This just happened to me on Ubuntu Karmic using Empathy 2.28.1.1. As a workaround;
1/ quit empathy via Chat > Quit
2/ In a terminal to find and the butterfly task via "sudo ps -A | grep telepathy-butte" then kill it via "sudo kill nnnn" where nnnn is the task number
3/ Restart empathy via Applications > Internet > Empathy IM Client
Now connects to MSN ok.
This just happened to me on Ubuntu Karmic using Empathy 2.28.1.1. As a workaround;
1/ quit empathy via Chat > Quit
2/ In a terminal to find and the butterfly task via "sudo ps -A | grep telepathy-butte" then kill it via "sudo kill nnnn" where nnnn is the task number
3/ Restart empathy via Applications > Internet > Empathy IM Client
Now connects to MSN ok.