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Mac Messenger "Appear Offline" being weird

M

macfilm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 11, 2007
162
1
Hi, I've attached a picture to show what I mean (sorry for all the painting lol) but at times when I'm on MSN Messenger for Mac I always appear offline but people still start convos with me which is very annoying. They see me as a red offline icon but I appear under the online section with "busy" next to my name.

Why does my "appear offline" not seem to work?? :confused:

Cheers for any help :)

(Mac OS X 10.5.5 with latest messenger)
 

Attachments

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It's because Mac:Messenger sucks.

The number of stuff it's missing or doesn't work right is disappointing at this stage, might have been ok 3-5 years ago but hardly now in comparision to Live Messenger on Windows.

Another example:
If a contact is appearing online you can't send them an instant message if you don't already have a convo window open with them, it only allows you to send an email. However if they send you a message while appearing offline you can respond, same if you were talking to them earlier and still have the window open.
 
If you appear offline you can still talk to online people on the Mac version but sometimes it will timeout that way. If people could not see me online then they wouldn't start convos with me, its just very annoying and I've not come across anyone with the same issue of them being seen as online when they are in fact appearing offline.
 
If you only "Appear" offline, you really are online, and people can still talk to you. You have to BE offline for them to get the message of your not there, send an e-mail.

I talk to a friend all the time, when he shows offline.
 
Hi cheers for the responses. Yeah you can talk to someone who is appearing offline but my issue is that people see me as online and I thus start convos with me, thats different than talking to someone you know is actually online
 
Recheck your settings, and try again to"Appear offline" and get a friend to look at it on his computer, and send you a screenshot of it. If I have the Appear offline, all other people know is I'm off line. And I am using Messenger for Mac
 
They see me as a red offline icon but I appear under the online section with "busy" next to my name.
Click to expand...

Make sure you don't run any full screen program when you appear offline. Or change that option in preference.
 
Turn off "set my status to busy when full screen".

Even if you are offline, it'll set your status to busy. Clever one Microsoft ;)
 
Yeah I'd always have people being able to start conversations with me when I was setting my status to "Appear offline", that never occured with the Window counterpart. So there is basically NO way on the Mac client to genuinely "log in to MSN to see who is online but not have people initiate conversations with you"? *le sigh*
 
offline issue

The same thing happens to me. I set my status "offline" and suddenly i have two of my contacts talking to me!! There is no privacy!
 
Just don't use msn messenger. use some other messenger programs. Eg: Mercury messenger, they are pretty good. Doesn't have the above problems. Also allow video & audio conference.
 
I have the exact same problem

Msn: mac is total garbage. It's total crap in terms of stability and compared to the window msn its really behind in all the bugs and features.
 
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