Urgent help!!! Error message when using Remote Assistance?

[Mike]

Dear all,

I want to connect to my dad's Windows XP HOME through his invitation of
remote assistance.

My dad is really a computer novice and we are thousands miles away from each
other.

I used telephone to instruct him and he managed to send me an invitation of
remote assistance in MSN Messenger.

I accepted and began to connect to him.

Then after 10 seconds, the connection was disconnected and an error message
popped up:

"Remote Assistance cannot connect because the request timed out. The novice
did not respond within the given time frame."

I "blamed" my dad but he insisted that he did nothing error and there is no
new window popping up asking for his permission to allow me to remotely
connect to him. Basically, to him, nothing had happened at all after he sent
out an invitation through MSN messenger.

What could be wrong?

In order to debug, I had sent him an invitation and he remotely connected to
my computer, and I got a new window popping up and asked for my permission
to allow him to connect in and I clicked "YES" and he was able to remotely
control my computer. Everything worked!

But why when I connected to his, we couldn't get it go through?

Thanks a lot!

(1. His firewall is off for this connection. 2. Neither of us had a
"helpassistant" account active in our user accounts, but that didn't matter,
because as you can see from above, his remote connection to me was a
success! )

 

[Robin Walker [MVP]]

I used telephone to instruct him and he managed to send me an
invitation of remote assistance in MSN Messenger.

I accepted and began to connect to him.

Then after 10 seconds, the connection was disconnected and an error
message popped up:

"Remote Assistance cannot connect because the request timed out. The
novice did not respond within the given time frame."

Is your dad's PC behind a NAT router?

Did you try immediately a second time? Sometimes it takes more than one go
to get working.

 

[Guest]

I see that there is a option to set a time limit on how long an invitation is
good for, when the "inviter" sets it up. Perhaps that needs to be increased.

:

 

[Mike]

where is that option?

I see that there is a option to set a time limit on how long an invitation
is
good for, when the "inviter" sets it up. Perhaps that needs to be
increased.

:

 

[Mike]

My dad knows nothing about computer, how to deal with that? Thanks