Comment 7 for bug 354272

Update your system
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Turn off pidgin and then kill to verify
killall pidgin

Move your pidgin configuration to a different location
mv ~/.purple ~/.purple-bak

Make sure the change happened
ls -l ~/.purple-bak

Start pidgin and recreate your accounts. Start with only creating the accounts. Play with it a little while. If everything works fine, then continue to add any customization you've done. Do this slowly so you can pinpoint what change kills pidgin.

Also, running pidgin from a terminal at this point is a good idea. Make sure to report the errors you see, plus an additional 10 lines up and all the way to the end. For instance, what you reported is helpful, but seeing what happened before the connection timeout would be helpful as well.