Migrated Partychat rooms and Google Apps domains

Posted by on Nov 14, 2011 in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Due to App Engine cost changes, I’ve been working with the partychat folks to migrate our services to a new domain (new rooms are channel@im.partych.at).

We’re seeing a lot of people who are using accounts on Google Apps domains having difficulty connecting to the new Partychat services.

Simple solutions

If you are using a Google Apps domain, these instructions (from Google) will help you get partychat working again. This will require help from someone with access to your domain settings (probably a system administrator).

If you don’t have access to DNS records, or can’t find someone who does, you will have to use a @gmail.com account instead.

Technical Details

Every domain needs to have a SRV DNS record to tell other XMPP servers where to connect (if the bare domain does has no record). The SRV record’s name should be “_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com.” This doesn’t just affect partychat, it prevents most people on non-Google third-party domains from being able to talk to you.

You can check if your server has one by executing the following (change mydomain.com to the name of your domain):

vijayp@ike:~/src$ nslookup
> set q=SRV
> _xmpp-server._tcp.mydomain.com
Server: 10.0.10.1
Address: 10.0.10.1#53

** server can't find _xmpp-server._tcp.mydomain.com: NXDOMAIN

As you can see, mydomain.com doesn’t have a record, so our servers don’t know where to send your chat messages. Here is an example of a properly configured domain:

vijayp@ike:~/src$ nslookup
> set q=SRV
> _xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net
Server: 10.0.10.1
Address: 10.0.10.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net service = 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net service = 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net service = 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net service = 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net service = 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.

12 Comments

  1. Bill
    Tuesday, 15 November 2011

    I have the SRV records setup but it’s still not working. I get a 503 error when trying to post.

    Is there supposed to be a webgui at im.partych.at? There’s nothing there. It doesn’t even seem to resolve.

  2. Mathias Bynens
    Tuesday, 22 November 2011

    FYI you can do all that in one command: nslookup -query=SRV "_xmpp-server._tcp.q00p.net"

  3. Daniel
    Tuesday, 22 November 2011

    We are having the same problem. We are unable to migrate out chat room properly.

  4. Ian Garmaise
    Wednesday, 23 November 2011

    same here, also have SRV records installed and tested, I always get a message that server has been migrated. Also tried creating a new room on a non-google apps account, same result. I’ve head that Android client is still working.

  5. Charles
    Thursday, 1 December 2011

    I found the partychat is not quite working in the last couple days, very slow response, or even not working…

  6. Ryan
    Tuesday, 6 December 2011

    I’m in the same boat as Bill. Any help?

  7. vijayp
    Thursday, 8 December 2011

    Transient (non-Google Apps) issues with partychat should be fixed.

  8. Ravi
    Tuesday, 20 December 2011

    Hi Vijay,

    Just wanted to know if you evaluated Node.js (http://nodejs.org) for revamping of your application? Some bits of the app seem the right candidate for Node.

    Regards,
    Ravi

  9. mac
    Tuesday, 3 January 2012

    We have the same problem. We have added the srv records but it still doesn’t work

  10. Judeline
    Thursday, 12 April 2012

    Thanks for sharing, migrating from and to Google Apps can be a challenge and recently my company migrated domains and used an online service at

    https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=14156+5077282021820947710&hp=recentlyAdded

    I hope they keep adding more migration apps for Google Apps

  11. chris
    Tuesday, 26 February 2013

    I’ve updated my SRV records but still no luck.
    I’m in the chat room (via gmail) and can see others talking now, but when I send a message it just says the room “did not receive your chat”..

    Anyone got a solution for this?

    Thanks

  12. lucia
    Wednesday, 20 March 2013

    bom galera nao sei ingles como me cadrasto no chat para conversa com os outros por favor explique em portugues

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