[jeffus]

Originally Posted by krove 

Could Comcast be blocking video conferences?

I believe that they are blocking iChat. I used to iChat (using Comcast) to my father in California (using some other provider) all the time. Then one day it stopped. I could use Skype video, and now Gizmo beta, but they are nowhere near as good at iChat.

He was able to iChat with Apple support no problem, but I never got around to trying it on my end. I did look through the error log and got this:

Video Conference Error Report:
87.027765 @SIP/SIP.c:2719 type=4 (900A002D/65)
SIPConnectIPPort failed

I snagged that one from a recent post on the apple support discussions because it was pretty much the same as mine.

IChat from our laptop worked when we were in Austria 2 weeks ago, and the quality was great.

jeff

[besson3c]

Jeffus: the real test is what happens when both computers are directly connected to their respective uplinks without involving a router/switch/hub.

[jeffus]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Jeffus: the real test is what happens when both computers are directly connected to their respective uplinks without involving a router/switch/hub.

Yeah, I'll try to test without the airport this weekend. Will report the results.

regards,
jeff

[jeffus]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Jeffus: the real test is what happens when both computers are directly connected to their respective uplinks without involving a router/switch/hub.

I unplugged the airport from my end, but my father did not remove his router because it is too much work for him.

Results: I could see and hear him for about 5 seconds, he could not hear/see me. Then it froze with this error:
2008-04-19 16:28:31 -0700: No data has been received for the last 10 seconds.
Audio channel info: local machine using 76.121.139.132:16402, expecting remote machine to send to 76.121.139.132:16402
Video channel info: local machine using 76.121.139.132:16402, expecting remote machine to send to 76.121.139.132:16402

So maybe if we both change our router/firewall settings we could make it work.

Thanks for encouraging me to start with the basics...
jeff

[Cold Warrior]

iChat handles routers very poorly, so this is most likely your problem. Find the ports it uses and configure port forwarding on both routers.

[Cold Warrior]

Skype OTOH works great.

[jeffus]

Skype does not work well for us. After he bought the 24" iMac the echo problem got so bad that I can only speak 2 words at a time. I can hear him just fine no matter how long he talks, and we both use the same USB mic/speaker device (BlueGears). Used to work perfectly with his 17" iMac.

Gizmo5 beta gives a 2 second delay for the audio, but no echo problem.

Any suggestions on the Skype problem?
regards,
jeff

[Cold Warrior]

Headphones/earbuds eliminate the echo and whine. I have it when using a MBP & MB.

[jeffus]

Headphones would work indeed, but video time is family time and we have multiple people on each end of the computer, so we all have to hear what is being said - and then we bring in the dogs and the barking starts and chaos ensues. Except for family time we just use the phone (CDV).

[Cold Warrior]

That sucks.

Port forwarding on both ends should make iChat work smoothly.

[turtle777]

You might wanna check out this thread:

iChat port forwarding question - Mac - Apple

It seems like Port Forwarding is NOT the magic bullet.

-t

[Cold Warrior]

I've copied a lot of the later posts about iChat into this thread from this one about Comcast blocking SMTP.

[jeffus]

Thanks folks, I appreciate the helpfulness. Will see what I can get done today.

cheers,
jeff

[Cold Warrior]

Another suggestion - get your dad a router that supports VPN. Then you can VPN to his router, and then your Mac will act like it's sitting on the same LAN as your dad. At that point, you could use iChat and Bonjour features to video chat as if you were in the same house.

That might be a simpler, more sustainable solution than rigging up port forwarding.

[turtle777]

But you would need a router that has a built in VPN server, not just VPN pass-through. Those are not cheap.

-t

[jeffus]

I tried to set the server port to 80, but that didn't work. Had dad set his to 80 as well.
2008-04-20 14:01:13 -0700: 0x18a6a6a0: Error -8 (Did not receive a response from 0x18a6a6a0.)

I hesitate to do the port mapping, because I am too lazy to manually enter 16 port numbers, and then ask dad to do the same. And then one day when the airport gives my mini a different DHCP address I will have to edit all 16 mappings. Doesn't feel worth it.

Strange that it used to work just fine, and then decide to not work one random day.

[dimmer]

"iChat handles routers very poorly"

Hey now, iChat handles routers (more specifically, Network Address Translation) -way- better than most internet apps: using .mac as a SIP service, using UPnP, etc. etc. Sure, it can't work every time -- when the bleepedy bleep will IPv6 take hold -- but "very poorly" is kinda insulting.

(Did you know, btw, that after iChat AV sets up your connection as whatever speed it could get it will retrospectively check to see if the amount of bandwidth it has is still available / more / less -- and change codecs respectively? This is a very aware internet application.)

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by dimmer 

"iChat handles routers very poorly"

Hey now, iChat handles routers (more specifically, Network Address Translation) -way- better than most internet apps: using .mac as a SIP service, using UPnP, etc. etc. Sure, it can't work every time -- when the bleepedy bleep will IPv6 take hold -- but "very poorly" is kinda insulting.

(Did you know, btw, that after iChat AV sets up your connection as whatever speed it could get it will retrospectively check to see if the amount of bandwidth it has is still available / more / less -- and change codecs respectively? This is a very aware internet application.)

'Way better' still translates to not good enough. Skype video chat works every time where iChat fails miserably.