Query: I have not been able to logon to ICQ for 3 days (except very sporadically).  I sent an Email to ICQ tech support and I'm enclosing a copy of their reply.  I guess their main question is if I am behind a firewall or not?  I am not personally but I was wondering if with the new NFN software upgrades I was being affected or not.  Please look at their response to me and could you tell me what to try next?  I depend upon ICQ a great deal and I am at my wits end.  Thank you so much. 

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to write us.

Please contact your ISP to check whether you are behind a firewall or a proxy server. If so it has to be configured.

The following instructions are intended for Firewall administrators.

Necessary conditions in order for ICQ to work from behind a firewall:

1. The ICQ client software must be able to communicate with the ICQ server. This is done via port 4000 UDP to icq.mirabilis.com (please note - port should be opened for icq.mirabilis.com and not any specific IP address, since it stands for more than one IP address.)

After an outgoing UDP packet is sent to icq.mirabilis.com port 4000, you must configure the firewall so that a reply on that packet will be able to be received through the firewall.

If your firewall session times out in less than 5 minutes, configure the ICQpreferencesaccordingly(ICQ menu->preferences->connection->click "I am behind a firewall orproxy"->firewall settings).

If you can not change your firewall configurations in such a way, you can use one of two proxys:

a) Socks5 Compatible - If you are using a Socks5 Compatible, configure ICQ accordingly through your ICQpreferences->connection tab

b) UDP Mapping - You must create a mapping to the ICQ server.

2. ICQ must be able to communicate with other ICQ clients. This is done via TCP ports that are above 1023.

First, your firewall must enable outgoing TCP connection. You need to either enable outgoing connection for all IPs or you could enable outgoing connection for fixed IPs.

Otherwise, you could use a proxy in this case as well (preferably socks4/socks5 compatible).

{Second, your firewall must enable incoming communication.

ICQ uses one port for incoming messages, one port for each open chat and one for each file transfer, all ports higher than port 1023.

In order to enable this:

a) You must open these ports on your firewall. If less than 3 ports are open on your firewall, you will not be able to function all 3 events at once.

or

b) You could use a proxy server in this case as well. (Socks5 or Socks4 Compatible)

or

c) If neither of the above is done , you could communicate only with users who are not behind a firewall as well.

After your firewall is configured, you must configure ICQaccordingly(ICQmenu->preferences->connection->firewall settings)

Please note: Socks servers can be found at the following URLs:

http://www.socks.nec.com

http://www.wingate.net

If you have configured ICQ to work with a specific kind of firewall or a specific kind of proxy, please let us know so we can help others with the same configuration as yours to work with ICQ.

If you continue to encounter problems, please write back with a detailed explanation as to what steps

you followed and what problems you encountered.

Thank you.