iChat Video Conferencing

My sister has a macbook and I have an iMac G5 with an external isight. We could video chat fine until yesterday when she moved into her dorm at Boston College. Now instead of showing the stack of cameras next to her name it shows one. But, I thought I could still chat with just her. It doesn't work. I get a thing that pops up and says there was a communication error during your chat. I have the same problem with another kid I know at BC. I can chat fine with other people but nobody can seem to chat with my sister. Is there a way to fix this or is the BC network?

That sounds like a firewall issue. The college likely has some blocks set up. Your sister would have to talk to her IT department to see if it would be permitted in order for you two to video chat.

ok i'll have her look into it. thanks and congrats on becoming a mod!

I don't mean to hijack the thread but I figured it was better to post here then start a new thread...

My friend has a MacBook and I have an iMac G5 with a external iSight. When he is on iChat it doesn't show a video camera next to his name but he says it on his buddylist there is one next to my name. I dont understand what the problem is considering a friend of mine doesnt even have an Apple but he does have a webcam and a camera shows up next to his name.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
john

Your friend might not have the iSight active. You can toggle the iSight on and off, even on the integrated ones.
When in iChat, go to the menu bar and click on 'Video' and make sure the "Camera Enabled" option is checked.

Wow thanks for the speedy reply. I'll definately give it a try.

thanks again.

my sister goes to bc. what year is your sister if you don't mind me asking. i've never tried to video chat with my sis tho, but i know that BC does have some wierd limitations in place.

another thing to try is have the other person initiate the conference. My dad can't initiate a conference with me, but I am able to get through to him

trpnmonkey41 said:

another thing to try is have the other person initiate the conference. My dad can't initiate a conference with me, but I am able to get through to him

Click to expand...

Thats exactly what it is...He can initiate with me but I cant initiate with him because there is no camera next to his name.

macAttack said:

my sister goes to bc. what year is your sister if you don't mind me asking. i've never tried to video chat with my sis tho, but i know that BC does have some wierd limitations in place.

Click to expand...

My sister is a freshman this year. (just dropped her off on friday) Yeah I think BC has some weird firewall or something because it worked fine until she got there. I sent an email to the BC IT department about the problem. Not sure if its something they can fix but hopefully they can. I'll let you know when I hear back from them.

I got an email from a BC IT guy with a link on how to fix the video chat problem (with BC students). I lost the link but if you send an email to [email protected] asking how to fix the problem they will send you the link. You need your BC username and password. Basically, BC lets you set a VPN connection to bypass the restricted ports.