I can send files through gaim, connected to msn to people...but on amsn...i cannot send files to people. It just times out. Would anyone happen to know why this would be?

Thanks.

-RoaCh

i think on amsn you need to open tcp port 6891 (by default) to be able to send files...

sounds like gaim doesn't need that... i don't know why, though...

Wouldn't they both use the same port?

i don't think they need to use the "same" port, but i would think they'd have to use "a" port...

i know that amsn let's you specify what port you wanna start at, with the default being 6891...

i can confirm that if i don't open a port for amsn it won't allow me to send files...

i'm guessing you haven't opened any port, and yet gaim still transfers fine, right??

maybe gaim does things differently or something...

hmmm... weird...

in amsn, you may specify an IP address for file transfers. if you have multiple on your pc, check that setting. for file transfers over the internal network I have to specify my own computers IP address, for file transfers over the internet, I have to specify the external IP address of the router (makes sense). also check the port settings as suggested above, also on the router and firewall if you have any.

greetz,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

You NEED to use ports from 6891 to 6899 because these are what msn network (protocol) uses for file transfers. It's not amsn or gaim who decide which ports to use for file transfer, but the network. You can't use any other port if you plan to receive files (it doesn't make sense to listen to port 8569 if the file comes from 6891). The fact that amsn lets you choose which port start with, is bounded to 6891-6899.

As for sending files, you first send the file transfer request, and acceptance comes as well for port 6891, so you REALLY need to listen to that port.

Check iptables or any other firewall you may be using to open that port.

Hope this helps

but why do the transfers work fine on gaim without having the port(s) open??

and why do they work fine on a windows lan without doing any port forwarding on the linux gateway??

Well, that's another problem....For me amsn works perfectly, check what iluvatar said about IPs, maybe amsn is not getting well the your IP (that is, put it manually and see if it works).

BTW, if you receive files, you have those ports open for sure.

I don't use IPtables, but I do have a router. How can I check to see if a port is closed or not? ...although, gaim is working find for sending files, which I still find odd.

if you're gonna do the adjustment on your router, then you'll need to forward the ports to your ip on the lan... the way to do this depends on your router... a lot of home routers have a built-in web interface which can be accessed from the lan by going to http://192.168.100.1 or something like that...

on a side note, i have developed a simple hypothesis to explain why amsn has this need for ports 6891-6900 while gaim doesn't... here it is:


amsn uses the "old" file transfer methodology, which required certain listening ports... gaim uses the "new" file transfer methodology, which doesn't require the listening ports - and is much more NAT-friendly.


if my hypothesis is true, then i'd imagine a future version of amsn won't have this limitation... needing those ports seems very limiting, as you can only do 10 simultaneous file transfers from the amsn client(s)... this might be fine and dandy on a single pc setup, but when you are doing snat for a lan with 250+ amsn clients it really sucks if no more than 10 clients can transfer files simultaneously, and each of those can only transfer one file at a time... yuck!!!

the new method would seem to tear-down the 10 transfer barrier, starting the required connections from within the lan, eliminating the need for certain ports to be listening, and therefore allowing file transfers both ways while still being completely firewalled from the internet...

perhaps this new methodology was introduced into the msn protocol by microsoft recently, but they retained compatibility with the old methodology for X reason...