BEFW11S4 v4 MSN audio nightmare - UPNP ahhhh.


N

nickc

Forum Guru
Member
Hi all. I am pulling my hair out trying to get MSN messenger audio to work. My router is BEFW11S4 version4 and I have the latest firmware (1.50.14). As I understand it I need UPNP to allow messenger to open up ports on my router. That's fine, so I enable UPNP and find that I 'sometimes' manage to get an audio chat to work for a few minutes. I check my router UPNP forwarding and see some lovely msn ones appearing. Problem is that messenger freezes for a lot of the time, and eventually I lose connection to the net/router. I can't ping the router when this happens and have to pull plug out of the router and then it all works again for a while. If I leave UPNP enabled on my router and don't even try and do audio chats, I still have problems after a short time (minutes/maybe an hour) where I lose connection to the router again. When UPNP is disabled the router works flawlessly wired and wireless.

I should point out that I am trying to audio chat from one of my wired PC's which is running XP SP2. I have tried with messenger 6.2 (IIRC) and the beta 7.0. Webcam works fine - but I understand that this doesn't need to use UPNP. I have also tried flashing 1.50 version of the firmware, but get the same locking up problem.

I have tried resetting the router and reflashing the firmware and then resetting it some more just for good measure, but still no joy when I enable UPNP :( Does anyone know if this should be working properly with this router/XP SP2 - there is something on the linksys site about msn messenger and linksys UPNP, but I am guessing that it has been resolved?? Any ideas anyone?

Cheers in advance.
Nick
 
Thanks for the link. I did see that but assumed that it had been resolved. The workaround doesn't fix things for me :( I have sent an email to linksys tech support to find out it's status. Has anyone got the same router as me and managed to get msn messenger and UPNP working consistently?

It's a pain really coz it would appear that there is no other way to use messenger voice chat with my NAT router :(

Cheers,
Nick
 
I emailed linksys tech support and got a reply a couple of days later - good turnaround for a tech support request in my experience. They pointed me at this third party software:

http://www.easyfp.com/msn-messenger-directtalk

It actually works and I can now make voice msn chats (although it's only a limited free trial). Anyone know how this bit of software works? I don't need to restart messenger to get it working which is very clever. I have emailed tech support back to ask them if I will ever be able to use UPNP on my router to get messenger to work properly! Seems a bit weird to me that they should point me in the direction of some third party software rather then coming up with a way to get my supposedly UPNP compliant router using UPNP properly.

Nick
 
hey nickc, i have had similar problems for years with different messengers. alot of headaches over the time, perhaps this link can help.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;278887

that program most likely works in some way that it takes all requests from msn messenger on those particular ports and keeps the connections alive so you do not have that freezing and limited use of them. With alot of people now having home networks, not just the computer geeks, the features in alot of instant messengers wont work well unless there is some setup involved. upnp is a big step but there are still some issues that go on between the programs and the hardware that need to be worked out so everything will work well and still keep that security enabled. I hope this helps, good luck. PM me if you have anyquestions.

-- Josh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top