I'm not sure.  I'm running into a few problems.  I JUST ran an update (doing so every few hours) and got a new pidgin and supporting libraries.  Empathy seemed to let me view the AIM account credentials in the account manager now.  Pidgin still hangs randomly.

Pidgin seems to be freezing at a few different places (by way of the -d argument to pidgin).  Either at the URL fetch, or doing SRV lookups, or sometimes when trying to resolve my gateway's hostname.

When it hangs at the fetch, debug output gives me:

util: requesting to fetch a URL

When it hangs at the SRV lookup (for xmpp), I hang at:

dnssrv: found 1 SRV entries

On my last launch -- at the hang point -- I got the gdb full thread stack trace (thread apply all bt):

Thread 5 (Thread 0x7fffd6009700 (LWP 4823)):
#0  0x00007ffff484b3cd in poll () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1  0x00007ffff53c415c in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2  0x00007ffff53c4284 in g_main_context_iteration ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#3  0x00007ffff53c42e1 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#4  0x00007ffff53e8075 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#5  0x00007ffff4b2df8e in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff4857e1d in clone () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6

Thread 4 (Thread 0x7fffd680a700 (LWP 4821)):
#0  0x00007ffff4b3205e in pthread_cond_timedwait@@GLIBC_2.3.2 ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#1  0x00007ffff5403bf5 in g_cond_wait_until () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2  0x00007ffff5399bb1 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#3  0x00007ffff539a1fa in g_async_queue_timeout_pop ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#4  0x00007ffff53e8872 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#5  0x00007ffff53e8075 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff4b2df8e in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#7  0x00007ffff4857e1d in clone () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6

Thread 3 (Thread 0x7fffeaa55700 (LWP 4820)):
#0  0x00007ffff484b3cd in poll () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1  0x00007ffff53c415c in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2  0x00007ffff53c463a in g_main_loop_run () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#3  0x00007ffff2f0b726 in ?? () from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0
#4  0x00007ffff53e8075 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#5  0x00007ffff4b2df8e in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff4857e1d in clone () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6

Thread 2 (Thread 0x7fffeb256700 (LWP 4819)):
#0  0x00007ffff484b3cd in poll () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1  0x00007ffff53c415c in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2  0x00007ffff53c4284 in g_main_context_iteration ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#3  0x00007fffeb25d9cd in ?? ()
   from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libdconfsettings.so
#4  0x00007ffff53e8075 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#5  0x00007ffff4b2df8e in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff4857e1d in clone () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6

Thread 1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fbd9c0 (LWP 4816)):
#0  0x00007ffff484b3cd in poll () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1  0x00007ffff53c415c in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2  0x00007ffff53c463a in g_main_loop_run () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#3  0x00007ffff5406101 in g_spawn_sync () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#4  0x00007ffff5406578 in g_spawn_command_line_sync ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#5  0x00007ffff50cc2ad in ?? () from /usr/lib/libpurple.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff50cc920 in purple_proxy_get_setup () from /usr/lib/libpurple.so.0
#7  0x00007ffff50cced3 in purple_proxy_connect () from /usr/lib/libpurple.so.0
#8  0x00007fffe2db3861 in ?? () from /usr/lib/purple-2/libymsg.so.0
#9  0x00007ffff50f15c2 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libpurple.so.0
#10 0x00005555555ca8cd in ?? ()
#11 0x00007ffff53c3e85 in g_main_context_dispatch ()
   from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#12 0x00007ffff53c41c8 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#13 0x00007ffff53c463a in g_main_loop_run () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
#14 0x00007ffff663e087 in gtk_main () from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
#15 0x000055555558f419 in main ()

Which appears to implicate purple_proxy_get_setup() in thread 1 although I'm not GDB guru.  I'll get stack traces from other hang points to see if we can pin it down.