OK, this is a convoluted way to do multi-IM. But it seems to work well. Hopefully, it is a glimpse into a future where all IM systems talk to each other.
Windows has one app that is superior to anything else on OS X – Trillian. I’ve tried to use Adium but just can’t give it any love. It’s lack of support for audio and video makes it always feel like GAIM on Linux. Not good. iChat has problems as well (but will be getting better in Leopard) but it supports iSight. It is also integrated into the system better (like in Mail). I would rather use iChat.
After searching around the internet, I’ve come up with the following recipe. Here is how you can get iChat to host AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google, and just about anything else (explanation is below to understand what is going on):
- Sign up for Google Talk.
- Download Psi jabber client.
- Launch Psi
- Enter Google Talk for the name and click Add
- Enter your Google Talk id for Jabber ID and your password (ex. myname@gmail.com)
- Click Connection
- Enable SSL, Ignore SSL Warnings, Plaintext passwords, and Keep-alive
- Set server host to talk.google.com and port 5223
- Click save
- Login to Google Talk’s jabber server by selecting Google Talk and selecting Status -> Online
- Select Psi -> Preferences and select Events
- Check Ignore Events from contacts not in roster and Auto-authorize contacts
- Deselect Notify when auth received and then click OK
- Select General -> Service Discovery
- Enter jabber.anywise.com in address and click browse
- Select MSN or Yahoo gateway
- Right click and select Register
- Enter your MSN or Yahoo credentials
- You will see all your other contacts get added to your buddy list
- Quit Psi
- Launch iChat
- Choose iChat -> Preferences and select Accounts pane
- Click (+) to add a new account
- Select Account Type of Jabber
- Enter your Google Talk ID and password (ex. yourname@gmail.com)
- Enter talk.google.com for server and Add
- Click Server Settings for Google Talk account
- Enable SSL and allow self-signed certificates. Also verify port 5223 is used
- Close preferences
- Choose Window -> Jabber
- Set status to Online and you will see your full buddy list
- IM your friends
What did you just do? A lot went into this but it is actually not that complicated. Jabber is an open-source IM protocol. There are many Jabber servers around the world that you can use to talk to other Jabber users. Jabber has a lightweight registration concept. It supports federation of other Jabber servers. So you can get an ID on a federated Jabber server and use that to login to another. Google Talk uses Jabber and they are part of the federated network.
The second part is that many Jabber servers run gateways to other IM systems including AIM, MSN, and Yahoo. Logging into the server, you can register the gateway service and use it to bridge to other systems transparently. Gateways are not hosted by every Jabber server. You need to find one that does to use it.
iChat can talk to Jabber servers. Since it can, you can use gateways. Google Talk doesn’t run a gateway. So you need to use another Jabber server.
There are many other ways to do this. I picked Google Talk because it is a nice way of getting an ID and many people already have one. I picked jabber.anywise.com because it has the gateways I wanted. The jabber.anywise.com server will auth Google Talk ID’s and you can then register to use the gateway. Replace your Jabber account with any other you like and use any other gateway server you like
There are a few other pieces of information that are useful as well:
- Your contacts are wrapped in a different form for the gateway. The format is user%service.com@gateway.jabber.anywise.com. For example, billgates%microsoft.com@msn.jabber.anywise.com.
- You can hide the messy Jabber IM address in OS X. For any user in iChat, get info on the user and associate an Address Book card to them. Their name will appear in iChat instead of the gateway address.
- The contacts will show up anywhere you use your Google Talk id.
- Deleting the contacts from Google Talk does not delete them from the actual service just the gateway
42 Comments
Hello,
thank you very much for this nice tip.
I was just wondering if we could use 2 different gateway ( one for MSN, and one for Yahoo), or if it would create a problem.
thanks
Julie
You can use more than one gateway. But I think the gateway provider must be the same. In my example, jabber.anywise.com can provide both MSN and Yahoo gateways. You register for both. It may also be possible to use multiple gateway providers but I haven’t done that.
Hi Andrew,
Is this solution provide also vide/audi support to MSN/yahoo buddies?
Thanks
Mic
I don’t think audio and video will work. Although it may be possible that there are A/V transports. You might want to look at other Jabber gateway providers. Start from jabber.org and you can look at alternatives to jabber.anywise.com. I’m using myjabber.net with good success right now.
