MSN Messenger showing contacts as offline - Driving me crazy!

[forcefieldkid]

I hope someone can help with this, I'm tearing my hair out here.

I used to use Adium, but then it stopped adding contacts, it would say they're offline even if they weren't. When Messenger 8 came out I tried it, and it seemed to work fine on that. Now it's doing the exact same thing again, and even worse, now when contacts add me and I accept, it adds them to the contact list but still shows them as offline!

I've tried reinstalling it, and I've also made a new (3 now!) account and still the same. It seems to work at first (but I can only be added, not add a contact) and then breaks slowly.

Anyone else experienced this? And is there any way to fix it?

Just ask if you need spec info. I didn't know what would be relevant.

 

[SHADO]

Have you tried iChat?

 

[forcefieldkid]

I haven't tried iChat. But surely it should work without a problem on Adium or Messenger?
Appreciate the thought and reply but I like both apps and don't want to keep discarding ones until I find one that works.

Noone else?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Which version of Mac OS X are you running? If you're stuck on Tiger still... that could explain your difficulties, as Adium 1.4.x requires Leopard or later.

 

[forcefieldkid]

Which version of Mac OS X are you running? If you're stuck on Tiger still... that could explain your difficulties, as Adium 1.4.x requires Leopard or later.

Hey man, I'm using Leopard 10.5.8
As I say, it has worked fine without any problems in the past. Even with the newest versions of both.
I've done some reading around and tried deleting .plist files and restarting which was suggested on the Mac:Messenger forums, but still no joy.

At the moment, after making another new account and reinstalling again, people are showing as online, but I've had problems with one or two still. I have heard of people on Windows being pushed into updating their MSN and that causing problems, so it may be a case of that this time. We shall see.

Appreciate the reply. Almost paranoid about it now when someone adds me!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Are you getting this issue, described here?

"Unable to add the buddy <email> because the username is invalid. Usernames must be valid email addresses." is mistakenly occuring a lot on MSN lately. This issue is still under investigation in the library we use. See #p13298 for more information.

 

[forcefieldkid]

Are you getting this issue, described here?

No, what's happening on Adium is that when I add a contact they are added to the list of contacts but shown as offline. When I know they have accepted and know they're online.

The same is happening when a contact adds me, same behaviour on my end with Adium.

This only happens on the MSN account. The AIM and ICQ accounts I use are not showing this problem.

I'm using Messenger for Mac exclusively now and have uninstalled Adium because of that issue. Yet Messenger has not been perfect either. When adding a contact, it still shows them as offline, I can only accept an add from a contact, which.. for now.. seems to be working fine on this new account.

Both Apps have worked fine on this exact set up in the past. It started with one MSN contact on Adium which I just assumed was a one time glitch, and it's just got steadily worse, no matter how many times I reinstall.. the same problem creeps back in.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

That is bizarre. First of all, make sure you're using MSN Messenger for Mac 8, available here. If that does not help, try this:

When you uninstall MSN Messenger for Mac by dragging the application to the Trash, certain files get left behind. These files are harmless to leave. However, sometimes these get corrupted and need to be manually deleted to get things back to normal upon reinstallation. Among these are cache files, which MSN Messenger probably uses. These are normally located in the /Users/username/Library/Caches folder, where "username" is your short user name. A typical Caches folder has a bunch of folders within it that use reverse DNS style names - for example, com.microsoft.Messenger. Incidentally, that folder is the one to delete, but make sure you do it while MSN Messenger is NOT running.

 

[lbohanan]

Having the same issue

I'm having the exact same issue. Any updates?