Ichat won't connect to my AIM screen name

I bought my mac a few days ago and everything was working fine with ichat. I woke up one morning and it was asleep, and when I woke it up and tried to sign onto ichat it "hiccuped" then wouldn't sign on and gave me an error message saying I have tried to sign on too many times in a short period of time and it said i should wait a few minutes before trying again. I waited, restarted, and shut down my machine and it is not working. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

I have had 6 other housemates, in the same house, on the same university network, for the last year and a half. Two others have macs (another macbook, and a mac mini (old)). I have owned my macbook for almost a year now, and iChat has worked beautifully the whole time, except for this last month. I talked with the University IT people (I have software engineer friends who graduated and now work for them) and nothing has been changed.
iChat is currently working so I dont want to mess with it. It wasnt working about an hour ago though. The next time, which I am sure will be soon it has problems again, I will try port 443. Thanks.
<Venting>
I guess this is just the week to have mac problems. On a side note, my airport express randomly goes into long fits of dropping and reconnecting every 10 seconds. I am working with other threads for this problem, but I switched from a PC to get rid of these issues; and for the last 11 months I have. I know I really push my computers to their max and try to get every single drop of performance from every clock cycle, but I am not buying any more apple products, nor will I continue to recommend them as I have for the previous 11 months until this is fixed.
</Venting>

Similar Messages

Ichat can't connect to my AIM account, gives me the error "Cannot log in to AIM. General error. Try again." Please help!

ichat can't connect to my AIM account, gives me the error "Cannot log in to AIM. General error. Try again." Please help!

HI,
Your specs say OS X 10.6.8 which would be iChat 5.x.x in Snow Leopard.
This version by default tries to login in to the AIM server called login.oscar.aol.com on port 5190 using the TCP protocol.
An internet connection is made up of 65535 of these so called ports (more like TV stations)
Most routers have ports up to port 1024 which means some of the iChat Login Ports are above this.
Two ways to Solve this.
1) Change the Login port iChat uses
2) Change the way the router opens ports.
For 1) go to iChat Menu > Preferences > Accounts
Highlight/select the AIM account.
In the Info Tab deselect the "Enable this Account" to make sure you are Logged out.
In the Server Settings change the Port to 443
You can decide not to use SSL as well if you wish (the server name automatically loses the leading "s")
For 2) log in to the routers set up pages and make sure it is doing UPnP
This allows the computers to tell the router which ports to open. It also allows multiple devices to use the same ports.
For iChat this allows it to Screen Share as this happens on an unlisted random port.
Opps forgot a couple of things.
If you are using an APple ID registed at Apple ending in @mac.com @me.com or @iCloud.com then the passowrd at Apple has to be 16 characters or less to work with the AIM servers.
Additionally the iCloud issued @me.com and @iCloud.com one require you to use iChat 6 in Lion or Messages in Mountian Lion due to changes Apple made to the security of letting AIM "read" the passwords.
9:38 PM Sunday; June 9, 2013
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously
Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)

Every time I try to sign on it says that ichat lost the connection to the AIM account and the server connection was unexpectedly lost. How can I fix this?

Every time I try to sign on it says that ichat lost the connection to the AIM account and the server connection was unexpectedly lost. How can I fix this?

Note For others.
For the Port Changes (or server names in some cases) you have to be logged out to make changes on the Server Settings pane.
9:41 PM Friday; October 28, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

IChat wants nonexistent AIM screen name

Hi everyone,
I've opened an iChat account with no problems, using a .mac screen name. My father, whom I've been working with over the phone, tried the same thing. He has a .mac screen name, it's showing up and checked under "Accounts" in "Preferences", but when he tries to go online with it, he is prompted to enter an AIM screen name. The .mac name does not work here (with or without the extension)- he just keeps getting prompted as if he's trying to sign in using AIM and can't get out of the loop. Any ideas?
Thanks!

