Help: iChat Audio Chat Doesn't Work!

Amie

Amie

Mac Convert for Life
My friend and I were trying to initiate an audio chat via iChat. While we love iChat's user interface, and the text chat works just fine, we could not get the audio chat to work. Every time we sent each other an inivitation we kept getting a message saying that the other user "did not respond" (but we *did* respond; we hit the Accept option). We went to Apple.com's iChat tutorial site and found out that some ports needed to be open in Mac OS's firewall. He's running OS 10.4, and I'm running OS 10.3.9, so we each got our respective port numbers from the site and opened them in our firewalls. And tried it again. Audio chat *still* would not work. We've checked everything else: Mic is enabled, our systems have all the requirements, etc. Everything *looks* like it should work. We were both at public hotspot locations when we tried it. Could that be the problem? We don't know what else to do, as we've tried everything that we could think of. We even turned off our firewalls completely. Still no luck!

Any suggestions?
 
bobw said:
Being at a public spot could be the problem. You don't know what ports they allow.

here's a couple pages you can check out;

http://www.ralphjohnsuk.dsl.pipex.com/page1.html

http://www.mvldesign.com/video_conference_tutorial.html
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Well, you're just full of useful links, ain't ya? ;)

Thanks, Bobw. I read the information contained in the sites that you posted--some of it I'd come across before while trying to solve the problem, and other info was new to me. Because I've went through all the processes before with resolving firewall port issues ... this leads me to deduce that it is, in fact, a public hotspot problem. And I guess there's nothing I can do about it. *sigh*
 
Update: After exploring several Web sites (including the two posted in this thread), and setting our firewalls accordingly, iChat AV still would not work. Text chat works fine; audio chat does not. We are still getting the "user did not respond" message when, in fact, we *did* respond.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be???
 
Why do they call it iChat AV (Audio/Video) if the damn thing doesn't even work? They should just call it iChat TX (Text). 'Cause that's the only feature on the program that works. :(
 
Why are you blaming iChat?
You're using public spots trying to connect, which would have the required ports closed.
 
bobw said:
Why are you blaming iChat?
You're using public spots trying to connect, which would have the required ports closed.
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No, I *opened* the ports. And iChat *still* doesn't work properly. So, yes, I'm blaming iChat.
 
You opened the ports on the public spots router/system?
I doubt you were able to do that.
 
bobw said:
You opened the ports on the public spots router/system?
I doubt you were able to do that.
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Yes. I got the instructions for the correct port numbers and opened them.
 
You opened the correct ports on 'Your' machine, or the network that you're connecting to in the public spot?
 
Both. Network ports are open. I'm connected. Firewall is set. Ports are set and open in System Preferences. iChat AV is set. Correct port numbers are showing. iChat AV is checked, showing that it's allowing incoming traffic. Everything looks as if it's working properly ... but it's not.
 
The public spot that you connect to, allowed you access to their network, and allowed you to open ports on their system?

Seems doubtful. Public spots don't want people hogging bandwidth and wouldn't allow people to have access to their system settings.
 
bobw said:
The public spot that you connect to, allowed you access to their network, and allowed you to open ports on their system?

Seems doubtful. Public spots don't want people hogging bandwidth and wouldn't allow people to have access to their system settings.
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The public hotspot that I connect to doesn't have to "allow" me access to their network. I *always* have access to their network--because I'm a paying member. And, yes, I opened the necessary ports on the network, my system, and iChat. Nothing works! :(
 
You're not understanding. You are a paid member and can access the Internet through the spots, but you DO NOT have access to THEIR NETWORK SYSTEM SETTINGS.

The ports that need to be opened for iChat to work, would have to be opened on their system, as well as yours, and I doubt very much their system has any of these ports open.
 
bobw said:
You're not understanding. You are a paid member and can access the Internet through the spots, but you DO NOT have access to THEIR NETWORK SYSTEM SETTINGS.

The ports that need to be opened for iChat to work, would have to be opened on their system, as well as yours, and I doubt very much their system has any of these ports open.
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Ohhh. See, I didn't understand because you didn't explain. Now that you've explained what you're talking about, I completely understand. :)

So: Why doesn't the network have the correct ports open for iChat AV to work properly?
 
The network has the ports open for the Internet and email. They usually don't have other ports open to prevent people from hogging bandwidth.
 
bobw said:
The network has the ports open for the Internet and email. They usually don't have other ports open to prevent people from hogging bandwidth.
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How would iChat hog bandwith anymore than any other instant messenger program (e.g., AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, etc.)?
 
It depends on how many people are using it at the location that you are. Not necessarily iChat, but the ports that Yahoo, AIM, and MSN use. And that's not even including the video conferencing capabilities or the audio capabilities which are very bandwidth intensive. Add those features with multiple users and it can use up network bandwidth easily, which might cause problems with their ISP depending on the provisions given to them.
 
nixgeek said:
It depends on how many people are using it at the location that you are. Not necessarily iChat, but the ports that Yahoo, AIM, and MSN use. And that's not even including the video conferencing capabilities or the audio capabilities which are very bandwidth intensive. Add those features with multiple users and it can use up network bandwidth easily, which might cause problems with their ISP depending on the provisions given to them.
Click to expand...
My point exactly. If the network is allowing AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, etc. (which, I know it does because I've used them all with no problems), why doesn't it allow iChat? There are probably less people who use iChat than the other chat programs I mentioned, so iChat users would take up less bandwidth.

Which brings me back to my original question. Anyone?...
 
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