Pidgin/Adium MSN support is broken again – Switch to Jabber now!
by Lennart on Jan.12, 2009, under Internet
It seems like Microsoft changed something of their MSN Messenger infrastructure again. All MSN clients that use libpurple (e.g. Pidgin and Adium) can’t connect right now. (Unable to retrieve address book)
This is not a problem of libpurple. The problem is that the MSN servers are hosted and maintained by Microsoft – Only Microsoft! They can do whatever they want. You have no control over the service or what happens to your data. They just change what they want and you can’t connect with your alternate client anymore.
So what’s the alternative? Jabber! Jabber is a decentralised instant messaging network. You can setup your own server and have control over everything. The XMPP protocol used by Jabber is free (as in “free speech”) and allows you to do whatever you want. I recommend using Openfire or ejabberd as Jabber server software.
There are also a lot of free Jabber servers available if you don’t want to setup your own server. You can e.g. signup at jabber.org for a Jabber account.
Reclaim instant messaging and use Jabber!
More Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber / http://www.jabber.org/
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January 12th, 2009 on 6:38 pm
Thought it would be something like that ! Damn MS, wish they’d at least say what change(s) they make, so we could adapt ! I wouldn’t use msn if I could have most buddies of mine switch to XMPP, but it’s easier said than done as they have an annoying tendancy to only abide by what MS provides them. Thanks for the note anyway (came across it from a Google search, trying to confirm if the “unable to retrieve address book” issue was a problem of mine or if anyone else using libpurple was affected — being on Linux, I can’t even use a WLM client to test the connection).
January 12th, 2009 on 7:26 pm
Thanks for this information. Well, too bad for my MSN friends, they will just have to wait till I am at work or till I get an libpurple update.
Clem said it all, friends are too lazy to switch. So Jabber doesn’t seem like a good option. Unless ofcourse this: http://packages.debian.org/nl/lenny/jabber-msn will always work when MS updates their “services”.
January 12th, 2009 on 7:35 pm
Thanks for your comments!
I switched to Jabber about one year ago and got my most “important” friends to switch also. So now it’s no big problem for me that MSN is broken again.
…and more and more friends are changing.
January 12th, 2009 on 7:47 pm
Well, when you rely on this for work, the only ports open on the firewall are the MSN ones, and the MSN client for Mac is horrible, you really have no choice. I’ve got a limited number of people on Bonjour (the local Apple-pushed alternative), but that doesn’t help for communicating with all the denizens on PCs with corporate builds and no install rights…
August 5th, 2010 on 12:54 am
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