Tox problems

[johnstonesnow]

Hi, never posted on here but someone advised me to so here I am.
I am desperately looking for the most secure alternative to Skype I can possibly find. I have tried countless apps, Signal, Wire, SafeSwiss, and tons more. All of them have bugs or problems and I am not convinced they are all as private as they say they are.

I found Tox chat, I am on a mac and need to talk to a friend on Windows 7. We used Skype in the past but totally sick of it with all the social BS, forced updates, and of course the fact that everything we say is recorded somewhere.

Tox chat looked a great option, but both clients (Utox and Qtox) have issues. Utox works better than Qtox but both have terrible or non existent audio alerts for incoming messages. Both also can NOT do voice communications, Have tried over and over, audio is so broken you can't hear more than one word per sentence. I can live without voice as we mainly use text, but we can't live without alerts so we can hear when a message comes in when the app is not in focus (or even when it is).

Is there any chance the audio alerts could be modified, or a choice given for louder ones? or maybe a custom one we can set up ourselves?
Hope something can be done as we would love to use them.
thanks

[sudden6]

Hi, qTox dev here

About specific issues of each client please post in their respective repositories http://github.com/qTox/qTox/ and https://github.com/utox/utox since this is only the repository for the website source under https://tox.chat.

That said, about your issues:

both have terrible or non existent audio alerts for incoming messages

qTox had a bugfix for that, but we didn't do a release in the mean time, so you have to build from master to fix that.

Have tried over and over, audio is so broken you can't hear more than one word per sentence.

This is strange. Generally audio tends to be very stable and good quality with a headset. If you really tested all 4 possible combinations I suspect some issue with the audio setup or the Internet connection (e.g. WiFi with high packet loss).

[johnstonesnow]

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

1. Sorry for posting in wrong place, I am new to this board, I got an email from someone about Tox (I think a past developer or otherwise involved with it) who sent me a link to report. Should I delete this thread or move it?

2. "qTox had a bugfix for that, but we didn't do a release in the mean time, so you have to build from master to fix that" - Sorry I don't know what that means. I am not a programmer, just a keen user. I assume there is no way to do this without some good tech skills?

3. "This is strange. Generally audio tends to be very stable and good quality with a headset. If you really tested all 4 possible combinations I suspect some issue with the audio setup or the Internet connection (e.g. WiFi with high packet loss)." - No, I "really" tested it many more times than that, on 4 machines (win and mac). It's definitely a problem with the client (both U and Q). Without going through all the detail, I have fibreoptic, using ethernet (do not use WiFi), have 6 different similar programs (skype, signal, wire, ViPole.....), every single one of them works perfectly fine for audio. My mic is built in as are speakers, no driver issues, my friend has same setup on windows, we talk regularly using all kinds of chat programs. ONLY on Tox chat does the audio fail. The call connects, and I know he is there (ditto for him), but it's like 1% of the data gets through. Neither of us are on VPN either, both on high speed stable and reliable connections. Tried 20+ times over a period of 2-3 weeks.
   thanks

[sudden6]

1. Yeah, probably better to close this here and open issues at the clients directly.

2. There are not that many tech skills involved to build qTox IMO. If you can install git via the shell and follow instructions you have all you need.

3. It could be that there's a problem with audio recording or playback, I can't really tell without more information though.

[johnstonesnow]

never mind