Re: [GnomeMeeting-devel-list] Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Poll: Is GnomeMeeting ready for 1.00

["Kenneth R. van Wyk" <Ken KRvW com>]

Greetings all,

Thanks for the numerous responses to my email.  There's clearly a lot of 
people in this group that really want to see GnomeMeeting succeed wildly 
(myself included).

On Thursday 12 June 2003 10:54, Damien Sandras wrote:
> Many of these threads have been resolved offline thanks to the level 3
> debug outputs and here are the results :
> - Some PolyCom units do not work fine with GnomeMeeting due to their
> non-support of some data GM is using in H.261. Newer versions of PolyCom
> units work fine.

Well, no PolyCom involved here, so that doesn't pertain to the issue that I 
was seeing.

> - Some users were pushing the video quality, bandwidth and frame rate to
> their maximum, that leads to a big packets loss, and to a disconnection
> or video data loss.

FWIW, in my rather extensive testing, I tried to always reduce the bandwidth 
requirements -- set video size to small, used lowest sampling rate audio 
codec, etc.  I've also done the opposite from time to time, but just for fun. 
:-)

> - Some other users had a misconfigured firewall.

I have tried numerous configurations on my Linksys BEFSR41 router/firewall.  I 
can't swear that I'm right -- I've been wrong before and I'm sure this 
wouldn't be the last time -- but it sure seems to me that I'm doing the right 
things.  See below...

> If I remember correctly, your problem was quite different, at some
> point, the socket became unavailable, and no data could be read from
> that socket, the result was a closure of the video channel which seems
> logical to me as no data can be read anymore from the socket.

That is essentially correct.  I'll re-iterate, though, that if I take the same 
Logitech QuickCam Pro 4500 over to my Win2k laptop, netmeeting holds the 
video signal indefinitely (or until the next BSOD, whichever comes first :-) 
on the exact same LAN.

> I did ask you to try without the linksys router, but I don't remember
> what was the result.

I didn't do that per se, but I did try designating my workstation as the "DMZ 
Host" in the Linksys setup.  That causes all unsolicited packets to go to it, 
across all TCP/UDP ports.  Same results.  Oh, and I tried it with and without 
the IP masquerading feature in GnomeMeeting turned on.  Same results.

> You can alternatively send me again a level 3 debug output, to see if
> the problem is still the same.

I've deleted the debug output that I previously sent you (about 1-1.5 months 
ago).  But, it should still be in the list archives.  Or, do you want me to 
re-run the test?

> That bug won't probably be fixed anyway for several reasons :
>
> 1) It happens in OpenH323, not in GnomeMeeting (but Im willing to fix it
> there if we can prove it is a bug in OpenH323 which I doubt)

Could be.  I saw similar behavior in ohphone.

> 2) It doesn't happen for me, or for any of the developers or
> professional users, so we are unable to fix something we can not
> reproduce.

Sigh...  I can sympathize.  I've tried this on several Debian systems, behind 
two different Linksys routers and saw the same thing on both.  And in both 
cases, Netmeeting was able to work.

> I also remember that I had asked you if your Linksys router was
> supporting H.323 or not.

I have never been able to get a clear answer on that.  On the Linksys web site 
(www.linksys.com), their knowledge base says that it works with Netmeeting if 
you designate the host to be a DMZ host.  They do not claim (as far as I 
could see) to natively support H323 per se.  So, merely opening TCP/1720 does 
not work.  The only way that I've gotten it to function is by opening the 
range of ports and forwarding them to my workstation.

> So to summarize :
> - I need again the --debug=3 output

I'll dig it up from the archives if you can't find it.

> - I need to know the result of the connections without using the Linksys
> router

As a "DMZ host", same problem.  I have not plugged the workstation directly 
onto the cable modem, however.  I'd prefer not to for various reasons, but if 
you think that this is a vital debugging step, then I'll do it.

> Notice we will here try to determine the cause of your problem, not the
> cause of a general problem like you seem to think it. But all problems
> need to be fixed.

I'm not quite sure that I draw a distinction there, but that's fine.  I'll 
re-iterate that I'm making these postings here _purely_ in the interest of 
trying to help make the product even better than it already is.  If there 
really is an underlying bug in GnomeMeeting or OpenH323, and these 
discussions are somehow useful in finding them, then I'll feel that they've 
been useful.  The product vastly surpasses Netmeeting in its ability to tweak 
configurations, codecs, etc.  If I can get it to run reliably on my beloved 
Debian boxes, then I'll never again go back to Netmeeting.

FWIW, the Linksys router that I use is wildly popular here in the USA.  It's 
available practically everywhere for about US$40, and is a common choice for 
sharing a DSL/Cable Modem line among computers.  I've personally installed 
about 10 of them directly or indirectly.  Is anyone on this list successfully 
using the same device?  What settings are you using for port forwarding?

Would it help for me to collect all software/firmware versions and post them 
here?

Cheers,

Ken
-- 
Kenneth R. van Wyk
KRvW Associates
Consulting and Training Services
http://www.KRvW.com