ISight / iChat return error message

Question

I have a G4-800 / Tiger + iSight + iChat + AIM + Linksys WRT54GP2 router
Muy daughter has a G4-400 / Panther + iSight + iChat + AIM + Livebox.
text chat works but when I invite her to a video conference, iChat says it has failed because I "have not answered" - please note that it was I who called her, is it a question of ports setting?
Andre Blaize

Answer 1

 Welcome Andre. You are wise to be suspicious of the error message that does not make sense when you are calling. Here are some suggestions that will help you find the cause of your troublesome symptom.
Both of you should test with several other users. If you do not have enough available buddies, there are some users who will help him test in this list of Buddy Names for iChat Test.
Your daughter should consider Possible hardware or software conflicts with her "Livebox." If she has other firewire or A/V connected devices, she should check them, too.
If testing shows that one of you cannot connect to anyone (or only to a very few), and if the other can connect with everyone else, the problem is with the system that has difficulty connecting to most systems. Whichever one who has problem should try the suggestions relevant for his system from Help for iChat AV 3 Problems. Hopefully, both of you will not need to do all the troubleshooting work.
If testing shows that BOTH of you can connect to all (or almost all) others, you may have what Ralph Johns calls the "certain buddy" problem. Try Ralph's suggestions at Can not connect to a certain Buddy. (You may have to scroll down to get to the Certain Buddy part.)
If your testing and troubleshooting leads you to specifically suspect port problems, or if you want to know more about the subject of port settings with iChat AV, see the Router Set Up sub-menu items on "Setting Up Your Router" and "Eliminating Problem areas" in Ralph Johns' iChat Pages.
Also, your system info shows that you use Mac OS X (10.4.3). I suggest you update your Mac OS to the current version (10.4.6) using the "Combo Updater" as explained in How I Update My Mac OS X. 10.4.6 resolves a number of issues and makes several iChat improvements over your old version of Tiger. As mentioned in this link, applying the Combo Updater can sometimes solve the "did not answer" error problem.
For benefit of those who have a problem similar to yours, please let us know what gets your connection working.
Cheers,
Jim