Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > iChat 3.0 is buggy!

iChat 3.0 is buggy!
Thread Tools
Sophus
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Norway
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 30, 2005, 02:17 PM
 
Trying to connect with other Tiger users both audio and video chat gets me (and them) an error about not sufficient bandwidth, regardless of who initiates the chat.

Connecting with people on ichat 2.1 gives no error, but really poor framerate, like 0.5 pr. second. Also, Virex 7.5 and up gives 1 frame pr. second in videochat in Tiger. removing Virex fixes this, but not the bandwidth error unfortunatly.

Waiting for a fix in 10.4.1? If anyone knows a fix or workaround, please let me know?

There is several threads about this issue on Apple Support Forums.
( Last edited by Sophus; Apr 30, 2005 at 02:25 PM. )
     
Reggie Fowler
Forum Regular
Join Date: Mar 2005
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 30, 2005, 02:23 PM
 
Virex 5.7.1 doesn't work under Tiger. How did you get it to work, since it's not compatible?
     
Sophus  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Norway
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 30, 2005, 02:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by Reggie Fowler
Virex 5.7.1 doesn't work under Tiger. How did you get it to work, since it's not compatible?
I didn't (don't use it), but judging from forum posts at Apple, someone did, possibly through upgrade install. But it just spikes at a 100% cpu when doing ichat conferences, so obviously, the program is loaded, but conflicting/hanged.
     
bedoughty
Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Denver, CO
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 30, 2005, 06:10 PM
 
Also: is anyone else's iChatAgent just not responding? It'll run fine for maybe a minute but then suddenly stop responding. Everything seems to keep working fine, I can use all my statuses, keep chatting, use the iTunes status, etc etc. This happens whether or not I'm running the menu bar extra.

I've trashed prefs and restarted. Ideas?
-
this isn't who it would be
if it wasn't who it is
-T.Anastasio
     
Sophus  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Norway
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 30, 2005, 06:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by bedoughty
Also: is anyone else's iChatAgent just not responding? It'll run fine for maybe a minute but then suddenly stop responding. Everything seems to keep working fine, I can use all my statuses, keep chatting, use the iTunes status, etc etc. This happens whether or not I'm running the menu bar extra.

I've trashed prefs and restarted. Ideas?
Yes, this problem was mentioned by several users at the apple discussion forums. No solution at this point, but have a look at the ichat 3.0 suppot forum. something might show up.
( Last edited by Sophus; May 1, 2005 at 06:16 AM. )
     
Buck_W
Senior User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 3, 2005, 09:58 PM
 
Since installing Tiger, the video in iChat is no longer working properly. The video coming in is much improved, but the video going out (on my end) is extremely choppy. We are using a Canon ZR25 (which has worked flawlessly up until this point), would that make a difference under Tiger?

I've checked the bandwidth preferences (no limit). When I check the video, everything works fine as it should, but as soon I connect in a video chat with someone, my video output immediately goes choppy. Anybody else having trouble like this? Any suggestions?
17" MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 320G HD | 8 GB RAM | 10.10.3
     
Sophus  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Norway
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 4, 2005, 06:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by Buck_W
Since installing Tiger, the video in iChat is no longer working properly. The video coming in is much improved, but the video going out (on my end) is extremely choppy. We are using a Canon ZR25 (which has worked flawlessly up until this point), would that make a difference under Tiger?

I've checked the bandwidth preferences (no limit). When I check the video, everything works fine as it should, but as soon I connect in a video chat with someone, my video output immediately goes choppy. Anybody else having trouble like this? Any suggestions?
Check your System Monitor and look for iChat Agent process. It is most probably hanging and must be force killed. A restart of iChat will then fix it, but it will start hanging in about 10 minutes. Apple is aware of the many problems with iChat 3.0 and are supposedly working on a patch. Until then, it is a game of chance every time one tries to connect in a voice or video chat.

Also, many people can't start audio or videochats after upgrading to Tiger, and get an error message about "not enough bandwidth". This might be related to the firewall blocking TCP and/or UDP ports. At least, when I checked the firewall log, it revelaed that port 5060 is blocked for incoming requests and hence, UDP ports can not be opened at request for transport. Before 10.4, I believe that UDP ports were not blocked at all, so no filter was needed in the internal firewall for these ports.

