Hello there guys.... I hope there is someone out there who can end my pain and suffering! Recently I upgraded MSN Messenger to the newest one available (as requested by MSN)I now have version 6.1.0211. The problem I have is very strange: When I boot up my PC and connect to the net I always have messenger start up automatically. Now when I connect (via broadband by the way) It won't start messenger and I get the following message: "We were unable to sign you in to .net Messenger service, possibly because of a problem with the service or with your internet connection. Please make sure you are connected to the internet. 0x81000301. Click the help button to check the current service status" Now, I now it must be something to do with my Firewall (Norton Personal Firewall 2002) because if I disable it then messenger can start up no problem, but this defeats the purpose of a firewall! Once I do have messenger open I can only talk to contacts if I then again disable the firewall, this is extremely annoying and I haven't had this problem with any of the other messenger versions that I've run in the past. If there is anyone out there who could help me overcome this B****rd of a problem then I will be eternally greatful. I have previously checked the firewall settings and the one for messenger is set to 'Permit All' so I guess that can be ruled out. Could it be conflicting with anything else within the firewall? This has never happened before with the versions of messenger I've run. I'm now having other problems relating to this issue: When I was previously trying to post this thread, my system suddenly came up with the 'Page not found' error message for this site. When I tried the home button I got the same. The firewall then doesn't appear to work properly (when i right click on the icon in the tray it usually brings up some options but this didn't work so I had to open it up by double clicking) Eventually I had to do a 'System Restore'. I've done a virus check so it's not that. The only thing I've done recently is a simple registry clean (Registry Mechanic) and downloaded the new messenger so I'm 99.999% sure it's a problem with messenger but what? I just don't know......... Please Please Anyone Someone Heeeeeeeeeelp!! Ode to a small lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummers morning...

Hope this sheds some light on your problem. MSN messenger Problems behind Router/Firewall. why I can't send audio and video? why I can't use application sharing and whiteboard? Why I can't use file transfer? HOW CAN I FIX IT! read everything below you will know. Audio and Video When negotiating an audio-video session, dynamic ports were chosen for the audio-video (AV) stream. Dynamic ports are used to enable the application to work regardless of what other applications are running on the system and using port resources. In the .NET Messenger case the session invitation was sent by station B to the address it received for station A. The following issues might arise if a firewall or NAT were present in these scenarios: * The address provided by A in either the session invite for session signaling, or in the session acceptance for the UDP streams, might be an internal address that is translated by a NAT device an invalid (or fake) address for B to use to contact A. In other scenarios with the 4.5 client, A might initiate the session, but the same or similar addressing issues will exist. * When B sends the session invitation to A, this invitation is sent using the IP address and port passed from A to B. For this to work, this port must be enabled to pass through any firewall between A and B. * The actual Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams are sent using dynamically allocated UDP ports in the range of 5004 �65535. Without a way to open these UDP ports on any firewall in the path dynamically, the streams will fail to reach their destination. Application Sharing and Whiteboard The following issues arise when using application sharing and whiteboard in a NAT or firewall environment. (The first two issues are the same as found with audio and video.) * The address provided by the initiating station might be an internal address that is translated by a NAT device. This is an invalid address for the external client to use to initiate the SIP session or TCP connection to A. * The port used by the external client to send the SIP invitations passed to the external client by the internal clientele must be enabled to allow the SIP invitation to pass through any firewall between the clients. * The TCP connection for the application sharing (AS) and whiteboard (WB) data will use port 1503, which will need to be enabled to traverse any firewalls. This is not true in the case of a UPnP-enabled gateway which will map the internal static port to another port. * Since a specific port is used for the TCP data connection (1503), if the client is behind a non-UPnP NAT device, the port must be mapped to that client. This ensures communication through the least common denominator NAT device. This also means the port cannot usually be used by another client behind the NAT device; only a single client behind the same NAT device can have an AS or WB session active. File Transfer File Transfer (FT) requires that the initiating station pass its address to the FT peer in the session exchange through the server. Because of this, the first issue listed under application sharing and whiteboard applies: * The address provided by the initiating station might be an internal address that is translated by a NAT device. This is an invalid address for the peer to use for the TCP connection. The TCP connection for file transfer, which could be initiated by the external party, presents an additional issue. * Both incoming and outgoing TCP connections use the range of ports from 6891 to 6900. This allows up to 10 simultaneous file transfers per sender. These ports must be open on any firewall between the peers. If you open only port 6891, users will only be able to do one file transfer at a time. Remote Assistance Remote Assistance uses Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP); this is the same protocol used by Microsoft Terminal Services. RDP is built on top of a TCP connection. Windows Messenger sets up the remote assistance session using the server-based session invite logical similar to FT. Because of this, the issue with NAT addresses applies to this scenario as well. Remote Assistance includes additional logic to deal with the NAT scenario. This logic simply attempts to create the TCP connection from both clients. This way if one of the clients is behind a NAT, the connection can still be created and remote assistance occurs. If both clients are behind a (non-UPnP) NAT, the connection will not be established. The additional SIP invite logic is only added if a voice session is added in support of Remote Assistance. In addition to the issues resulting from NAT addresses, which are only of concern with multiple NAT devices in the communication path, TCP port 3389 is used for the TCP connection for the Remote Assistance protocol. This means that port 3389 must be opened on any firewalls between clients. Sincerely, Mr. Cheeks

I was "forced" to upgrade to messenger 6.1 and it did me the same way! I couldn't even connect to the net without disabling the firewall....Version 6 worked fine and I had NO problems with it! However it won't let me reinstall that one and use it! I think we SHOULD have a choice of what we want to use! I reinstalled 5 and I could see contacts online. My cousin came on and I kept waiting for her to message me....nothing. I was busy at the time so hadn't tried her. Finally got a long distance ph call. She had tried to message me and it wouldnt work...I messeged her and it wouldn't send either. So I disabled the firewall and it worked! This was version 5! Until I put 6.1 on I had NO problems---now I can't use any version without disabling the firewall! Thought this was supposed to have fixed some kind of security problem but sounds to me like it make for more security problems when we are forced to disable the firewall to use messenger now! HELP!!!!!!!!!! I even tried to contact msn about it but have gotten NOTHING from them! Anyone know of a simple solution that will fix this problem other than changing to something like AIM or Yahoo both of which I won't use! Dianne