Yahoo messenger voice chat problems

[shortstuff]

Hello all,
First let me say this is a great forum and I am really glad I found it. From what I have read everyone here is very knowlegable and friendly (I hope patient too).

Here is my problem with yahoo. I purchased a new computer (a Dell Dimension 8400). I had not tried to use voice chat until a few months ago. When I did, the strangest thing happened. I was in a chat room and everything froze, nothing would respond. I had to go into the task manager and It read that yahoo was not responding and I clicked end task. Everytime I tried the same thing would happen. Even when I tried to use voice in the message box the same thing would happen. It does not happen right away, just a few minutes after I click to enable voice chat. It does not work by the way, I cannot chat nor can I hear anything. The voice chat buttons do not even light up. I have uninstalled messenger and even tried the new beta version. That one was worse, when I entered chat rooms voice chat was automatically enabled and I would freeze in a matter of moments. I have emailed yahoo support and the only time I got a response is when I seemed to get a little aggitated with no responses. But even then that stopped. So here I am. This has become more of a mission now, if there is something in my computer then I cannot figure it out. I have read through the forums here and some have had voice chat problems but nothing like what I have experienced. But perhaps I didn't read all of them, does anyone have any suggestions? Please,,,,any thoughts would be appreciated.
thanks

[miGs]

Hi shortstuff and Welcome to BBB!
Y!M have been having a lot of issues lately particularly the 7.0.
Now to start your mission on finding the possible solution to your problem, some more information about your PC will be helpful, such as softwares installed in your PC. I bet you are using XP SP2, so please check your firewall setting in Windows if in case you have it enabled.

[Eagle_Kiwi]

I use XP(Pro)-SP2, with its firewall on, MiGs, and have no big problems with YM voice.... though indeed I hear that some aren't so lucky.

But Shortstuff, among the further info we'd like, can I ask:
-1- do you use voice ok on any other programs (e.g. MSN, AIM, ICQ, etc) ?
-2- have you run the YM Audio Setup Wizard (if version 6) or Call Setup Assistant (version 7) ?

[shortstuff]

Thanks for the welcome miG.
Let me try to answer some of both you and Eagle Kiwi's questions.
1. Yes I ran the audio set up wizard and that indicated that everything was ok. I am using version 6 of messenger, I tried version 7 but that was even worse.
2. I do not have any other programs installed, such as AIM or ICQ.
3. yes I am using XP SP2, I did check my firewall settings in windows and that is disabled. As far as other programs, I will do my best to list them all,
Norton's Internet Security 2005, Ad-aware SE personal build 1.06, Counterspy, Adobe reader 7.0, Real player, Musicmatch, BOclean, Rhapsody ,Creative software, itunes, google earth, quicktime player, Sonic, Internet explorer. I am sure I am forgetting something or added something on that list you may not need. But I wanted to cover as much as I could. Some of the software came installed already on the computer and others I installed. I hope this helps, if not then let me know and as I stated I will do my best to give any information that will help.
Thanks again.

[Eagle_Kiwi]

Great answer, Shortstuff
I've perused both your posts real carefully looking for some obvious clue, but nothing jumps out and hits me.

I asked about other voice programs not so much thinking of conflicts, but just feeling it would be helpful to know if it's only Yahoo that doesn't like you or whether in fact it's simply using voice over internet, regardless of the actual program. Oh well, no matter.

I see you have a lot of music programs - perhaps one of them is causing a blockage? I'd suggest perhaps after a fresh reboot close EVERY other program you can see - and even do Task Manager and End Task on everything in Applications, and THEN try loading/running YM.

And Norton Security Suite - I've no experience of that but I've read a few posters who have problems with THAT and YM. Is it possible to close/disable that (just temporarily, for a few minutes) then see if YM behaves for you ?

But I hope some others might offer suggestions too from all you've described - good luck with the ongoing mission.

[miGs]

I have had an issue before with Norton Anti-virus, not Norton Internet Security because I do not want the NIS for being overly-cautious , and its related to voice chat, everytime I use VC in Y!M, NAV will pop-out an alert indicating that Y!pager could be a "worm" (whew! nice program) so I have to exempt Y!M in the setting of NAV. Maybe you could try to configure your security, maybe there is some exemption setting there .

By the way, this has been an issue with Y!M, do you have Windowblinds installed in your PC? Please do a search of this program in your system, and if you do have it, set it to "ignore" Y!M.

If this does not address your issue, post back for others may have other ideas!

[shortstuff]

Thanks to both miGs and Eagle Kiwi. I did try a few of the things you suggested. Turing Norton's off didn't help. I also did a search for windowblinds and I did not find it. So my mission continues. I will try the idea of checking the other music programs, that might help. I will let you know. One more thing as far as NIS, that has never blocked messenger or voice chat and I have never gotten any error messages from it. But I will check my firewall there as well.
Thanks again, and I will keep checking