Empathy won't connect to MSN accounts which don't end in "@hotmail.com"

[deleted1234]

Binary package hint: empathy

With a fresh Karmic (9.10) install Empathy spits out authentication errors for any MSN accounts that don't end with the hotmail domain.

The current "kludge-around" solution is to run:

$ sudo apt-get remove telepathy-butterfly

restart empathy, and then recreate the account with the now visible "Http Method" checkbox enabled (under the "advanced" foldout).

The following forum post illustrates this simple fix:
http://ubuntu-utah.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8058121&postcount=9

If the aim of Ubuntu is to be user friendly, and enable easy conversion from a proprietary OS, it would be worth investigating why such complicated hackery is necessary to make the Empathy program do what most users will expect it to (e.g. act as a substitute for the current MSN/WLM client in windows). In my mind, all these little 10-20 minute detours to get basic applications to work as they should by default detracts from the usability of Ubuntu, and prevents me from recommending it to those who aren't tech-savvy.

It's not clear why removing telepathy-butterfly fixes the problem, and it's also unclear as to the side effects of doing so. If the package isn't needed, why is it included in the OS?

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Apr 4 22:31:29 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: empathy 2.28.1.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.58-generic
SourcePackage: empathy
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Thanks for taking time to report this bug and help make ubuntu better. I talked to an upstream developer a few days ago and they say that empathy shows an example to the user to use @hotmail this requires some work on the telepathy side which they are not willing to do for the time being.