Rikki 95WRX

Can anyone help me?

My MSN Messenger service is very troublesome - it logs in sometimes and then just logs back out every so often. Sometimes it won't log int. I would say it will not log in more than it will.

I am using the default settings as suggested. Is there anything I can do (eg in settings or wahtever) to try and make the connection more stable?

Rikki

Markus

Welcome to the joys of MSN Messenger!

I have problems, but that might be due to me being on an Apple Mac and not a PC.

Seems to work sometimes, others not. guess it is pretty heavilly used, so not suprising really.

sorry, can't offer any real help

Rikki 95WRX

I am guessing it is something to do with our Firewall.

I have a friend in Networks, I may email him but I don't know whether he will frown upon the fact that I want to use Messenger at work!

ptholt

yeah messenger had firewall issues as i can't get it running realiably either.

AIM or Yahoo allow you to search for open ports and these work fine (they also use the http session from your firewall, so if they dont find an open port will use the same one as your browser) but for some unknown reason i can't get msn working with the same thing......

Best option i could find was to go to http://www.odigo.com and download there software which allows you to use any and all internet chat clients but through there interface, but there interface can also use the http port so it works fine.
is also handy if like me you've worked in different places with different chat clients and end up with an account on each

Rikki 95WRX

Yeah - i got AIM working Ok this morning.

MSN says that it should be able to run OK through your Browser settings but it doesn't appear to be able to do this successfully for some reason?

I may try downloading from that link - thanks for the info.

I have emailed my Networks guy to find out and await the response.

Cheers
Rikki

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

if you are using ISA, install the firewall client on your pc.

\\severname\mspclnt

run setup.exe

should fix that problem.

ChrisB

Rikki,

I run a router and firewall combo at home (two seperate devices). My MSN logs it's self out at ~5 minute intervals. Major pain when you are talking to somebody.

I suspect it's to do with ports on the firewall, although at our old office we used a very similar firewall and MSN didn't do this at all.

I'm hopefully going to do some testing this weekend and narrow things down a bit more.

Chris.

SD

Chris, we had this on our FW-1 at work and it was closing inactive ports after a timeout IIRC. Then you'd have to re-authenticate with it when you wanted to reconnect. Very annoying. Sorted it in the end.

At least, I think that was the problem anyway.

ChrisB

Cheers Simon. I'm going to take the firewall out the loop this weekend and just run NAT on the router for a bit to see if anything changes.

Rikki 95WRX

Christian - thanks for the advice but a little technical for me - I am not Firewall/Proxy savvy atm.

ptholt - thanks for the link. The Odigo software look great BUT I can't get THAT to work. It is weird, AIM has detected a port that will work and seems to be quite happy. Messenger is not at all happy and Odigo won't connect at all, whichever way I try. I looked at the LAN setting in IE and it says that I am using a Proxy server with an IP of websense and Port 8080 - I tried this but no luck - so I am guessing that maybe I need a username and password for the Proxy server. BU saying that - AIM doesn't seem to be using the Proxy server. Also, Odigo says it hould be OK using the HTTP connection. I have tried with a Browser window open and not open with no luck.

Help me please

Rikki 95WRX

Christian - thanks for the advice but a little technical for me - I am not Firewall/Proxy savvy atm.

ptholt - thanks for the link. The Odigo software look great BUT I can't get THAT to work. It is weird, AIM has detected a port that will work and seems to be quite happy. Messenger is not at all happy and Odigo won't connect at all, whichever way I try. I looked at the LAN setting in IE and it says that I am using a Proxy server with an IP of websense and Port 8080 - I tried this but no luck - so I am guessing that maybe I need a username and password for the Proxy server. BU saying that - AIM doesn't seem to be using the Proxy server. Also, Odigo says it hould be OK using the HTTP connection. I have tried with a Browser window open and not open with no luck.

Help me please

PS I am not 'well up' on the Network side of things so please correct me if I am talking rubbish at all

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

on your machine, go to start then run, type in:

\\PROXYSERVER\mspclnt

then double click on setup.exe and install the product.

ptholt

All was going swimmingly at work here till they installed websense enterprise.

Now the only IM that will run is AIM and msn and yahoo cant connect (and attempts to use lite versions with java clients gets a rather unpleasant 'not a work related web site' style screen.

not nice.

It appears to have some sort of database of sites that when it comes across certain sites it blocks, other sites you can click a button that says its work related please let me in (receipe for disaster that one methinks).

Have even tried going to url translation sites to bypass but its nobbled them as well - gutted

Rikki 95WRX

Oh well - thanks for the info.

ptholt

Just noticed you said your proxy server was websense, am guessing thats the same app as they installed here which has killed off most of the IM clients here.

Odigo works on http but cannot get through to yahoo or msn as websense is intercepting the requests.
Strange how AIM is getting through..... probably only a matter of time before they close that port to

Rikki 95WRX

I had to do the Automatic think with AIM and it found itself a different port that seems to work fine. I can't get AIM or MSN to work via Odigo though.

JackClark

Using different language versions of Yahoo works in the office here.

ptholt

even past websense?

might have to try that. Can you sign on with same yahoo id or do you need to create a new account?

JackClark

Not sure about websence but our admins are blocking Yahoo by server and different versions use different servers. Same account, the install even keeps your details. I'm in Singapore right now!

ptholt

What a great piece of advice jack, downloaded italian version this morning and it works fine

Though i have to say the software seems a release or two behind the english version as not all the normal features are there (cant seem to close you user list without it closing messenger, but its better than nowt).

top man

Jeff Wiltshire

Guys

Messenger uses a dynamic range of ports which are typically blocked by a decent Firewall. Websense is a Content Filter which does a look-up of your destination against a database.

Stateful firewalls will close down a session after a predefined period of inactivity. This has to do with ageing of the State table.

Those are the reasons that this is a problem....but have you ever thought that the reason that it doesn't work is that your companies Acceptable use policy actual forbids the use of instant messenging ????? This type of activety across a large company sucks large amounts of bandwidth which (along with the infamous BBC news ticker) are a royal pain in the a*** if your in IT Security. You may actually be putting yourselves in the position of breaching your employers rules if you try and get around the security systems in place.

Don't want to get heavy but just think about what your doing on company time !


Jeff