IChat to AIM on a PC -- connection error

Question

I am trying to resolve a connection error between my iChat and a friend using AIM on his PC. We both downloaded the most recent versions of AIM and we both turned off our firewalls in an attempt to connect to each other. We can see that we are both available and we can invite each other to a video chat, and we can accept each other's invitations, but then we get an error message that states we can't connect.
We both meet all of the necessary system requirements and he uses his webcam on Yahoo and MSN on a regular basis, so I assume it's a problem on my end (I'm a first-time webcam user).
We played around with the port requirements, which didn't work, and since we turned off our firewalls completely, we don't know what to try next.
Any suggestions?? Thank you, in advance!

Answer 1

Elissa,
Welcome to the Apple Discussion boards, and i am sorry to hear you are having issues. Mac to PC has many known issues, but the problem you describe is really only a symptom of the problem and like say a "fever" it may be caused by many things.
The other respondent provided you a link to a discussion area that deals with this specific issue, but have you tested with another mac yet? if not, it may help to find out if it is on the PC end, which it usually is. you can try one of the live testers or you can try the auto ones first.
for an auto tester create a new AIM contact and use appleu3test03. do you know how to do this?
tell us a little about how you are set up. Are you connecting through a network, are you using cable, dial up or DSL?
you should have your firewall on and the proper ports open, leaving your firewall down isn't a good idea.
to open the ports, do the following:
Creating iChat settings in preferences: Go to system preferences/file sharing/firewall. look to see if your firewall is on. if it is on, great, but lets make sure you have all the needed ports open.
now in the firewall settings scroll down and see if you have a setting enabled called iChat AV. if you didn't create one, you probably don't. if you do, skip down to look at the ports settings. if you don't lets create one.
Still in Firewall, click the "New" button. A drop down window should open. Now select in that window from the fist drop down menu "port name" and select "other." Now under "TCP port numbers:" enter the following: "5190, 5220, 5222, 5223, 5298" Under "UDP port numbers:" enter "5060, 5297, 5298, 5353, 5678, 16384-16403" last under description type in "iChat AV