the software, all options and checkboxes and panels are different so it's next to impossible to figure out whats on each other's screens when instructing the other.

Apart from the vague "error-8" i have no idea where the problem lies. I cannot imagine any "normal" person even beginning to understand the log that is generated, let alone fix it so it does what it's supposed to do. /end rant

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Here's the deal.....

B can connect and have an audio/video chat with both A and C just fine. So why can't A and C ? i doubt it is the firewall, but i will give it a shot at this point.

So far.....
-changed aol login ports in iChat, changed bandwidth limitations
-and now i've been trying to enable "NAT port mapping" in the Airport Admin, which is inexplicably grayed out on the other side. I wonder what other feature/service gets broken when we finally figure this out.

This has quite possibly been my worst experience on a Mac to date.... so far, i've had to do tech support for iChat, System Preferences, Airport Admin and MacOSX over the phone. it doesn't help that with every iteration of the software, all options and checkboxes and panels are different so it's next to impossible to figure out whats on each other's screens when instructing the other.

Apart from the vague "error-8" i have no idea where the problem lies. I cannot imagine any "normal" person even beginning to understand the log that is generated, let alone fix it so it does what it's supposed to do. /end rant

It has to do with the protocol. One side has to be able to be outside the firewall. NAT-PMP cannot be enabled on some older airport routers. There could be other issues. Could you describe your set up a little more?

Apple has this: Using iChat with a firewall or NAT router

[Hawkeye_a]

Cheers for the link, ill have to comb through it.

What baffles me is(i think ill name the 3 computers John, Anne and Mark):

John: MacBook(2.0Ghz, Leopard), connected via AirportExpress, using an AIM account
Anne: MacBook(2.4Ghz, Snow Leopard), connected via a 3G USB Modem, using a .Mac account
Mark: iMac(2.0 Ghz C2D, Tiger), connected via AirportExtreme, using an AIM account

John can voice and video chat with both Anne and Mark, no problem. But Anne and Mark constantly get the Error-8. But strangely Anne and Mark can share files via iChat just fine.

If it was a firewall issue, wouldn't one of the three be excluded from any voice/video chat completely ? Im starting to wonder if it's the NAT/PMP issue as well, cause it doesn't seem to be an issue when connecting to the other person.

This is a snippet from the error log:

Video Conference Error Report:
11.657163 @/SourceCache/VideoConference/VideoConference-415.13/SIP/SIP.c:2917 type=4 (900A0015/0)
[SIPConnectIPPort failed]
[]
13.658210 @/SourceCache/VideoConference/VideoConference-415.13/SIP/SIP.c:2917 type=4 (900A0015/0)
[SIPConnectIPPort failed]
[]