Dear Mr. Kay,
I am amazed by and grateful for the quick reply. The only
UPnP forwarding set up in my router was placed there by
the router, not by me. I DID add port forwarding for the
file transfer function, because I followed instructions I
found in browsing lots of posts. Efforts to send files
results in the message that the transfer was "blocked."
My contact, who is less stubborn than I am, waits for me
to advise him on what to try next. I will ask him to try
to (using WM) speak with some other person to see whether
he can succeed. I have previously "unchecked" QoS Packet
Scheduler, but I will ask him to do the same.
His router is a brand new wireless G router/access point
from Gateway. My efforts to check his firmware for
possible updates have been fruitless. The Gateway site
does not show any software or firmware available for the
router---at least not that I have been able to find--even
with considerable effort. I REALLY want to overcome this
problem. The full functionality of Windows Messenger
would be a great asset to me. Please let me know if you
have any other recommendations. Thanks again for the
prompt and useful reply. Any idea how to find firmware on
the Gateway website?
-----Original Message-----
Greetings Frank,
Most positively you can -- the whole point of UPnP is to
be able to communicate with anyone
(assuming there isn't a problem on their side),
regardless if they're directly connected, or
behind an UPnP device as well. However, you should not
be setting *any* ports, as UPnP will
open what is required on its own (unless you have some
specific requirements for some other
application) -- opening other ports that Messenger uses
may in fact interfere with UPnP's
automatic port opening and forwarding capabilities.
Here are some things for both you and your contact (whom you can't connect to) to try.
Firstly, have your contact make sure that they have the
latest firmware for their router, as
there are plenty of routers with firmware releases where
the UPnP implementation was not very
good.
Then, both you and your contact should clean out the UPnP
port forwardings. To do so, click
Start, All Programs, Accessories, Communications, Network Connections. Right-click the
"Internet Gateway" (should be under the Internet Gateway
heading) and choose Properties.
Choose the Settings button, click each 'msmsgs'
or 'msnmsgr' entry and then choose 'Delete'
to each one. Then close Messenger (right-click the
Messenger icon, choose Exit), then restart
Messenger.
Also, you and your contact might try turning off the QoS
Packet Scheduler if its engaged. To
do so, click Start, then click the Control Panel. If
you're in category view click Network
and Internet connections then click Network Connections.
Right click your network/internet
connection, then click Properties. Uncheck the QoS
Packet Scheduler, then reboot and try
again.
Finally, have your contact try to connect to someone
else, just to validate that the problem
