Can't Video Chat, but Audio Works Great

Question

Hey guys....I have been trying my hardest to get my IChat video feature up and running.
The audio works great when conferencing and obviously the im works fine. Myself and the person I am trying to video chat with both are using AIM through IChat. Here is the error message I am getting -
2009-04-06 13:53:14 -0400: No data has been received for the last 10 seconds.
Audio channel info: local machine using 192.168.1.3:16402, expecting remote machine to send to 173.66.213.133:16402
Video channel info: local machine using 192.168.1.3:16402, expecting remote machine to send to 173.66.213.133:16402
If I restart my IChat and send a video chat invitation I can initially see the person on the other end. But, the picture then freezes (almost instantly) and then I get the error message.
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
Two possible things.
1) Go to System Preferences > Quicktime > Streaming tab and set the speed to 1.5Mbps and relaunch iChat so it "sees" the new speed.
2) Check your modem/router for any DoS (Denial of Service) or SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) feature and turn it Off.
Examples
Netgears have either DOS or SPI in the WAN Page
Netopias have this Feature as part of the Firewall when you use a setting higher than Low.
Linksys tend to have the same in the firewall in the Security tab.
Basically they can be anywhere in the set up pages as the manufacturers never put them in the same place.
Both features examine incoming data to see if it is an attack.
In an iChat video chat so much data can be sent from higher speed processors over high speed inter net connections that it is regarded by DOS as a attack.
SPI tries to evaluate the validity of the data and tend to get overwhelmed (Simplified view).
192.168.1.3 looks more like an IP from a Linksys than the other two examples.
9:24 PM Monday; April 6, 2009