After we upgraded our Instant Messaging to the new version of Microsoft Office Communications Server, I have been told to install Office Communicator 2007 in order to be able to connect from outside of our firewall. The new version of OCS apparently requires two seperate connections: one if you are inside the firewall, and one if you are outside on the internet. Why OCS requires two different IP addresses to work this way, I have no idea.
“So what?” you ask.
Due to the general crappiness of Office Communicator, and the fact that I use many different IM services, I have been using Miranda for a long time now.
Miranda is an open-source IM platform that supports pretty much every Instant Messaging protocol out there. I use it for Google Talk (Jabber), AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and SIP which is OCS’s communications protocol.
I used to use a program called Trillian but support for it was spotty at best and the program wasn’t nearly as flexible as Miranda. Plus, Miranda is updated much more frequently and has many more plugins available for it. One major problem I had was that whenever my laptop went into Standby mode, Trillian would not reconnect to OCS. With a few plugins such as KeepStatus, Miranda will reconnect for me.
The SIP Plugin for Miranda does not support the concept of internal and external servers which I now need. So what I did was download the source code and add it myself. The solution I came up with is to alternate between both servers when trying to connect. Since I use the KeepStatus PlugIn, Miranda will retry the connection until it finally connects. This is not the perfect solution but it was the easiest for me to implement, not knowing the plugin code well.
If this solution sounds like it will work for you, and you are interested in the plugin, let me know and I will post it here.
Update 9/15/08:
I have found out that the latest compiled Miranda SIP plugin won’t work with OCS 2007 properly. Whenever I signed in, everyone would show me as offline. I found out on this page (for the Trillian SIP plugin) that in order to work with OCS 2007, you need to compile against the OCS 2007 SDK.
I did that and once again I showed up as offline. What I found out was that Office Communicator has to be running. All of my IMs still go through Miranda, and I show up as online. It seems that Microsoft is making it a pain to use their SDKs on purpose. At least everything is working like it used to!
Update 10/10/08:
I have received at least one request for my updated plugin, so here it is:
SipRtc for OCS 2007 ( Source Code )
Update 8/26/09
In order to use this plugin, you must install Microsoft RTC. You can download it at the SIP RTC plugin site.
- 22 Comments »
- Filed on September 5, 2008
Thank you.
by admsupport @ October 20th, 2008Your page & work is much appreciated.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I haven´t tried the plugin yet, but it seems like our company will force us to use the MS communicator and I have no plans to leave my previous Miranda.
Thanks,
by erik @ January 22nd, 2009Erik
Hi,
I’ve downloaded your plugin. I’m using Miranda last build 0.8.0 #29.
What happend: First- SIP plugin stoped to work. Therefore I was looking for other new versions. Then I reinstall RTCApiSetup and restarted my PC. When I have copied your dll into my plugin folder I cannot see this protocol in Network section. I can see it only in Customise-Protocols section but unavaliable, and I cannot see this DLL in Plugins section.
Do you have any idea how to install this plugin?
Thanks a lot for any help
Petr
by Petr @ April 16th, 2009The plugin should show up your plugins section if it is in the plugins directory. Does it not show up at all, or is just not checked? Make sure you are looking at the right directory if you have multiple Miranda installations.
by gil @ April 16th, 2009I am having the same issue with version 8.1. The plugin is present in the plugin folder but not viewable in the application.
by Adam @ July 4th, 2009I just checked and I am using version 0.7.4. Looks like the new version may require a new compile of the code. I will look into it..
by gil @ July 5th, 2009Thanks for your contribution. Any progress on updating / recompiling for use with version 8.1 ? I too can not see or activate the plugin.
by JJ @ July 14th, 2009I have discovered that if you install the plugin in v0.7 and update, it stays around. I am still looking into why it won’t work with a new v0.8 install, although it is not a simple recompile issue. Stay tuned..
by gil @ July 15th, 2009This is kind of related to this forum. We went to Office Communicator in my company, and are having some issues with outside contacts viewing are users’ status. I have tested with Trillian and Pidgin and talked to my Office Communicator client. My OCS client can talk to Trillian all day long, but Trillian cannot talk back. Pidgin can send and receive messages just fine AND can see the OCS users status. Trillian sees the OCS user as offline at ALL times.
Does anyone have any ideas?
by John Bales @ July 16th, 2009I’ve just updated the article. Turns out, the plugin is compatible with 0.8, but you do need Microsoft RTC to use it.
by gil @ August 26th, 2009Any more update… I have also recompiled the plugin so I could use dll rename (which still works in 0.8). But we just went to 2007 servers and now I can only be present in ONE of the Comm servers. I can see both, but only online in one…
Yes, we have 2 different comm servers.
by Travis Schwenke @ October 2nd, 2009Is this not always the case? Can Communicator support multiple servers?
by gil @ October 2nd, 2009Two different companies and our VPN allows me to be on both company networks.
by Travis Schwenke @ October 4th, 2009Communicator I can only log into one at a time. Mirandia I log onto both. Just now, I can only be online for one at a time.
With more and more users and companies migrated to MOC may someone figured out the cause of being seen as offline? It would be nice to have it fixed…
by tyomikh @ October 27th, 2009It´s working with the actual Miranda, but the same Problem as the others -> the other Communicator Users see me as Offline => but I´m happy that I must not use Communicator AND that I can be invisible (with the original Communicator it´s not possible) We have 2007 R2
by Predictor @ November 6th, 2009it’s not enough to recompile, the sw needs to be rewritten to utilize the new sdk.
btw check this out
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sipe/forums/forum/688535/topic/3420567
he’s working on a miranda plugin that doesn’t need the ms sdk
by Alex @ November 12th, 2009Greetings, Do you have the compiled file that will make the reflect the correct status when using Miranda with Office Communicator. I’m still stuck with the offline status and would like to be able to have the right status reflected. Please advise.
by Meg @ November 17th, 2009Meg
We are running a simple OCS 2007 implementation in the department. We have users who need to use miranda because of a disability. Anyone know of a way to mark SIP/Miranda users as online. Currently in miranda, users can see other users’ status but cannot propegate their own status to other users and are marked as offline. Any ideas?
by Jeffrey @ November 17th, 2009For the adventurous…
https://sourceforge.net/projects/sipe/forums/forum/688535/topic/3470874
I’ve been using it for myself for the past month or so. Basic IM and chat work enough to be useful, but there’s load of bugs left.
by JochenDe Smet @ November 25th, 2009thanks, but my Miranda still invisible from my colleague.
by Rony @ May 4th, 2011Offline presence bug/feature is a bit of a problem alright! R2 introduced new restrictions on presences updates and custom presences, I wonder if that is related
by brimur @ August 4th, 2011Works great for me.
Need a version compile for Miranda 0.9.x.
by Leon @ December 17th, 2011