Comments on: Fixing the “iChat instantly quits on launch” problem

By: Kat

Kat — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:56:07 +0000

Dave, thanks for the tip, changing the ichat server port setting fixed the problem in seconds!

By: Sergei Evans

Sergei Evans — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:46:42 +0000

So my ichat has been having issues it for some reason won’t work i can’t add any friends it won’t show that my friends are on and i can’t VC nor chat with them. but when i deleted ichat and reinstalled it, it started working again for like 10 maybe even 15 seconds and the same problem comes up.

By: Jen

Jen — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:37:45 +0000

As Judy before me said, the 90 to 91 in the port iChat uses did the trick! This is super! I’ve my macbook for over a year and never got to use iChat!!!!

By: Derrick

Derrick — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:43:39 +0000

Update Again:

This will fix the problem for all computers on the network:

Apple iChat / Netgear router issue

This is an issue I had with iChat and my Netgear WTG624 v3 and it took me a while to understand how to fix it.

First, let me give you an overview of the problem. What happened was I got my Netgear router, hooked it up and started using it and everything seemed fined. Well, my wife works from home occasionally and connects to her office via VPN. She went to try this and it wouldn’t connect so I started looking around the router settings. I finally decided it was because the SPI firewall was disabled (I don’t know the actual reason, but enabling this seemed to fix it). Then I noticed that once this was enabled, my iChat wouldn’t connect to the AIM server. All other protocols were working within iChat, but AIM wasn’t. I then tried a different mac AIM client and that seemed to work correctly. I was also able to connect to AIM using Trillian on my pc so obviously it was something with iChat. Well, I googled around for a bit and didn’t come up with much so for a few months we just dealt with enabling / disabling the SPI firewall within the router everytime she wanted to connect to her VPN.

I finally got sick of doing this so I started looking around. It turns out that all you need to do is change your port in your iChat settings. Here are the specific instructions I found at Appleinsider.

1. Go to Ichat/preferences.
2. Click on accounts, then click on server settings.
3. Then put in 443 as the Port.
4. Done. (don’t check connect using proxy)

Hopefully this helps someone else.. I know it was a pain in my ass for a while.

http://basslineshift.com/HELP_FILES/ichat_netgear/

By: Derrick

Derrick — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:12:45 +0000

Update:

Actually still having issues, this resolution doesn’t work well if you have more than one comp on your network, because it seems to only work for one at a time.

By: Derrick

Derrick — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:25:48 +0000

I just got a brand new Netgear wireless N router and have OS 10.5.2

THIS SOLUTION STILL WORKS!

Thanks!

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:13:25 +0000

Ive been having this problem on a brand new macbook.

I tried changing my router settings, it seems to be working.

Lets hope it stays.

Thanks for all these comments

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:59:23 +0000

This one worked for me! Thanks:

“change the port from 5190 to 5191″

the Port is under “Prefs” and then “Accounts”

By: Marc James

Marc James — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:21:51 +0000

WOW THANKS FOR THE COMMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve been killing myself trying to find out how to fix this problem that i’ve had. and changing 5090 to 5091 did the trick!!!!! I VERY MUCH APPRECIATE IT!!!!!

By: audia2000

audia2000 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:40:33 +0000

Thank you so very much!
I changed ichat’s port to 5191 and now it works with my Netgear WGR614.

And now for something completely different…

When I use “DropShare” to share files directly from my computer, it only works when I’m on the cable – not via Netgear WGR614 WLAN router. Any ideas why? Is the re something I can change on the router?

Thanks for any hint.