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Pidgin: Cant Import MSN Address Book

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horusofoz
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Pidgin: Cant Import MSN Address Book

Hey

Starting this morning I haven't been able to log into my MSN with Pidgin. I've tried on 2 separate computers from 2 separate locations (Home and Work) and still no luck Sad Also reinstalled Pidgin over top of old install with same result. My Google Talk and Facebook accounts still functioning without issue.

Any one else have this issue or a solution?

Error reads

'Username' disconnected
Unable to retrieve MSN Address Book

horusofoz
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MOD

Can someone please delete this double thread.

Thanks.

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rafi
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hi, solution here:

hi,
where is the second thread?

my solution was the msn-pecan plugin, an alternative way to connect to msn, everything works fine ... even better and faster

http://code.google.com/p/msn-pecan/downloads/list download the windows exe.
Now dont doubleclick it, extract the exe-archive for example with 7-zip https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable
There u will find a file called libmsn-pecan.dll
copy it in your portable pidin folder PidginPortable\App\Pidgin\plugins

Restart pidgin and create a new account using the new plugin
http://www.bilder-space.de/show.php?file=12.01bj2wPvUs7OJNJPR.PNG
WLM

Connect and have fun Biggrin

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

CampStaff
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Fix: Unable to retrieve MSN address book

Today when I was starting pidgin I could connect to Aim/ICQ/Yahoo, but when trying to connect to MSN, Pidgin comes up with:

unable to retrieve MSN address book

It seems Microsoft’s servers have stopped accepting logins from clients that use version 15 of the protocol in libpurple, which includes Pidgin portable 2.5.3.

Two work arounds I have found is to either downgrade pidgin (to what version.. I do not know yet, as this option is not viable to me), or install MSN-Pecan, an alternative implementation of the MSN protocol plug-in for libpurple.

Unfortunately, for me, when I tried to install it, being that pidgin was portable, it could not find the installation. So, after I downloaded msn-pecan from his homepage, I extracted libmsn-pecan.dll from installer using peazip, copied it to PidginPortable\App\Pidgin\plugins directory, edited each of my accounts and changed protocol from MSN to WLM.

This has served to work.

muldrec
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Just confirmation that this

Just confirmation that this does work.

ddedo
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succesfully switched to wlm, but no messages while invisible?

hi, thanks a ton for giving tjhe solution to msn problem.

Anyway now with wlm i can't send a message to anyone if i'm in invisible mode.
is there a workaround for this issue?

thanks in advance

Patrick Patience
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libpurple.dll

I haven't tried them yet, but I in the ticket for this issue, there's two files attached (libpurple.dll, and libpurple.2.dll for Vista). I can't access Pidgin's server, but I believe the thread is http://d.pidgin.im/ticket/7849.

John T. Haller
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Pidgin Itself

It is a known issue within Pidgin itself. Right on the Pidgin homepage it says "We are aware of the problems connecting to MSN with Pidgin 2.5.3 and older. We hope to have a new release and packages out soon to fix this."

There is no need to respond with additional confirmations as it is a known issue that is being worked on. Blame Microsoft for breaking third party IM clients again. This won't be the last time.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

rafi
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yeah thats right, m$ really

yeah thats right, m$ really suck in this point. And they open do kind of this jokes, for example the webmail extension for thunderbird has to be updated quite open because they change their stupid non-free protocol too much open.
But on the other hand pidgin has a small fault too, other messenger can still connect without any change like amsn. And the announcement on the website "We are aware of the problems connecting to MSN with Pidgin 2.5.3 and older. We hope to have a new release and packages out soon to fix this." is not helpful. They should link to the lib-pecan and write some howto to use it for several os. this message dont help nobody.

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

John T. Haller
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Fine

The message is fine. Knowing Pidgin, "soon" means today. This JUST happened. It's perfectly reasonable for them to take a few hours and be sure it works right. The bleeding edge MSN connectors are usually much buggier, which is why Pidgin lags. And suggesting an outside connector that they have no control over would be a bad idea support wise.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

rafi
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strange is that just now when

strange is that just now when pidgin make the asking http://pidgin.im/survey/index.php?sid=84494 this happened.
when they fix it within 12h your right, then its okay but when they need longer they should link to the alternative plugin

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

horusofoz
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It's working again?

Not sure what has caused this but Pidgin Portable id just manage to successfully import my address book at work. Haven't changed anything since my original post but its work at the moment Smile

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John T. Haller
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No Way

Linking your users to an outside source over which you have no control subjects you to a lot of support issues, which Pidgin can not handle. There's nothing to stop Microsoft from disconnecting this alternate plugin tomorrow.

This is the way it is. If you don't like it, I'd suggest switching to a better IM protocol like AIM, Yahoo or Jabber/GTalk. I've moved away from MSN for all my communications for just these reasons. It's an unreliable service.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

rafi
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everybody know that girls

everybody know that girls usually use msn and skype, thats why i use it too for contact.
than usually boys use icq, and some, who know about computers, opensource and security use xmpp or sip. thats in germany. i know in usa, the yahoo and aim (=icq) is popular too, and in korea everybody use nateon
at least now with pidgin 2.5.4 it works again

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

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