Messages and group chat

Last night I tried to join into a group chat with some friends with my AIM account in Messages and it kept giving my friend an error when she invited me--- said something about it not being supported. I had no problems when I used iChat, so I am wondering if some setting changed when I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I also tried d/l and installing AIM onto my computer and the group chat still didn't work.

I am running a 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac with Mountain Lion 10.8.1--21.5 inch mid-2010.

As part of my work I have to join an AIM chat room every day. I rarely have issues with this (at home, never ... some Wi-Fi hotspots, however, seem to have issues with AIM).

In Messages, just go to "Go to Chat Room" and type in the name of the chat room (be aware that spelling and capitalization count). See if that works for you.

the funny thing is I even downloaded and installed AIM and it still wouldn't work which makes me think it's some setting that changed after the upgrade to Mountain Lion.

And I did try typing in the name of the room, but it didn't work-- of course capitalization could have been wrong.

Based on my experience, I'm disinclined to think it's anything to do with ML -- that would be an oddly specific thing, and as I say I've seen no difference between Messages and iChat on this point. The fact that AIM itself wouldn't work for you suggests to me that it could be your router that's really the culprit -- anything changed with it lately?

Oh, speaking of that, have you tried using the browser version of AIM? If that works for you, then I'd be quite certain it's something to do with the router.

I tried all the various incarnations of AIM. I don't usually mess with my router, but I can check the settings. The router did get unplugged when I left town for a couple of days, and other than hooking up a box from Sam Knows for an internet provider study a few months ago, nothing has changed. I thought I had used the group chat since I hooked up the Sam Knows box, but it is a possibility that there is something about it causing my problem. It's just a TP- Link router connected to my normal router.

Sounds like you may be encountering a double-firewall issue. If you have the software firewall built into OS X turned on, make that a triple firewall. If you DO have that turned on, turn it off. It's not doing any good and may be the cause of the issue.

Actually the mac firewall was off-- that was one of my first thoughts as well. I'll have to figure out if I've downloaded any new programs lately that might be causing the problem, but I don't think that Ghostery would affect AIM group chat, but stranger things have happened.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Ghostery and programs like that COULD affect programs that need to store cookies or tokens or whatever. Try disabling it and see if that changes anything.