Buddies from pidgin / Ubuntu shown as Offline, from Windows shown Online

[Innocent Bystander]

Using Ubuntu 9.04 x64, x32 and LinuxMint 7 x32. All systems are up to date and fresh install (OS installed directly, no upgrade).

Signing in an MSN account. Can only see online buddies if the buddies use Windows. If the buddy use Pidgin from Ubuntu then it is always offline. Even if I go on the MSN Live web site to add the buddy, then close browser and start Pidgin, the buddy is still shown as offline. The same buddy, instead of using Pidgin from within Ubuntu, now use a Windows program, Miranda IM 0.80 for example, then becomes online. The MSN Options (server & port) are identical between Miranda IM / Windows and Pidgin / Ubuntu.

This problem didn't exist when I started using Ubuntu almost a year ago. I am not sure when this offline issue started but it dated at least since April 2009.

Thanks for taking care of this issue.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz (glaubitz)]

Hi,

this might be related to:

<http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/10848>

Please *always* report bugs like this one upstream, that is on the website of the original developers.

Suggest to mark as invalid.

Adrian

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Do you get the same with Lucid or Maverick? Thanks in advance.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to New. Thanks again!.

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz (glaubitz)]

Hello,

I have done a lot of research regarding this problem and I posted everything I collected in the appropriate ticket in pidgin, see [1].

The conclusion is the following:

The problem was probably introduced by an update of the software on the server side around mid 2009. All contacts added after that time did not get the "Has you" flag properly set. I got into contact with Microsoft's MSN Messenger support team regarding this problem and after giving me a number of more or less useful hints, they admitted that there is a problem with Messenger and that it is going to be fixed in the next major release (which was "Windows Live Messenger 2011"). I posted their answers in [1] and other bug reports linked there-in.

What they actually did in WLM2011, is that they removed the possibility in WLM2011 to view the list of people who have oneself in their list. However, the feature is still present in the recently released version for MacOS X ("Messenger for Mac 8") and does indeed work. Adding a contact in the Mac version will set the "Has you" flag to "Yes". This also works between WLM2009 and the Mac version. However, it does not work when either side is using WLM2011. Obviously WLM2011 is ignoring the flag completely and also does not alter it even though the server software still understands the flag and it can be set and unset.

Setting the flag has not working at all in most cases until recently so I suppose that Microsoft fixed the software on the server side since they didn't release any new version of WLM2009 as far as I know. And I definitely observed that the flag was not set properly when using WLM2009 up until recently.

With Pidgin, the case is a bit difficult. I have recently tested with pidgin 2.7.4 and I have observed that even though the "Has you" flag is properly set to "Yes" for one of the chat parties when adding a contact, it might still show "No" on the other side. Thus, when A adds B in MSN, Pidgin might report "B has you: Yes" for A but not vice versa ("A has you: No"). I have not yet figured out what influences the setting of the flag when using Pidgin but once I know more, I will let you know.

To cut a long story short: The feature works correctly with the current version for MacOS ("Messenger for Mac 8") and "Windows Live Messenger 2009". It is not set and ignored by "Windows Live Messenger 2011". And on Pidgin, the flag might only be set for one of the two parties when adding a contact.

My suggestion would therefore be to not remove the "Has you" flag from Pidgin since the server software still recognizes it and one can always assume that if the flag is set to "Yes" that the information is correct and the other contact has added oneself into his/her contact list.

When the flag shows "No", the information might not be correct, i.e. one is actually in the contact list of the other party but still listed as "Has you: No" which is due to either of the parties' clients failing to properly setting the "Has you" flag to "Yes" which might happen when using Pidgin when adding a contact, always happens when using WLM2011 and never happens, i.e. works properly, when using WLM2009 or Messenger for Mac 8.

So there *might* b...