[X4U] iChat AV connection randomly won't work-solution

[Michael Elliott]

Sometime back, there was a question regarding intermittent problems  
with iChat AV conferences.  The symptom was that two people could  
connect without difficulty to other people or the Apple test  
accounts, but when they tried to connect to each other, they got  
"failed to respond" errors.

I recently began to have this problem, as well, especially when  
dealing with family using AIM on Windows.

After searching through the logs, I founda reference to "error -8"  
and did a web search. I had already made sure that all the usual  
ports were open and forwarded through my router. But one thing caught  
my attention that I had never seen before:  check the router  
preference to "Respond to Ping on Internet Port".

I know that many of us use this feature unchecked to "stealth mode"  
our systems against outside pings.  But as soon as I checked this box  
to ALLOW pings, iChat connected flawlessly to every person I tried.

FYI

Michael