Hi,
You can log in to the AIM Pages with an @Mac.com name by entering it in full.
This is one such place https://settings.aim.com/ with the sign-in spot being top right.
(it does not display the Screen name straight away but does if you enter/click on one of those button - it returns to this page).
This will still use a check with the @Mac.com servers as to the password (which still needs to be 16 characters of less).
Yes, if you were wondering, it does mean that in iChat you can choose AIM as the account type and enter a MobileMe or @mac.com name in full - in fact this is the only way you can use a MobileMe account in iChat 3 or earlier.
6:44 PM Tuesday; March 29, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

IChat lost the connection to the aim account

Please help i do not know how to connect to ichat the account worked for awhile and now wont it says that it is connected but my contacts never load and eventually a window with the message "iChat lost the connection to the aim account the server connection was lost unexpectedly" appears

Try logging on to AIM on port 443 rather than port 5190.
Go to IChat in the menu bar > Preferences > Accounts.
Log out of AIM and then use the Server Settings tab
Set the port to 443(press return/enter(you might have to tick and untick SSL for 443 to stick)).
Log back in again.

Aim screen name service not working

i am trying to set up a new aim screen name for a client. i am unable to do this. i get a message saying the service isn't available. apparently the only other way to have a screen name is to buy mobile me membership. does anyone have any insight about this? thanks.

Are you saying you cannot get to this page ?
5:36 PM Friday; March 6, 2009

Ichat won't connect to AIM - timed out

Everything was working fine. Now I still have Jabber on ichat 4.0.7, but my (long-time expired) .mac account times out, won't connect. Just one day it worked and the next it didn't. I have tried resetting port to 443, from 5190, tried using SSL and not. double checked that my .mac and AIM passwords both work on their websites. I can't think of anything that has changed. I was just getting into this - and now it doesn't work. Any ideas please?

So at this screen originally you selected the @mac Option ?
There is an example of the Expanded drop down a little further down.
(iChat 3 pic but same for iChat 4)
There is a similar option if in the iChat menu > Preferences > Accounts you use the + Plus button to add a New Account/Screen Name.
If the Keychain (and therefore iChat) shows you the current @mac.com password but iChat is not connecting then go to your Home Folder (Little House icon)/Library/Preferences and delete com.apple.ichat.AIM.plist (by putting it in the Trash) and Restart iChat.
How to Check your Password
It may be sometime before I respond again (Note time)
10:45 PM Thursday; January 8, 2009

Ichat won't connect to AIM

Hi. I know there's other topics with this exact problem but none of them were helpful, so I have to post my own here.
For months I have had the problem with iChat, where if I try to sign in, it collapses and expands many times and tells me I have tried to sign in too many times and to try again later. Maybe a handful of times out of the many months this has been a problem, I have randomly succesfully logged in, but of course it would mess up again a few hours later.
I downloaded the AIM app for Mac so that I would be able to chat with people, and that always worked, but I really much prefered the iChat, so I have been trying to fix it.
I changed the port to 443, that did not work. I deleted the .plist thing, did not work. I followed all of the troubleshooting guidelines I've found on this website, nothing worked. Worst of all, after doing ALL of this, it seems that it somehow messed up my AIM application too, because now when I gave up on iChat and decided to just use my AIM app again, it will no longer let me sign in, and tells me "rate limited". Now I REALLY can't do any chatting.
what the heck?

Hi,
You have OS 10.5.8 with Security Updates to get to iChat 4.0.9 (Only reported as such in iChat and using Quicklook on the app in the Applications folder - and not by Get Info)
That would appear to be Up-to Date
IF your Name and Password are letting you login to the AIM web site or with AIM Express in a web browser I would delete com.apple.iChat.AIM.plist which you will find in your Home Folder/Library/Preferences
Restart iChat afterwards. This will force a new login using info in the Keychain for your Password and Screen Name.
9:40 PM Monday; July 12, 2010
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

IchaT won't connect--first time user!!!

I am trying desperatetly to talk to my 3 yr. old daughter on ichat.
She and her mom have an apple id with ichat and i have an aol chat name with ichat.
I read other posts and changed the network setting 443, so did she.
it won't connect and we get connection errors. no success yet. once, we both came up then froze.
that's it.
any ideas?

