At the risk of being lynched by the Linux guys over here , a question about MSN messenger.

When I'm using MSN I can chat with friends, but I can't send files. Calling each other also doesn't work.
I can receive files my friend sends however.

I suspect this has everything to do with my router with built-in firewall. It's a UsRobotics USR8000 router. Now I know that I must allow more ports to be used or something like that, and I think I even found which ports on the microsoft site (here), but I don't know how to do this.
Can anybody help me?

Thanks!

if you can receive files, then you should be okay, if you can't send, i would think it's on their side, and they need to open ports if they are on a firewall. Have you confirmed that the people you are sending to can receive from others?

Yes, My friend is not behind a firewall and can receive files through MSN from all his other contacts.

I'm still browsing in my router setup screen, and I think I may have stumbled upon something, but I don't know how to implement is.
Under 'special applications', I've got a screen with 8 ID's which I can fill in. In need to fill in a "Trigger" (don't know what this is), and then the 'incoming ports'. When I fill in trigger '1' (eg), and the ports 5004 – 65535 (like that MS page states) it doesn't work, when I press 'save' the ports I typed in dissapear. And then it doesn't work of couse.
There are some pre-defined options, like eg. "MSN gaming zone", which is trigger 47624 and ports 2300-2400,28800-29000. Unfortunately, this still doesn't allow me to send files.

Any help would be appreciated.

For most Instant Messenger programs, a firewall will prevent things like direct-chat and file-transfer in two ways:

1) Blocked ports (as you already surmised), but more importantly, it can also be caused by:

2) NAT (Network Address Translation). Many of the Instant-messenger programs won't tolerate a layer of NAT between two clients trying to directly connect to each other for certain features.

If it's simply a question of blocked ports, you can open those up at your own risk. But if it's a NAT issue, you might be out of luck.

I've tried ICQ tonight, and that works fine to transfer files. But I'm not going to use ICQ since none of my contacts do.
I'm not really sure what this means. Smarter programming by the ICQ guys than the MS guys?

In the link I posted earlier, it states that I need something like a "UPnP–enabled NAT device". I don't know what this is. Is this a feature my router should be capable of for it to work? I think I'll go and check out some specs on USR's page then first.

Also, if it is an NAT issue, could this be adressed by an update of MSN messenger in the future? (if they wanted to of course) Or is it a limitation of my router itself?

I'm not really sure what this means. Smarter programming by the ICQ guys than the MS guys?

You say that like it's an unlikely event or something...

maybe you should try Trillian ( www.trillian.cc )
I twill allow you to connect to MSN Messenger service using a nicer cleaner looking interface, also you can connect to ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo! at the same time with just one program.

Trillian is nice, but I don't think it supports file transfers in the MSN messenger part of its interface yet. They only just got done adding file transfers to the ICQ part of its interface.

Could be wrong...

oh, sorry...I don't use MSN...
I do know they work with ICQ and AIM already...

(I was just trying to spread the word about a great piece of software )

MSN actually got file transfers before AIM and ICQ (In Trillian, that is...)

Thanks for the Trillian suggestion, but this is no good to me because I don't use any other instant messenger than MSN. (because none of my contacts do, so there really isn't much point to)

It looks like the only thing I can do is wait and hope the MS programmers will get their head out of their <censored> and start doing some decent programming.

Of course, I've been wishing that for years now...*sigh*

well, if trillians file transfer implementation works and msn's doesnt, then it would be worth your while. :-)

You're right, I guess there's no harm in trying it. I'll try it tonight.

Keep in mind it should import all your MSN buddies, but I am not sure if it updates them if you move them out of the MSN Exports folder. So if you add anyone beyond your list with Trillian, then go back to MSN, they might not be there. I haven't tried this personally, as MSN messanger has been loaded on a system of mine for no longer then 20 mins.

I can understand that.
So, now I've put trillian on my system. I'm curious to see if this will work, but I'll have to wait until my friend gets home tonight before I can try.

Also, Drakino, I've seen in another post you entered today (ethernet-general forum) that you state that XP does uPnP. Doesn win 2000 do this too? Because according to the MS, that's the reason why I'm having problems. Or is this dependent on the capabilities of my router and not the OS on my PC?

Thx!

Yes, Windows 2000 supports uPnP as well, but keep in mind it only kicks in of you have not manually set an IP, or if you haven't been assigned one from another device. Easiest way to check is to go to start, run, and type in cmd. Then type ipconfig and hit enter. If the IP is 169.254, it's possibly uPnP.

I've tried what you said, but my IP is 192.168.123....
I guess this is because the IP is provided through DHCP by my router.
So when it comes to uPnP, I'm SOL?

