Instant Messaging (MSN/Skype/Trillian) Issues (1 Viewer)

[ogmzergrush]

Ok, so as per all the other issues I have resorted to posting here to fix, I've come up with a problem which is driving me insane.

Basically, my problem is that messages between myself and one other person are vanishing (without it saying at my end or theirs that the message has not been delivered successfully). I can talk with anyone else without this problem, as can the person I'm messaging. To further complicate the issue, this is not a consistent problem, and will happen mid conversation for a while, then be fine, and so on. It makes for a lot of long pauses, followed by "did you reply" "yeah I've been asking where the fuck you are for an hour?", and so on. If it continues I am likely to kill someone.

It is happening with MSN, Skype, and Trillian (Trillian using the MSN protocol, I have listed this to clarify that it does not appear to be the client causing problems).

Initially I assumed it was some sort of port issue, but these settings have been checked and the appropriate ports are forwarded correctly. Windows firewall is disabled at both ends. In addition to this, I cannot see any router settings which should cause problems at either end.

Clean formats on each of the machines involved, and the problem has been observed on two different machines at each end (both I and the person I am speaking with have two computers, the problem shows up no matter which computer combination I and the person are using).

Internet connections at each end are straight up wired ADSL, nothing exotic. Routers are reputable brands and have not given me any reason to suspect that this problem is their fault. When this problem happens, other active connections which are running do not falter (eg. IRC, online gaming, file transfers, whatever), so it's not a matter of a brief disconnection.

If it's any use, the connection status window in MSN on both ends reads:

"You are directly connected to the .NET Messenger Service"
"You are connected to the Internet through wired network connection" [sic]
"You are connected to the Internet through a UPnP IP restricted NAT. (Administrator)"

(if relevant, UPnP functionality is supported and enabled on both routers)

Issue manifests itself in an identical fashion no matter what client is used. Each client listed has been uninstalled completely, reinstalled, tried with older versions (and most recent), and so on. In addition, the majority of the machines on which this problem is being observed have been formatted recently.

Yeah, so that's about it. Given that it's not a constant problem, identifying the source and figuring out how to resolve it is proving to be quite a pain. Any worthwhile ideas and suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Breaking News: A second friend (Person B for the purposes of the explanation coming up), has been complaining about me ignoring them, but I haven't been receiving the messages which they've been sending. In addition, person A who I've discussed above has noticed that messages to Person B have *also* been going missing. Despite this, communication with everyone else on my list seems fine. I'm going insane, what the hell is this shit?

 

[ogmzergrush]

I sort of considered that, but it just makes things even more complicated. I'm with iinet, Person A is with internode and Person B is with bigpond. Myself and Person A are in Goulburn, while person B lives in Sydney

It's driving me fucking crazy, I suppose it's conceivable that it's some sort of problem with the Goulburn exchange as that would affect traffic between myself and A, as well as traffic between B and either myself or A, but it seems a bit hard to imagine a fault that would make messages (sporadically) vanish while all other connections function properly consistently.

Got me beat, I think pretty soon I'll resort to smoke signals.

 

[ogmzergrush]

Dude, this is wierd. Unless of course everything is being lost on your line, so nothing gets sent, or received. But what makes that wierd is that it only loses messages? But that gets me thinking, see with Browsers, if any data is lost, it just trys again and again until it gets the data and keeps going. It may be a problem with your whole connection, not just IM programs. See with most other applications that use your internet connection, they get piece together what's missing and don't really suffer at all from (what I can only describe as) some sort of packet/data loss. But with IM and skype, it seems it only sends data once, meaning that either computer on either end can only ask for each piece once. When you IM or send voice via Skype, it's only sent and received once. If the data is lost via transmission, the receiving software cannot re-ask for the data, as it is lost. Does this happen at all on IRC or any other once-relay sort of application? It's pretty wierd.

Yeah that's what's got me most confused. Everything else is 100% fine throughout, even when I know messages are going missing (The person calls me via telephone and asks what the fuck is up, I'm sending them now, and I can watch them fail to arrive), DCC sends, WoW, IRC connection, and whatever else will all function correctly (where in a normal connection error or whatever they've always dropped the connection before).

See what makes it wierder is how it just works on IM stuff. I'm not even sure if my description makes sense, since I always thought that some IM software was multi-relay in it's sending of data, but I don't know.

Yeah agreed again, that's what made me think it must have been something to do with the ports, seeing as only the messaging clients were messing up, but I've remapped them and all sorts of shit, disabled the UDP functionality in Skype, whatever else, and nothing seems to change it.

Are you on ADSL2+ at Goulburn? It could be iinet's exchange...

I wish (That's a nope, I don't think they'll put an exchange here any time soon)

 

[ogmzergrush]

Argh, I'm going to stab someone if it's the firmware :S

Whirlpool was one of the first places I looked when I noticed the problem, but I only searched for my model (F1PI241ENau), rather than MSN issues in general. Seeing as my router and the one that guy on whirlpool is talking about are both Belkin this seems promising. I'm running the .35 firmware though a downgrade version for .29 is provided on their website, so I'll give that a shot.

With all the other stuff I've goofed around with on Person A's computer I've done it over the phone, so I've never actually personally checked out the hardware, but as luck (umn, misfortune?) would have it, it's a Belkin as well. This looks fucking promising!

Man, if that's the problem, what a stunning advertisement. "Drive your users absolutely fucking mental!" God damn, Belkin HQ here I come

Thanks, will post back and cry/cheer if it works out ok over the next few days. You may have just single handedly saved the lives of millions.