I'm asuming you mean video chat. Check both of your iChat Preferences Video Bandwidth Limit and make sure it is "none." With no other internet-savvy apps other than Safari running, each of you go to http://speedtest.net and do a speed test. Remember the smaller of kilobits-per-second upload and download numbers. Go into  System Preferences > Quicktime and select Streaming Speed to be the value closest to what you get from speedtest. Some people just say select 1/.5MBPS and all works well -- I have had a different experience than that so I recommend that you use the smallest of the speedtest numbers. Presumably, AIM's "wait awhile before trying to login again" penalty timer will have expired by the time you get this other stuff taken care of.
Let us know how this works out for you.
PS - are you, like, on business travel and in a hotel? You may have hotel firewall issues. Marriott chain hotels let you request a public IP address on their service signup page to bypass their restrictive port blocks, others you need to call the hotel's ISP support line and have them put you on a public IP. I think it is T-Mobile broadband that handles Hilton chain. They can do it but if you get an inexperienced customer service rep, (s)he may say that (s)he can't do that, but they can coz' I've had 'em do it for me before. And don't forget to have all ports in your Mac's firewall closed on your laptop mac that you are using in the hotel with a public IP and the Mac's firewall turned on. Don't want any internet evildoers seeing an unlocked door. iChat will open locally on your computer what ports you need.

IChat won't connect on school internet network...

hey, not sure which version if iChat i have but for some reason it won't connect on my school wireless networks.
my AIM does but ichat doesn't. What is the problem for this?
PS: off topic, AIM always shows all my buddies offline and online instead of just online in one list....anyone know how i can clean that up? thanks but ichat issue plz help me with thanks!

Hi,
Most Servers and Domestic routing device have a range of ports up to port 1024 open as default.
Port 80 is used By Web Browsers
Port 443 is used by Web Browsers on Secure Sites like the Apple Discussion Login page and Banks, PayPal etc.
Mail Also sues port 443 and 110, and a whole range of other below 1024 depending on whether they are POP or IMAP and th service that runs them.
As I suggested Port 443 It would have expected it to be open and allowed you to at Least Log on with iChat.
You could try looking at your Mail Setting and use a port listed there if you can get mail from the server involved. (port 25 may only be open to your ISP's Mail Server from home and often data is not passed on to other Mail servers on that port so it will be blocked at the ISP even if you get mail)
After that chat to the IT guys and see what they say about IM apps in general (They may be blocking the IPs for the servers to "protect" Bandwitdh or for "Security" purposes.
11:02 PM Wednesday; May 27, 2009
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

IChat won't connect while abroad

I'm running iChat 4.0.2
I didn't find a forum for this version. I'm traveling right now and don't have my Leopard disk with me. My macbook came installed with Leopard and this is the version of iChat that came with it. (unless it's been upgraded by the updater since) I can't find any way to install this "iChat AV" that i have not heard about until today.
The problem is that since arriving in Hong Kong my iChat will not connect. It seems to try to connect and immediately gets booted off before and then tries again. It seems to flash an error but it disappears before I can read it on the retry. Eventually it will give me a "you have tried to connect too often in a short period of time" kind of error which I have to click to confirm.
Occasionally it will actually connect but when it does it does not show me that anyone is online. I'm fairly certain that I should see my co-workers in their usual "mobile" mode which they are in if they aren't actually online.
Something that makes this even a bit stranger to me is that earlier today it did actually connect and I was able to send a message to a coworker that iChat finally let me online. But minutes later I was booted off again and I have not been able to connect again since.
I use iChat pretty regularly with my work. I haven't traveled outside the country with my new macbook before but I don't know why it makes a difference whether I am trying to connect from Canada or Hong Kong. I'm heading to Indonesia next and it would be great if I could get back online to talk to my coworkers.
any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Message was edited by: cosmicelf

If you Preferences does not have a Toolbar with different icons across the top and is only showing one Pane and is not able to change to others then delete com.apple.ichat.plist in Users/(your account)/Library/Preferences and arestart iChat.
There is no item in any of the menus for Customise Toolbar option and the white button to the right of many other windows is absent that would toggle the Toolbar on and off.
Deleting the .plist is the only way.
10:01 PM Friday; April 25, 2008

After latest Security Update - iChat won't connect to Buddies

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Now iChat will not connect to my buddy list at all. Adium behaves similarly.
Any suggestions?

