Instant messengers

Which instant messengers have you tried so far?
Does webmessenger work? (http://webmessenger.msn.com/)

I've tried Pidgin and aMSN.

Webmessenger doesn't work for Firefox, evidently.

In pidgin --- do you have better luck if you try the HTTP method? (configurable on your account, on the advanced tab)

Webmessenger should work fine with firefox, if you allow popups from the site.

Tried the HTTP method, same result.

The key word is "should". Before you mentioned that, I allowed popups and it says across the screen after it fails to log in "Your web browser is not supported by this version of MSN Web Messenger".

Which version of Pidgin / aMSN / Ubuntu are you running?
Have you been able to test logging on with a different MSN account ?
Have you been able to test your MSN account on a different computer?
Have you tried logging on with a different user on the same machine - does the problem still occur?
Do you have any firewalls in your network?

Running Pidgin 2.4.1
aMSN 0.97
Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

I haven't tried logging on with a different MSN account (don't have one).
Going to try another computer tonight.
Only one user on this machine, might add another and see what happens.
Have a firewall, turned it off for using the messenger, and it still didn't work. (It's Firestarter)

Okay, tried another computer. It works fine. Still not sure what the problem is with my current computer.

Hm

We should probably check if any iptables-rules are active. What's the output of:

sudo iptables --list

and

sudo ufw status

Thank you

Regards, Trygve

The output on the iptables shows a lot of "all -- anywhere"

Chain OUTPUT (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT tcp -- ######## #### tcp dpt:domain
ACCEPT udp -- ######## #### udp dpt:domain
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere
DROP all -- base-address.mcast.net/8 anywhere
DROP all -- anywhere base-address.mcast.net/8
DROP all -- 255.255.255.255 anywhere
DROP all -- anywhere 0.0.0.0
DROP all -- anywhere anywhere state INVALID
OUTBOUND all -- anywhere anywhere
LOG_FILTER all -- anywhere anywhere
LOG all -- anywhere anywhere LOG level info pref
ix `Unknown Output'

I'm omitting the IP address just for security. If that's crucial, let me know.

As for the ufw, it's not loaded. Hope this helps.

Thanks

Are you maintaining these rules on your own?

If you want to try without any active rules, you could run these commands and see if they help;

sudo iptables --flush
sudo iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

(You should be aware that these commands remove any active packet-filtering on your computer)

I hope this helps :)

Regards, Trygve

Alright, tried it, but no go. Anything else?
How do I restore the packet-filtering?

Thanks.

The ruleset flushed was most likely set by a script or service when you rebooted the system last time. A simple reboot will most likely restore the settings. You can verify if you recognise the rules by running:

sudo iptables --list

Followup question: Do you have any idea if there's any changes done on your computer that might have triggered the MSN-failure? Did you install any new packages that may have caused it?

Regards, Trygve

Other than the usual package updates, none that I'm aware of. I installed Conquer 2.0 about 3 weeks ago, but that's it.

I'm running out of ideas, but --- perhaps the output of running:

pidgin -v

could shed light on the problem. Note that a lot of the output is stuff you probably want to remain private (if it actually manages to connect to the server, it will print your account information, and maybe even your contact list)

I hope it's able to tell us something interesting.

Regards, Trygve

No private information there - all it says is "Pidgin 2.4.1".

It's fine, you've already (safely) done more than I would have dared. There's bound to be an answer somewhere.

Thanks.

Ouch, my bad :)

The command is

pidgin -d

(for debug)

I mixed it up with -v, which some times is verbose --- but it was version ...

If you try out pidgin -d you'd probably be more lucky. Perhaps you can get enough information for a bug-report!

Regards, Trygve

I'm no server admin, but the error looks like it starts here.

(14:10:26) msn: servconn read error, len: 0 error: Resource temporarily unavailable
(14:10:26) msn: Connection error from Notification server (207.46.106.68): Reading error
(14:10:26) msn: C: NS 000: OUT
(14:10:26) account: Disconnecting account 0x782570
(14:10:26) connection: Disconnecting connection 0xdd5550
(14:10:26) msn: destroy httpconn (0xdd81e0)
(14:10:26) connection: Destroying connection 0xdd5550
(14:10:32) util: Writing file accounts.xml to directory /home/myname/.purple
(14:10:32) util: Writing file /home/myname/.purple/accounts.xml

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