??? I cant register the MSN gateway
I can register all but it… none of my contacts appear in the list… help!
MSN contacts need adding, see the article
I am looking for a quicker way to do this. address book script, anyone?
Using something psi I think allows you to add the address book. Some gateways have an address book importer. But there isn’t much standards around it.
it works.
but every time i open chat – i get a zillion “jabber authorization” notifications
(yes – i did AUTO uthorize)\\what to do?
David
Hello, I was just wondering if you know how to fix this…
All of this works, it’s just that on my list nobody is shown as online, but people can still send me messages..it says waiting for authorization on all of the contacts..help?
Thanks,
Sarah
This is soo cool. Thank you. However, just want to know whether we can send file or use the isight with it? Video Chat doesn’t seem to work !!
hey i like this alot im glad this is out here.
thanks. i hated using msn and ichat.
question tho.
say on msn u have a corporate account that has a directory of names. would it work the same?
hey andrew.. i followed the steps but when i click status for Online.
A message pops up .. “Could not connect to jabber”
What server and port settings in ichat should i use for Yahoo. currently set to yahoo.com and 5222 respectively but it won’t connect.
Hey Andrew
I followed the steps but when i click status for Online.
A message pops up .. “Could not connect to jabber”
This kind of messes things up a bit…!!!
Please help….!!!
i can’t register MSN as well, any ideas why?
ICQ and AIM are cool, but the goddammed MSN won’t do it…
waiting for suggestions!
thanks!
I’m in the same sorry group that can’t register msn. Anyone have anything for us?
Hi,
I’m having the same problem as sarah.. all of my contacts say waiting for Authorization under them and i can’t see if if they are online.
What can I do to Fix this?
Thanks
I just want to use my macbook built-in webcam and chat and see friends. How do I do that and why is it soooo complicated?
msn, amsn, adium, ichat, yahoo, aim, google talk, google talk, psi, jabber??????????????????
The idea of owning a mac is that is should just work and at the moment is just doesn’t. Please help. Kenny
This is a rather advanced thing to do. It is also highly unreliable. I don’t use this method anymore – it just doesn’t work good enough. To do video and audio, you really need to use the client for each network (i.e. iChat for AIM or Yahoo! for the Yahoo network).
Basically, each service talks only to each other. It’s like buying a phone from AT&T and only being able to call other AT&T users. It does suck but that’s the way it is.
Jabber (which is what Google uses) is the most open and you can talk to more people with that. However, huge user bases still exist for MSN, Yahoo and AIM. Use Jabber for the most flexibility.
working for me perfectly. thanks
no audio/video with msn buddies but i didnt expect that
“The idea of owning a mac is that is should just work and at the moment is just doesn’t.”…..its not the MAC or the PC’s fault…its aim,yahoo,and msn who dont allow it, or intentionally break it when people do get it to work. just cause its a mac doesnt mean it can override other’s limitations. if say, sprint doesnt accept calls from iphones, then its not apple creating the problem
Your suggestions have all worked fine so far, but when I go to Psi: Service Discovery, enter jabber.anywise.com and click Browse, I get the error message ‘You must be connected to the server in order to do this’
Any thoughts?
got jabber to work but not video conferencing with anyone on yahoo, msn or live.com. Oh, well..will use the pc for those video conferences. Thanks anyway!
I am trying to do your Ichat w/ MSN set up (via Jabber) and I have gotten to the instruction to
Enter jabber.anywise.com in address and click browse
I entered the address into the address bar however I get an error that says
You must be connected to the server in order to do this.
I am not sure what this means exactly. (Sorry this is my first mac and I feel totally useless) haha.
If I am understanding this correctly– these are instructions to be able to use the built in iCam to be able to chat with MSN users, correct? I didn’t realize that I would loose that functionality by going with a mac and I talk to my family a lot on web cams.
Thanks for your help.
Shanda
Hey bud I tried using Psi but it won’t connect when I put talk.google.com in the “server” tab. And I don’t see in place where I can put any usernames and passwords, neither. What can I do?
Scratch that. I got to the point where you said :
# Enter jabber.anywise.com in address and click browse
# Select MSN or Yahoo gateway
# Right click and select Register
I found something that’s like msn.jabber.anywise.com with a big X on its left and when I used right click the only thing I saw was “Add to roster”, nothing that says register. As soon as I go to Service Discovery I get:
“There was an error getting agents for gmail.com.
