Subject: Jabber connectivity issues? Workaround here.

From: Glen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 10:52:55 -0700

All -

We are receiving some continued reports of Jabber connectivity issues
for the IETF Jabber server.  Last month we upgraded the server OS,
which caused many people to experience connectivity issues for a day
or two.  We then upgraded the ejabberd server, and that appeared to
have resolved those issue for most people.  However, with the meeting
starting up, and more people trying to connect, it seems that some
people are still having trouble.

As you might guess, debugging such things is very difficult.  For our
purposes, Jabber is a server-to-server connection, and we (almost)
never have access to the remote server which is trying to connect to
us.  The problem is more frustrating because, as I have discovered,
the states and maintenance levels of jabber servers globally varies
widely.  WIDELY.  So debugging these types of problems is next to
impossible.

So, instead, I've taken the approach of trying to bracket what DOES
work.  If you are having trouble connecting to the IETF jabber server
conference rooms, I have compiled a list of ten public, free, open,
working Jabber servers, from difference locations around the world,
and included that list below.  I have personally just now successfully
created an account on each one of these servers using XMPP only (some
have XMPP captcha prompts which are easy to pass, some don't) and then
successfully used that created account to connect to the IETF jabber
server.

Please consider using one of these servers to help ensure that you can
connect to the IETF Jabber rooms.

igniterealtime.org
jabber.cz
jabbim.com
securejabber.me
wusz.org
xmpp.is
xmpp.js
xmpp.kz
xmpp.pro
xmppcomm.com

I apologize that some of you are still having problems, and that the
nature of XMPP makes this difficult to debug... but I hope this list
of (currently) working Jabber servers helps you connect successfully
to the IETF meeting jabber rooms.  I've never had so many jabber
accounts in my life.

Glen
Glen Barney
IT Director
AMS (IETF Secretariat)