iChat dropping messages

[Thank The Cheese]

my sister and I use iChat often to keep in contact, but we are finding every so often messages don't send. Usually what happens is I will send her a message(s), and won't get a reply for a while, so I will send another saying "hello?" and she will reply back with "where have you been?". As it turns out none of our messages have been getting through.

does this happen to others at all? We are both using AIM addresses through iChat in 10.4. Both using broadband through same provider (her 512kbps, me 22Mbps; both behind routers).

could it be a port forwarding thing or?

we used to use Skype, but we would find the same thing would happen (only Skype would actually tell you when a message wasn't sent, which was nice!). now that iChat is doing the same thing, I'm wondering if it's a settings issue.

 

[bobw]

Ports that iChat uses.

Make sure they're open if you're using a router or Firewall.

 

[Thank The Cheese]

I seem to have worked it out. Turns out it was a flaky DNS server (or so it would seem. i dont' know much about this kind of thing...it is possible for that to be the case, right?).

I swapped the primary and secondary DNS server on my sister's router and it hasn't dropped a message since. It was a happy consequence of my troubleshooting a separate issue.

My sister was having problems with her downloading stopping half way. After trying many many many (many) things, I decided to swap DNS servers, as I had issues with my ISP's primary DNS the day before.

Not only did swapping DNS servers fix the download issue, but iChat has worked fine ever since.

 

[Thank The Cheese]

spoke too soon. It's been back to its old tricks tonight. this is really annoying, because I know it's not a blocked port issue.

grrrr

 

[Giaguara]

Both are using ichat, and neither is using Adium?
I get that occasionally when I use Adium and the other side uses iChat .. especially after some file transfers. What works then seems to be restarting iChat and Adium ...