Subject-field is way to small. :-)

I'm really desperate now. I don't even know which computer really makes the trouble, but I'm afraid it's the linux router, so I hope I'm right here and you can help me.

I'm using a pc with debian as a router. All other pcs are running xp. I have no trouble with the internet, everything works fine. Only Skype (for windows) is hardly to use. Textmessages in Skype are no problem, making a call or being called works fine at first, but after about 30 seconds the sound loops the last 0.01 s for about 5 seconds and continues after that. A while later some seconds of the sound get lost, then a few sentences get lost, and then skype hangs up. Interesting is, that my partner can here me all the time while I hear the loop or nothing at all.

I really tried everything I could imagine. Forwarded a port to the pc running Skye, allowing / disallowing the use of port 80. Nothing works. Because everything else works (and even Skype worked with my old linux router) I guess, there's something wrong with the router. Next thing is, I'm not very familiar with linux, I'm happy I got the router running (apparently I also failed at that task), so I can't provide you with much usefull information like the kernel version or anything, because I don't know how to let linux tell me that. :-/ The only thing I used that was not part of the normal debian distribution was the pengui-pppoe-thing.

I hope, there's someone who can use this vague informations to help me, any help is highly appreciated.

Hi arnefi

Did you activate "Tech info" for the call in Skype? There you can see if your packets get lost. To thos that info, you need to have in enabled (in Skype options, but don't remember under which tab) and move your mouse over the avatar of your contact on call tab.

I would guess the problem may come from firewall configuration on the router, this could especially happen if you are having relayed calls where incoming stream goes over another relay than outgoing stream (thus the kernel may have troubles considering the stream as a "UDP connection") IP-tables is a state-full firewall. With port-forwarding enabled you should have bast chances to get it working.

Hi bonbons,

thanks for the quick reply. The quickinfo tells me: "packetloss: 33.5%, SessionOut: UDP 2370 packets, SessionIn: UDP 1510 packets". Oh dear, 33.5%?

I built my iptables firewall, no, a friend of mine, who's a lot firmer at linux than I am, built his firewall with fwbuilder. I "copied" this one and adjusted it. This worked fine for ICQ and all the other stuff. But it still can be the source of my problem? If so, I have to go through the manual again.