Try running Pidgin from terminal...then... you can try closing all pidgins and run: mv ~/.purple ~/.purple_old and rerun pidgin. If it works then you have 2 choices: 1, rename back and attempt to troubleshoot the profile as it is corrupted somewhere (hard) 2, rebuild a fresh profile with your accounts and settings (easy) The old profile is not deleted, only renamed. This allows an easy rollback path. If the app still doesnt work, you can rename back then run: sudo apt-get --purge remove pidgin; sudo apt-get --purge autoremove; sudo apt-get clean; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install pidgin Which will reinstall a fresh version of pidgin from the repositorys. --- On Thu, 8/20/09, Chandria