Reason: Feature not implemented.
The feature requested is not implemented by the recipient or server and therefore cannot be processed.”
So what do I do now?
If you are having the problem “Must be connected to the server in order to do this” Make sure in your Account properties under “connection” you have the “ignore SSL warnings” box checked, and In the Encrypt Connection select “Legacy SSL” It looks as if this is a tutorial for an older version of Psi.
If you are having trouble with the jabber.anywise.com server discovery, try another Jabber gateway (I chose “jabber.se”). There are plenty of other jabber gateways by the looks of it, try a google search.
I have the same problem “Must be connected to the server in order to do this” although I have “ignore SSL warnings” box checked, and In the Encrypt Connection select “Legacy SSL” also. Is there any solution. I have also tried different gateways but the problem is the same with all
I’m trying to undo the mess this made. I’ve denied the 40 million authorisation requests this generated and attempted to unregister the msn protocol from jabber.anywise.com, but now every time I log onto google talk through adium or ichat I get the following error spammed in a chat window:
“Sorry. You do not appear to be registered with this transport. Please register and try again. If you are having trouble registering please contact your Jabber administrator”
It is very annoying
This is really upsetting. I can’t get rid of this bloody jabber.anywise.com. It is continually trying to add all my contacts and continually messages me every time I log on. I HAVE UNREGISTERED IT!
I am having the same problem as Ryan,
how do i remove myself from the anywise transport thing so it stops with the irritating notification
I am having the same problem as Lisa. My contacts are gray and some of them say waiting for authorization.
Has anyone figured out how to undo this once it has been set up?
I had it working fine until I changed the audio/video preferences. Now every time I log into jabber I get the following message:
Failed to connect to MSN servers: [Failure instance: Traceback (failure with no frames): : Timeout]
So I’d rather just undo the whole thing, but it seems that my msn messenger account has been permanently routed through my google account.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated…
Allison,
I have the same problem. I emailed the admins at anywise and received the following response:
“Hi,
MSN changed the protocol. We are working on it.”
So, at least they’re aware of the problem. I wish I could figure out how to remove my registration altogether.
Hi, i followed your instructions and managed to get everything done. however it seems like the msn users only come online when psi is online as well. is there a way to bypass this? i would rather use psi if i have the ichat/jabber running.
When I try to connect, psi sais: “There was an error communicating with the server.”
Details: Authentication error: Not authorized”
What can I do?
Stahlhamster
Posted October 5, 2008 at 2:19 am | Permalink
When I try to connect, psi sais: “There was an error communicating with the server.”
Details: Authentication error: Not authorized”
What can I do?
SAME PROBLEM HERE :S ANY TIPS?
Hey, i would love to use this but i cant coz when i get to signing in on psi it comes up with this pop up message: http://i33.tinypic.com/29q12j6.jpg
i have had a googlemail account for a long time (which auto gives me a google talk account) i filled in the thing exactly like you siad (and a selection of other websites said) and it doesnt work.
:’( help lol.
Hey! Great job, it aaalmost works for me. I have this slight problem that in psi;
I get no contact list but a new contact under “Agents/Transports” called “msn.jabber.anywise.com” instead.
I also can only log in if I choose “Encrypt connection: Legally SSL”, a little different from your description.
Anybody willing to help me with this??
Best regards,
Patrik
hey andrew,
this is so helpful thanks! i’m stuck where you’re supposed to click google talk jabber and his status online…it says it’s unable to connect the server… any suggestions?
thanks so much!
Also having trouble at this step….says you have to be logged on but isnt’ connecting…help!
# Select General -> Service Discovery
# Enter jabber.anywise.com in address and click browse
in ichat 4.0l5 u can put google talk strait in, it even has it as an option in the drop down menu
TO NOT GET THE “authorization requests this generated and attempted to unregister the msn protocol from msn.jabber.anywise.com, but now every time I log onto google talk through adium or ichat I get the following error spammed in a chat window:
“Sorry. You do not appear to be registered with this transport. Please register and try again. If you are having trouble registering please contact your Jabber administrator”
It is very annoying”
DELETE THE CONTACT msn.jabber
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