Remote Assistance connection disconnected. Please try again.

[Guest]

I am running Windows XP Pro at home and I get Remote Assistance requests.

Requests from my sister (running XP Home and Windows Live Messenger) via the
Internet work OK.

Requests via the internet from person A at my office (running XP Pro) and
Windows Live Messenger who is behind Windows Firewall AND a Netgear firewall
router work OK.

Requests via the internet from person B at my office (from a different
computer running XP Pro but still using Window Live Messenger behind Windows
Firewall and the same firewall router) give me the error message in the
title, after I accept the invitation.

I have read pretty much everything on the Internet on this but I am still
stuck. Port 3389 is open on the work router and I have used it to set up a
Remote Desktop to both computers A and B. On machine B uPnP is enabled and no
service is disabled. I have set every service associated with Remote
Assistance to Automatic startup. Remote Assistance is enabled as an exception
in the Windows Firewall, in addition I have added a couple of other programs
as exceptions as recommended.

When I am in the office machine B has the same symptoms when trying to
connect from machine A (and machine C), so I have pretty much come to the
conclusion the problem is with machine B, not the router or the internet.
Machine B will not be helped, even when the request is sent to an email
address or via a file.

Does anybody have an idea why it is disconnecting the Remote Assistance
session? Thanks.

 

[Guest]

When was the last time you ran scan disk or "Error-Checking" on machine B?
Try running "Error-checking" and select "Automaticlly fix file system errors"

 

[Guest]

Hello Darrell,

I have run full error-checking on machine B with no change. A further test
requesting remote assistance from a third part produced the same message on
their computer, so the problem is definitely with machine B disconnecting.
The only other area I can think that might be relevant is that a security
template has been applied to this machine at some time that has disabled this
facility.

If I can't fix it I will have to take this machine out of service and
reinstall the OS as a last resort. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[NerdBoyJeff]

Derek,

I had the same trouble with Windows Messenger Live 8.0 and tried all
the fixes mentioned in the various newsgroup threads, including the
following:

Router Setup:
- enable UPnP

Windows Setup (on both host and client computers):
Windows Services:
- ensure "SSDP Discovery Service" is running and automatically started
- ensure "Universal Plug and Play Device Host" is running and
automatically started
Windows Firewall:
- ensure "Remote Assistance" and "Remote Assistance - Windows Messenger
and Voice" are checked in the "Exceptions" tab

I configured all these on both the host and client computers and it
still didn't work, I kept getting the same message "Remote Assistance
connection disconnected. Please try again."

The critical item for me was this: my Netgear router supports an SPI
(I think this is Stateful Packet Inspection) Firewall as and added
security feature. I think most of the newer routers do (I've seen it
on a Dlink too). I had to turn this off in my router settings and it
finally worked. My Netgear has a "Disable SPI Firewall" checkbox under
"WAN Setup", the box was unchecked as default and I checked it. I am
still operating behind the router and have not had a chance to test it
from the internet. I will post an update to this thread when I do.

- Jeff