In 10.4, UDP ports are blocked by default, at least when operating in "stealth mode" and can now be controlled by filters in the built in firewall. A complete firewall filter should therefore be set up in "Sharing/Firewall" if you don't already have it in place.
I will try to post a screenshot of the ports to be filled in when I get home from work.
( Last edited by Sophus; May 4, 2005 at 12:44 PM. )
     
Sophus  (op)
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Norway
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 4, 2005, 12:49 PM
 
http://homepage.mac.com/kielland/firewall.jpg
[ALL inline images must be no wider than 480 pixels. --tooki]
( Last edited by tooki; May 4, 2005 at 01:46 PM. )
     
Matt OS X
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 19, 2005, 12:31 AM
 
When will iChat 3.0.1 be out?! it's totally bugged.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what Mac OS X is... you must see it for yourself."
     
Buck_W
Senior User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 19, 2005, 08:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by Matt OS X
When will iChat 3.0.1 be out?! it's totally bugged.
No one knows for sure, but this particular discussion has hundreds and hundreds of posts on Apple's discussion boards. Someone posted that an Apple rep has acknowledged that there is a problem with iChat 3 and that they are working on an update. I've tried every solution that's been suggested, but I am still getting the insufficient bandwidth error message. As the Apple boards make clear, I am not alone, there are many, many others who also are having the same (or similar) problem(s). It's an embarrassment for Apple.
17" MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 320G HD | 8 GB RAM | 10.10.3
     
Matt OS X
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 19, 2005, 10:12 AM
 
It's an embarrassment for Apple.

I agree with you.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what Mac OS X is... you must see it for yourself."
     
CatOne
Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 19, 2005, 02:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by bedoughty
Also: is anyone else's iChatAgent just not responding? It'll run fine for maybe a minute but then suddenly stop responding. Everything seems to keep working fine, I can use all my statuses, keep chatting, use the iTunes status, etc etc. This happens whether or not I'm running the menu bar extra.

I've trashed prefs and restarted. Ideas?
Based on what, your "troubleshooting" in Activity Monitor?

This is silly. It's running fine, it's just not updating to AM as often as AM wants it to. There's nothing wrong, just ignore it.
     
iREZ
Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Los Angeles of the East
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2005, 03:18 PM
 
uhhhh don't say it's silly because you're an exception to the rule. my iChat behaves the same way and my video out is soooo choppy that i could take pictures, import them in to ps, crop them, save them, send them via file transfer faster. this is truely the sadest part of the tiger update for me...and here i thought 'stoplight' was the buggiest thing.
NOW YOU SEE ME! 2.4 MBP and 2.0 MBP (running ubuntu)
     
krove
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 14, 2005, 06:56 PM
 
What sorts of network topology are you guys using? I haven't seen any of these issues and have been participating in 4-way audio chats and 3-way video chats with no problems. I have a DSL connection (3 Mbit/sec down, 768 Kbit/sec up) that is shared over an Airport Extreme Base Station. My OS X firewall has the proper ports open for iChat to function.

It may be related to a particular router or router setup scheme or firewall (router or OS X)... Maybe by posting some of your network setup, you guys can isolate the issue.

How did it come to this? Goodbye PowerPC. | sensory output
     
Buck_W
Senior User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 16, 2005, 12:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by krove
What sorts of network topology are you guys using? I haven't seen any of these issues and have been participating in 4-way audio chats and 3-way video chats with no problems. I have a DSL connection (3 Mbit/sec down, 768 Kbit/sec up) that is shared over an Airport Extreme Base Station. My OS X firewall has the proper ports open for iChat to function.

It may be related to a particular router or router setup scheme or firewall (router or OS X)... Maybe by posting some of your network setup, you guys can isolate the issue.
I'm glad that you haven't encountered any problems, but unfortunately, many have. I am on a cable connection that's similar in speed to yours. I do have a router, but I disabled it and connected my computer directly to the broadband modem to see if that corrected anything. It did not, so the router setup evidently was not the problem. Again, the only thing I changed was updating to Tiger and iChat 3. It has been a horror story ever since. The sheer numbers alone (check Apple's discussion boards) of people having problems who had absolutely no problems running iChat in Panther, indicate that iChat in Tiger needs to patched, fixed, whatever.

I am a Mac fanatic, but I stand by my earlier statement: this is an embarrassment for Apple
17" MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 320G HD | 8 GB RAM | 10.10.3
     
cenutrio
Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: missing
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 16, 2005, 06:34 PM
 
I agree, so far my major complain of Tiger is the buggy iChat
-original iMac, TiPB 400, Cube, Macbook (black), iMac 24¨, plus the original iPod and a black nano 4GB-
     
clarkgoble
Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Provo, UT
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 16, 2005, 08:32 PM
 
I've not been able to use video chat since I installed Tiger. It always says that the connection is refused.
     
villalobos
Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2000
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 19, 2005, 06:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by Buck_W
I'm glad that you haven't encountered any problems, but unfortunately, many have. I am on a cable connection that's similar in speed to yours. I do have a router, but I disabled it and connected my computer directly to the broadband modem to see if that corrected anything. It did not, so the router setup evidently was not the problem. Again, the only thing I changed was updating to Tiger and iChat 3. It has been a horror story ever since. The sheer numbers alone (check Apple's discussion boards) of people having problems who had absolutely no problems running iChat in Panther, indicate that iChat in Tiger needs to patched, fixed, whatever.