That means you are not using uPnP. How it affects your situation, I am not sure.

Ok, I've tried Trillian, but what I expected happened : nothing.
I guess I'm stuck with MSN as-is, with all it's flaws...*sigh*

MSN must use a different port for file ports then all the others then, that's pretty dumb. Do you know what port it is? or where on your line it's getting blocked?

From the MS website :

"To enable voice and video communications with Windows Messenger through a non–UPnP firewall, configure the firewall to allow incoming traffic on UDP ports 5004 – 65535. (are they kidding here?)
For other purposes, enable the following ports:
File Transfer: 6891 (to allow 10 simultaneous file transfers open ports 6891 through 6900)
Application and Whiteboard Sharing: 1503
Remote Assistance: 3389"

I've tried opening port 6891, but that doesn't seem to work (or I'm doing it wrong)
I need to enter a "trigger" (whatever that may be), and the port value. But everytime I click "save", the port value dissapears.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

hmmm...unfortunately I don't know how to configure your router...

Any here have one?

I found out that with entering a DMZ (demiliatrized zone) IP-adres I can get it to work. Of couse, this has two drawbacks :
1) I have to reboot the PC/router each time I enter this value. So why not leave it you say? Well, a DMZ-ip
2) totally exposes the PC to which that IP belongs. So of couse MSN works, but a pretty high price.

For now, if I want to send a file to one of my contacts I'll use the DMZ option. But I'll keep on searching for another solution.

Okay, I just looked at the manual for your USR8000. A trigger is entered as a port number. When your computer makes a connection to the trigger port number, it activates the incoming ports for that computer. So it looks like you should enter the outgoing port number for MSN (which, I think, is 1863) as the trigger and enter 6891 as the incoming ports in association with that trigger.

As to why it doesn't appear to be saving, I can't tell you. I've never used one of these boxes.

Thanks Bitt. I'll try that out tomorrow. I have no way of checking if it will work until my friend gets online so I can send him a file. Which probably won't be until tomorrow.
I did however already enter the values you provided and the router does save them, so I guess we're halfway.

By reading the help of the router I came to the same conclusion you did, but I had no idea what the outgoing port for MSN was. How did you know this? Is this documented somewhere?

Edit : nevermind, I browsed the MSN help file and actually found it. You're correct : open with port 1863, and open port 6891(up to 6900). /me slaps myself in the forehead

Anyway, thanks a million and I'll let you know if your solution does the trick.

It WORKS!

Thanks Bitt !!

Yeah, trillian has been really popular. The only reason I don't download it is that I dont' really know that many people who use MSN or ICQ, and everything on AIM works for me.

Just curious, do buddy icons work in Trillian?

Yes, all my contacts got imported no problem...

Everything on MSN now works fine for me too now...

Yes, buddy icons work.

sean

Trillian currently supports everything that the AIM client does. This includes:

Buddy Icons (And browser integration for new ones)
File Transfers
Direct Connect
Multiple user chat
Warnings
Away and back messages
Idle time
Font, color and size changes to the text
Emoticons

It also has the added benefits:
No ads
Better support, post a problem or suggestion to their fourms and there is a good chance someone will pay attention to it
Secure messages with other Trillian users over the AIM network
ICQ like message sending if so desired (where the window closes on send, tray icon blinks instead of a message popping up)
Containers, to have one taskbar entry represent whatever Trillian chat windows.
Tons of skins, and skin support built in

I switched to Trillian from ICQ just because I wanted to have a better client. And now that I have, I have picked up several new people on my contact list from the different networks. It's well worth the switch even if you do only use AIM.

I will agree with Drakino that Trillian is a great IM client. However, I have one major warning for you:

AOL keeps finding ways to block Trillian clients. Their last round of ECMs had the Trillian developers scrambling to fix it, and we were offline for a while. Things are stable now, but I don't know how long they will continue to be that way.

So if you only have AIM buddies, and don't need to be on more than one IM network at the same time, then don't bother using Trillian, stick with AIM.

But if you want to be on all of these IM systems all at the same time, then by all means, use Trillian, it rocks. I personally use it for ICQ (primary usage), one or two AIM buddies (secondary usage), and once in a while, IRC. It's really great having all of that in the same user interface.

Even with the recent AOL problems, I'd still recommend Trillian. Sure, keep AIM around if you are unconfortable with loosing connection, but I've run Trillian since July of last year, and have only been off AIM for a week. Not too bad considering AOL (huge base of programmers) was trying hard for a few weeks to knock Trillian (2 developers) off. Plus the next major revision will probably support falling back to the open network AOL runs. You will loose the advanced fluffy features if Trillian ever has to back down to the other network, but you can still chat. (Keep in mind I have no confirmed reports of this, nor the exact time frame this would appear).

