Remote assistant connection times out

[phill]

I am attempting to get remote assistant working between two computers
over the internet.

The novice PC (my friend) is running Windows XP Home + SP2 and has
Norton Internet Security 2005 running. A USB modem connects the PC
directly to the interent.

The expert PC (mine) is running Windows XP Professional + SP2 and also
has Norton Internet Security 2005 running. My PC is attached to a
Netgear router with a firewall, which in turn accesses the internet via
a Netgear Modem. I have setup port forwarding on the router, on port
3389 to my PC's IP address.

Both copies of Norton Internet Security have been configured to permit
inbound/outbound communication on port 135 (epmap).

Windows XP firewall is switched off on both PC's.

When my friend asks me for remote assistance using MSN Messenger 7.5 I
can accept his request and a window then appears saying that it is
attempting to connect. At this point nothing happens on either PC and
eventually I get a timeout error.

If I reverse the request and ask my friend for remote assistance and he
accepts, a connection between both PC's is immediately made and he is
able to see and control my PC.

Why is my friends request for remote assistance not working? We have
tried switching off both our firewall software (NIS) but this makes no
difference so I don't believe it is Norton IS causing the problem.

My router firewall is configured correctly as far as I can determine.

The strange thing is that we did get this working in both directions
about a month ago, but today when he needed some help I could no longer
connect to his machine.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as I have already spent far too
much time trying to resolve this issue.

 

[honjo]

If it is timed out, then ask the novice to resend his request again.
Very often this is the case with my experience being as an assistor.

 

[Milleniumaire]

honjo,

We have tried making the connection many times over a period of a two
days but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working, however my
request for assistance from my friend worked first time!

 

[honjo]

My suggestion for troubleshooting is that you and your friend remove
firewall and router and make sure remote assistance works without them.
If it does not then OS setting for REMOTE Assistance should be reviewed
and corrected. If it works without them, then restore what were removed
one by one untill remote assistance stops working to determine the
culprit so that you can focus on it for further trouble shooting.

Kaz

 

[Milleniumaire]

While checking the configuration of my router I noticed that my modem
also had options to setup port forwarding. On closer investigation I
determined that I had setup port forwarding twice; once in the router
configuration screen and once in the modem configuration screen. Both
settings were for port 3389, however only the IP address on the router
was correct, the other setting was for an IP address of one of my other
machines that I rarely use. I removed the port forwarding settings on
the modem and everything started to work as expected!

I can only assume I accidently added the port forwarding to the modem
when I was trying to get Remote Desktop working!

Paul.

 

[Alan]

While checking the configuration of my router I noticed that my modem
also had options to setup port forwarding. On closer investigation I
determined that I had setup port forwarding twice; once in the router
configuration screen and once in the modem configuration screen. Both
settings were for port 3389, however only the IP address on the router
was correct, the other setting was for an IP address of one of my other
machines that I rarely use. I removed the port forwarding settings on
the modem and everything started to work as expected!

I can only assume I accidently added the port forwarding to the modem
when I was trying to get Remote Desktop working!

Paul.

I'm not sure where the line gets drawn between ease of use and Security
- and I understand the need for both. But i someone is asking you for
remote help, one should not have to work through firewall, port
forwarding, etc.. Those can be worth a remote help in and of itself!

my 3 cents...