I am a Mac fanatic, but I stand by my earlier statement: this is an embarrassment for Apple
Well i don;t know, it works fine for me, and the picture quality is well improved over the previous iChat. That alone was for me worth the price of the upgrade. I think iChat is still one of the better consumer oriented gotta-have-it Apple application. Every PC guy I show that too is amazed at the quality and the ease of use. Hardly an 'embarassment'.
     
eteela
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jun 2005
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 20, 2005, 02:58 PM
 
Digging into the firewall info it seems the the advanced option of blocking UDP ports creates an issue. iChat as it dosent yet tell the system not to block the ports it uses so one must configure it manually and it uses a bunch of ports, alot more than the last version did and plenty of UDP(which is likely where the problem lies).  Heres the web pages that I got the info from though the standard ports info seems a bit outdated, and the ports I opened for iChat

system prefs/sharing/firewall:create a new entry of type 'other' name it "iChat" select ports

tcp 5190, 5298, 5220, 5222, 16403-16834

udp 5060, 5190, 5297, 5298, 5353, 5678, 16384-16403

some of these are for bonjour for chatting on your local network which you don't need to open if you only chat with users on the internet


http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93208   Using iChat AV with a firewall or NAT router
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106439   "Well Known" TCP and UDP Ports Used By Apple Software Products
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301641   iChat AV 3.0: "Insufficient bandwidth" messages

I still haven't checked to see if this resolved all my issues, when I put my router bak online, I too have gone to running straight to my cable modem. I did get a video chat to work though. I did not have udp blocking and stealth mode turned on at the time, I'll be enabling them one at a time to see if there are more problems.
     
Kristoff
Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: in front of the keyboard
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 25, 2005, 02:09 PM
 
I have been plagued with the same issues others have had, from inability to connect (insufficient bandwidth messages despite having a 9000down/1000up connection) and the "(you) did not send any data" message, to stalling sessions where my outgoing video stream freezes.

So, I have been reading, futzing with the router, etc etc.

My parents are in a different state and I have worked with them and this is what I have discovered.

Initially, we could start the chat, and they said I was very blocky especially when I moved.
Router logs showed nothing unusual, and connection doctor didn't either.
After some time, they said my bandwidth as viewed in their connection doctor would go down to 30 kbps and I would freeze and come back intermittently, but never as smoothly as we used to chat prior to my going to Tiger.

Then, I decided to change the bandwidth limit from "no limit" to 1mbps, and it made all the difference in the world. It resurrected a stalled video chat. My dad's exact words were "what did you just do, because that fixed it."

So, just thought I would share that tidbit--it's worth a shot.
signatures are a waste of bandwidth
especially ones with political tripe in them.
     
Macpilot
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: California
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jun 30, 2005, 02:27 AM
 
Just video chatted for the first time in Tiger with a buddy I used to chat with in Panther.

Not any better quality, and we could not initiate a multi-way chat. Three G5 iMacs (one 2ghz, two 1.8ghz), all on broadband, all running Tiger.

What is strange is that according to the iChat page on apple.com, the requirements for hosting a multi-way video chat are different than what the Help Viewer states when you click on iChat Help.

The Apple website says you need "a dual 1ghz G4 or ANY G5",

while

The iChat Help Viewer, under "Hosting a multiperson video conference"...says...
"you need a dual 1Ghz G4 or dual 2 Ghz G5."

Elsewhere in the Help Viewer, it states what the website says.

Apple! What is the real deal here?

Oh yeah...my audio chats still have major static sometimes, just like in Panther.

What is going on?
MacBook Pro
Mac Mini
     
Buck_W
Senior User
Join Date: Jun 2002
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 18, 2005, 08:41 AM
 
"iChat problems are proving an embarassment to Apple, as readers struggle to connect with family, friends and coworkers. It is unacceptable of Apple to have such a buggy software at this date of release and after two upgrades to the OS."

http://www.macintouch.com/ichatav02.html#jul15
17" MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 320G HD | 8 GB RAM | 10.10.3
     
Matt OS X
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2003
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Jul 18, 2005, 10:43 AM
 
It's about time 10.4.2 fixed all of the problems.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what Mac OS X is... you must see it for yourself."
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:31 PM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,