Why can't I have an Audio conversation using MSN Messenger?

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What you need is a router with NAT that has Univeral Plug and Play enabled. Most of the Linksys routers have this, for example. Then you can have the safety of NAT and be able to use MSN Messenger's audio and video capabilities.

Frank

it says im connected to the internet through a non upnp symetric NAT. so how do i get my voice chat to work .?????

Try configuring your NAT firewall so as port 113 (auth / ident port) is closed and not stealthed, i.e. don't ignore requests to it from the outside world - just make sure it's closed. This worked for me, and means that I can use MSN messenger from behind the NAT, even with voice chat. If you want to know what port 113 does, have a look here: http://grc.com/port_113.htm

This link also gives a very good description of why port 113 can be a problem.

Just discovered that we need to be able to receive and answer ping requests (ICMP packets) aswell for this to work. I tried blocking them in my firewall and MSN Messenger audio conversations no longer connected.

how do i set my firewall so that i can use audio on msn. what exactly do i do. i dont no how 2 configure it . can u help me. thankz

Sorry I've taken so long to respond. I haven't had my firewall working with this for ages - it just stopped working one day. I don't really know why, but it's safe to say you can ignore my previous comments - they won't help you. My guess is that some old protocols that were being supported, suddenly got dropped.

Doing some research, I discovered that random ports are used to establish an audio connection in MSN Messenger (different random ports at both ends of the connection). This makes life difficult for your firewall unless it supports UPNP (Universal Plug and Play).

MS have a whole article about this at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/worki01.asp

It's very informative and even gives suggestions of what you can do if your firewall doesn't support UPNP.

In answer to your original question, find out if your firewall supports UPNP and if so, enable it.

You mentioned that you don't know how to configure your firewall. Can you be a bit more specific and say which firewall you're using and in which configuration? Are you in a corporate environment or is this your own setup at home??? I'm assuming you're on a network of some description and this isn't just a local firewall.

If you've got any say over your standalone firewall, you could setup Smoothwall. This is very good, secure, well proven and cheap / free (if you've got an old computer) firewall and it supports UPNP. Have a look at www.smoothwall.org for more info.

Okay, I've now got my firewall working again with MSN Messenger Audio. For this to work I had to do 2 things:

1 - enable UPnP support on my NAT firewall (that's Smoothwall 2.0 out of interest);
2 - enable UPnP support on my Windows XP machine. The easiest way to do this is to go to http://grc.com/unpnp/unpnp.htm and download Unplug n' Pray. This utility can be used for disabling / enabling UPnP. Important: Make sure you've got the latest security updates installed for Windows XP before using it.

If you are using a cable ISP, you may be behind their router and not have been assigned a publicly accessible IP Address. You are then relying on them having a router that supports UPnP. If they don't have one now, speak to them. With time it looks likely that routers will all support UPnP. Tell them you NEED this stuff and apply some pressure.

Hope that finally gets your MSN audio working. Sorry it's been such a long painful process - I've been learning along the way.

I am also having trouble using Audio Conversation!! And I was just wondering, is it possible to activate Audio Conversation by Widows 98 operating system???

if so, please help me out!!!
if not.......its sad :-(

Sure. As far as I know MSN Messenger supports Windows 98.

Leo

I have a netgear cable router RP614. I dont think it has NAT? At least i cant find anything in the book about it.
I am trying to set up an audio conversation but it doesent work. A webcam works fine with no problems.
I am using Windows XP & the latest version of MSN but no joy.I have UPnP enabled and have allowed Zone Alarm Pro to let MSN access the net.

Does any one know what might be wrong?
Regards
Boaders UK

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