I honestly found Trillian worth supporting. I'll probably be donating a second time, just due to all the awesome features added since 0.651 when I last donated.

And once you do load Trillian, feel free to start migrating to the other networks. Another advantage is that if you get your core friends to switch as well, you are no longer dependant on one network. Most are stable right now, but who knows what might be around the corner waiting to kill a network for a few days (Like the problems MSN had a while back, or ICQ months before that).

To me, telling someone to stay with AIM is like saying to stay with the 1.03 software on the empeg without ever trying 2.0. The difference is amazing in both cases.

Okay, okay, point taken.

I wonder... It seems like the AOL people were hell-bent on killing Trillian for a while, but I haven't seen a new ECM since the last Trillian fix.

I wonder if Trillian has finally reached the point where the AOL people can't tell the difference between a Trillian client and a genuine AIM client? We can only hope.

So I have a question. When I'm on Trillian, I'm merely seen to people who use any of the other networks as a user of that network, right?

Does Trillian have any plans to make their own network?

And I really wouldn't try to get any of my friends to switch over to other networks. ICQ always bugged the hell out of me. I hated that whole program and found it completely annoying. Call me simple minded, but I like the straight-forward system of AIM. That's just my preference. And don't get me started on IRC. I tried that for a few hours and nearly shot myself in the head. I don't know why anyone would want to go through with that every day

Anyway, I wouldn't want to convince all my friends to switch over. Then who would be left on the original networks?

Yes, Trillian sees every network as seperate ones. The contact list has little icons indicating what network they are on, and each chat window also has the same icons.

Trillian has no plans that I know of to make their own network. Jabber does that, but I don't see how you can follow a mission of IM interopibility by adding yet another network. The Trillian method is a good first step. Even MS thinks so, as they tried to add AIM to their client a while back.

I hated the ICQ program, yes, but not the network so much. Offline messaging is awesome. And it has better support for different away modes and such. Just not as much fluff like AIM with buddy icons. And IRC is more of a chatroom setting. It has it's use, and I am in it daily linked with many other coworkers.

And on the friends switchover part, just convince them to get Trillian. You can still chat to them on the AIM network. One thing to get used to is having one person on multiple networks. Right now I have a redundant folder that contains a mirror folder structure of my main list, and contains all the redundant contacts I have. In the future, Trillian will also add a "Trillian Contact". Basicially it's a way of saying "JoBob1233" on AIM is the same as "92938383" on ICQ. Then they show up as online whenever at least one of their connections is working.

Does Trillian have any plans to make their own network?

Not that I know of.

Odigo did that (or tried to). They basically did the same thing as Trillian, make a client that talks on multiple networks, but in their case they also had their own Odigo network.

I eventually switched from Odigo to Trillian because the Trillian software is better and they are quicker about responding to AOL's ECMs. Haven't looked back, I wonder how the Odigo people are doing these days?

Still using the Odigo3 skin on my Trillian client, though.

I agree with everything you are saying about Trillian.
I convinced at least two of my main contacts to switch to Trilliam from only using AIM.
I was only using AIM to talk to them. I think ICQ was much better. Mainly the Offline Messaging and Multiple Away Modes. I convinced them to switch for like four seconds from AIM to ICQ. but they hated it and they didn't have any of their contacts. I guess it depends on what you learned on though. I was spoiled. Using the first IM program when it was first starting. I still remember when someone told me about it. "Hey, there's this cool ICQ thing where you can email people, but the get it right away, and you can see when they are online and stuff. It's fun!"

Another feature of ICQ I loved was being able to appear offline to other users, I used that constently.

Yep, I remember that "instant e-mail" remark. Odd thing was that a few years earlier, I was using instant e-mail. I carried on an entire conversation with someone via Pine when they replied to a news posting I had made.

Alas, even on my own server, mail isn't instant due to the massive procmail files I have to get rid of spam.

The only problem I ever had with messenger was trying to uninstall it.... even after altering the sysoc.ini file I still got no option to uninstall... after digging around found that you have to enter some retarded command line option to get rid of it.... Thanks Microsoft...

Hey, Zephyr existed long before ICQ did, and I used it all the time over ten years ago, and it wasn't brand new then, either. It just didn't have a global server; it was a site-installed thing, but when your site is a major university, it's very similar.

Honestly, I found the port number by looking in the MSN preferences for Trillian. And since I've never had nor ever will have an MSN account, I figured I'd never even looked at it before, much less changed it, so it seemed like an accurate source.

Hey hey, I believe you!
How you got the trigger number makes no difference to me, the most important bit is that it WORKED!

Thanks again!