messenger problems....seriously

T

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
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Sep 29, 2002
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i know this sounds totally dumb, but ive tried everything i can think of. i'm at my parents place and msn messenger wont work worth a crap on their pc. problem is it won't connect supposedly for blocked ports. i tried the silly diagnose option which bitches about host file (which it cant fix) and blocked ports. on win XP btw.

thing is there is no router here - just right into a cable modem. i've tried disabling all firewalls, antivirus, etc. hell i even removed the anti-virus. everything else appears to work just fine. also reset the xp netcode (netsh command) and no luck. no spyware/malware, etc. no viruses or other crap, its actually a very clean computer.

so for some reason xp is blocking the correct ports? how do i fix this? i'm a tool with networking and this is about as far as i can go on my own.

thanks for any help.
 
Can you list the model # of the cable modem? I'm curious.

Messenger asks for a shitload of ports to be open to connect, I'm not surprised if something is blocking them.

If you don't have Windows XP firewall running, any other firewall, or any anti-virus, you shouldn't be blocking any ports... I'm thinking it's the cable modem/router. I assume you should be able to log into the device and check what settings it has configured...
 
I'm not sure how much you know about networking, so this isn't meant to be insulting...

What is the PC's IP address? If it's getting a private IP rather than the ISP's public IP, then there's a NAT router involved (the cable modem may have one built-in). If there is a NAT router built into the cable modem, you would still need to forward ports just like on a separate router.
 
Yeah I'm going to place my money on a router built into the modem that is blocking ports; that's why I'm curious what model # it is.

THRESHIN, If you don't feel comfortable posting the IP address (wouldn't blame you), just let us know if it's an IP address that starts with 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x. If it doesn't, it's probably an IP address assigned directly from the ISP, which would be kinda funky. If that was the case, it'd be your ISP's router blocking the ports most likely, and they shouldn't be doing that...
 
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If I were to make a list of potential causes for this problem NAT/firewall blocking in the ISP's cable modem would be at the bottom.

If you have any security software running try uninstalling it completely. Sometimes a program like Norton will leave behind a networking component that will mess things up even after the program is gone. Most security suites have a removal program to grab any left-over or broken components and remove them.

You can also try downloading another messenger client like Pidgin. If the client on their PC has never gotten updates it may not work.

It could also be caused by something silly like the wrong date/time in XP or a problem with the user profile.
 
ok thanks for the tips guys, great as usual. the ip is NOT an internal ip, its not a 192.168.1.xxx number. the cable modem is motorola SB5101 straight from rogers (up in canada)
 
so anyone have any ideas?

also i just found out that there may have been a virus/trojan to cause this problem...the joy of working with the parents computer.
 
THRESHIN said:
so anyone have any ideas?

also i just found out that there may have been a virus/trojan to cause this problem...the joy of working with the parents computer.
Click to expand...

All the networking I've ever done has been involving a NAT router that you could actually log into and open port ranges as necessary.

You could do as mentioned previously and look for any remaining security software that might be blocking ports. If you can't find anything, maybe you can use some packet sniffing software to determine whether or not the packet is actually making it out of the computer (maybe try a packet loopback test), but given that nothing on your side is blocking those packets, my only advice to you would be to call up the ISP and ask them why your Messenger traffic is being blocked.
 
THRESHIN said:
so anyone have any ideas?

also i just found out that there may have been a virus/trojan to cause this problem...the joy of working with the parents computer.
Click to expand...

Once you appear to have malware on a PC, any/all issues related to "why isn't this working" can now be blamed on this.

I'd also get a NAT router for them. I've been doing SMB computing for a long long time, and over the years I've noticed that computers plugged directly into a broadband modem (like a cable modem) that get a public IP address (the computer) are about 95% likely to be infested. Computers behind a NAT router.....faaaaaar less likely to be infested.
 
Wow, I totally missed the line he put in there about the virus...

...time to go get myself a cup of coffee. :eek:
 
yeah its ok guys, found something that'll do for now. some crap called aMSN - an msn clone.

for the record the computer is *not* infested, its actually perfectly clean now. whatever that thing did managed to screw up messenger pretty good - but it was never a port problem. i was going on what messenger was telling me. any other clients work fine, so hell the old man can live with it:) had to go back home, so screw it. i think its one of those things that by the time i manage to track it down i might as well format and reinstall - not right now thanks!

but thanks for the help guys
 
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