Issue solved! I re-downloaded and installed the Jan. '07 encryption update for iChat.
Both iChat and Adium work now.

AIM Screen Name Link

Is there any way to have a link where it opens up my screen name in iChat? Like the aim:goim?screenname=(put sn here) link? Or would I have to do that with the HTML after I publish it?

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IChat won't connect to AIM. It says I tried to login too many times.

I was randomly using my comp when i tried to login to iChat and it tried to login several times. After it got done freaking out it suddenly said that i couldn't connect to AIM because i tried to login too many times and that i need to wait a few minutes and try again. I've tried deleting the .plist files and have also tried setting the port to a different one. It keeps coming up with the same error. Is there anyone who is also having this problem and might be able to suggest some solutions? Thanks

I take it you are trying port 443.
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Also try deleting the com.apple.iChat.AIM.plist and com.apple.iChatAgent.plist together.
Don't forget to restart iChat.
9:03 PM Saturday; February 16, 2008

IChat won't connect and Software Update will not run.

Hi, all,
Sorry if something like this has already come up, and I apologise if this is the incorrect forum to post this in. I searched and didn't see anything identical to my issue (I didn't search very hard, but I did search), so I figured posting a topic might be the best way to go. I know this is two problems, but I decided to post it in the iChat forum in case the two were related.
I bought this computer and received it yesterday. It's a 15 inch MacBook Pro, i5, 10.6.4. It worked fine this morning, software update ran, ichat worked fine.
Now, when I try to connect to iChat, it takes a good ten minutes to try to connect, and then it sends me an error that says "You have been disconnected from iChat services. An internal error occurred that disconnected you from all iChat services. To resume using iChat, log in again to your instant messaging account." So, I quit iChat, and restarted it, but now it won't even show me my buddy list saying "connecting....". It just starts and sits there, and all the options are greyed out. I tried going into the security settings and changing the port to 443, but that's greyed out, too.
So I thought I would try to run software update, and software update opens, but it doesn't ... go. It shows the little blue bar, and it's not frozen, but it doesn't advance at all, and it never gives me the option to go to the "install updates" screen because it doesn't check. I went into my network settings to check my connection, and I'm definitely connected to the internet (I mean, I'm typing this ON the MacBook Pro right now), but the panel says I'm not. I can hit "cancel" and quit software update.
I already reinstalled the OS and the update to 10.6.4, and it's still the same issue.
Help, anyone? This computer is brand new and I really don't want to have to erase and reinstall.
Thanks

Hi,
Welcome to the  Discussions
On the changing the port front stop off on the Account Info tab on the way a deselect "Use this Account" to take it Off Line. (you can get half way states)
You should then find the port 5190 is dark text so it can be edited.
You should press the Enter key to "Set" the port change (this is different to earlier versions of iChat)
Also try it with the SSL option disabled.
If this is an AIM Login (AIM or Apple Name) their SSL server is more prone to "Falling over". iChat should default to using an Non SSL Login on a reconnection front it can be subject to a time frame issue.
Next check the Mac Firewall (System Preferences > Security > Firewall tab)
If this is On in Snow Leopard you have to go to the Advanced Button and Allow Signed Apps and Add iChat to the list.
I favour the last suggestion as this may also block Software Update (Although I nm not sure how you got to 10.6.4 although it is a separate Download you can get).
I would also check you have DNS servers listed in System Preferences > Network > Advanced Button > DNS tab
9:14 PM Saturday; September 25, 2010
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Ichat won't connect to my AIM screen name

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