'Messenger For Mac' Problem ..

Try Adium X. It's much better than Microsoft Messenger for Mac. It has more features than MSN for Mac.

http://adium.im/

 

Hi Scott.

Welcome!

No worries. That's how I started too.

Have you tried repairing permissions? The client could be having trouble writing changes to disk. I agree with fernandovalente about Adium, though. It's a brilliant app, a shining example of the awesomeness of Mac developers.

 

Before today I would have recommended this program. Additionally, the phrasing of my previous sentence does indeed mean I would no longer recommend it. I accidentally selected the wrong item from the right-click menu and blocked one of my best friends on MSN without meaning to. Adium said I had successfully unblocked them, but every time I signed back in they were once again blocked. This spread even further then just Adium in the end - signing in using aMSN or Microsoft Messenger for Mac would show the contact as blocked as well, and signing back in using those apps would reinstate the block even if I attempted an unblock. Even sites like eBuddy and Meebo acted the same. Basically, I had to open a new account and readd all my buddies just because of one bug in the app that obviously affected the way the server handles a block. Looking through support documents, it seems this has been happening to many Adium users since at least 2005. I'd stay clear after that...

 

to OP..

I have also experienced these issues on numerous occasions with Mac Messenger, Unfortunately the microsoft team haven't developed mac messenger aswell as they have on a windows based machine which is quite frustrating as most of my friends use windows live messenger.

Alot of people rate Adium very highly. Personally I'd just hold out for an update to mac messenger. But it has been a year since any news of an update.

 

Hi,

I had the same problem with the display picture after fresh installing my MacBook Air with 10.6 and installing Messenger.

I did some googling and found the answer was to create a folder called Microsoft User Data in the Documents folder.

 

Why would you want to wait for an update for that buggy piece of crap? Just use Adium, or even aMSN, anything is better than that.

I have blocked/unblocked people fine on Adium, the only problems I have had is while uploading and downloading at the same time.

 

This ensures that the file ownership and read/write permissions on files are set correctly. If a configuration file got set read-only somehow, you might not be able to save your changes.

You do this through Disk Utility (in Applications -> Utilities). Highlight the startup disk (most likely "Macintosh HD") in the left pane and select First Aid in the right pane. Then click Repair Disk Permissions.

 

Because im using the pre-beta version which as buggy. But still allows audio and video capability!

 

FWIW, I use Adium exclusively, and I'm also having the problem where my MSN display name shows up as my email. Also, I use Live Messenger on my BlackBerry, and the problem happens there as well... because it's not client-specific, it might be something wrong with Microsoft's servers or something...

edit: did some quick googling, and this is a widespread problem with no real solution right now...

 

Hi Scott,

Did you try creating the folder as I suggested, this fixed the issue I had with the display picture at least.

I have the same issue with the display name not saving, just hadn't noticed lol.

 

Messenger is just waaaayyyyy too buggy. Adium.. get it.

 

I to agree that you should try Adium, its a great app used it since day 1, and you can link your MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Myspace, Google Talk, ICQ, Facebook, etc accounts to it and use them all on one big application.

You will also save the extra space you would need like 4-5 other programs to run these for more music, pictures, games, etc.

 

If you read my post you'd see that you're not the only one with this problem, and at the moment, there is no fix. It randomly affects Macs, PCs, the official MSN client, unofficial clients (eg. Adium), mobile clients (MSN for BlackBerry), etc. Just sit tight and hopefully it will resolve itself.