Latest mac issue: iChat

[Shuie]

Ive replaced yahoo instant messenger with Googletalk on my PC. Good riddance Yahoo. Anyway, there is no Googletalk for the mac. No problem, I just have to use iChat with my Google account info. Low and behold, I find iChat in my Applications menu and it doesn't work on my machine. Its OS 10.4.6 if that helps.

This is the 3rd application that has just quit working on this machine; Calendar and Mail were the others. Mail actually started working again after a recent OS update, but not using it since I have the last 6 months worth of personal email in Thunderbird right now.

Has anyone thats ever had issues on a mac seen this before? Is iChat packaged with the OS, or will I be able to patch this application by itself?

TIA

[jyl]

I'm not real good on these sorts of fixes - because I've had very few problems that need fixing - but the recommendations I read usually start with using Disk Utility to "repair" permissions on the hard drive. That seems to be a general first step for many Mac problems. I'm sure someone else will chime in though. If necessary, you can d/l iChat from here http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ichatav.html

More on Disk Utility http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751

[Moses]

I've had an application quit occasionally, but I can start right up again. Nothing like the problem you are describing. Yes, iChat is part of the OS package. What machine are you using? How much ram? Any old apps that may be causing extension conflicts? Are you trying to run an OS9 version of iChat?

Check here for help;

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

[Shuie]

Thanks guys.

Its the 1.25GHz G4 Mini upgraded with the Apple recommended Samsung 1GB RAM chip. The 1st Samsung RAM chip was replaced a month or two ago because the machine didn't like.

It was delivered with OSX (10.3). I never upgraded from OS9. I do have some OS9 apps on the machine, but they are all in the appropriate OS9 folder and use some kind of packager to run on OSX. I guess I could have fat fingered the computer and drug an OS9 version of iChat into the OSX folder, but I've never even downloaded an OS9 version of iChat that would be on this machine.

[bryanthompson]

I use iChat only when I have to video chat, otherwise adium (http://adiumx.com/) is pretty good, especially if you use multiple chat accounts.

[Shuie]

will it work with Google talk?

edit, looks like it does. I'll try that.

thanks!

[Shuie]

Awesome. Thanks Bryan.