Does iChat "just work"?

[Schtibbie]

My wife recently tried iChatting from our Tiger-based macbook with her mother (who was in an Apple store class at that moment) - her mother was using Leopard on a newer Macbook. My wife got the message saying "mom wants to chat", to which she accepted. But then it said something along the lines of "IP address is not valid" and wouldn't work.

Now, I've found a really long-winded article on Apple about opening all kind of ports on both sides, NAT routers, etc.. Why is it this complicated? Skype works fine w/ this computer when I chat w/ *my* parents but my wife's mom wants to use ichat. Is there something about iChat that doesn't "just work"?

Do I need to go into my router and set up port rules and go into my mac's command line and edit ipfw rules? I'm not a unix guy. Or was this more likely an issue at the Apple store on my mother-in-law's side?

 

[aandf1978]

what kind of router do you have?? I have experienced this with a netgear router that I had, to which tech support said they could not help me because I do not have an apple router, but I found it on the internet. For some reason by default netgear closes the ports required for iChat to perform audio and video chats. Just google your router and how to open up the ports, or get an apple router. After my netgear bought a linksys, which had the ports open by default but the wireless later died, then moved on to airport extreme.

 

[Hawkeye411]

Hmmm .. I've never seen this problem before. I use iChat when I work with my students and haven't had any problems. Strange!!

 

[Schtibbie]

Just google your router and how to open up the ports, or get an apple router..

I kind of find this solution to be unacceptable considering that Skype video chatting works just fine between these two same computers (my Tiger macbook and my mother-in-law's Leopard macbook). If iChat is sensitive to odd ports that many consumer and coffeeshop routers block without special port forwarding being set up, then I'm throwing in the towel on iChat and using Skype, which doesn't require babying. Nevermind which router I have (Belkin). As for my mother-in-law - she travels and is always behind a different router. Is she expected to have every coffeeshop, hotel, or relative alter their router settings?

Seriously, Apple - I don't mess with ports. Please make iChat "Just Work". It's embarassing to us macheads that I had to have her install Skype and ignore iChat.

 

[Peace]

My wife recently tried iChatting from our Tiger-based macbook with her mother (who was in an Apple store class at that moment) - her mother was using Leopard on a newer Macbook. My wife got the message saying "mom wants to chat", to which she accepted. But then it said something along the lines of "IP address is not valid" and wouldn't work.

Now, I've found a really long-winded article on Apple about opening all kind of ports on both sides, NAT routers, etc.. Why is it this complicated? Skype works fine w/ this computer when I chat w/ *my* parents but my wife's mom wants to use ichat. Is there something about iChat that doesn't "just work"?

Do I need to go into my router and set up port rules and go into my mac's command line and edit ipfw rules? I'm not a unix guy. Or was this more likely an issue at the Apple store on my mother-in-law's side?

I'm guessing the reason it didn't work was because her mother was using Leopard behind the Apple store firewall. That combined with your wife using Tiger.

If both computers are using Leopard it should be simple.

 

[Schtibbie]

I'm guessing the reason it didn't work was because her mother was using Leopard behind the Apple store firewall. That combined with your wife using Tiger.

If both computers are using Leopard it should be simple.

Are there known issues with iChat not working when one person is on Tiger and the other on Leopard? That'd be a pain. And we tried iChatting with her from a coffee shop (she was in the coffee shop) and had the same problem with "invalid remote IP address" or somesuch showing up on my end. From the same coffeeshop and computer, Skype worked fine.