Bad news for us alternative IM client users - mess.be is reporting that the reason for the inability to sign into the Windows Live Messenger network is due to the recent upgrade to protocol version 15 (or MSNP15), which requires a new certificate for address book retrieval. The future plans of these open source solutions are unclear right now as to their plans to solve the problem, nor is it clear as to the severity of the issue, but for now, here is a list of solutions:
- Pidgin users - Close Pidgin, install msn-pecan, restart Pidgin, and visit your account settings and switch to this alternative protocol
- Pidgin users on Windows - Downgrade to version 2.4.3 until a more permanent solution is created. For reference, the current stable version is 2.5.3
- Adium users - Downgrade to version 1.3.1. The current version is 1.3.2, so it"s not a major downgrade. Unfortunately, I"m personally trying to download this right now and having no luck, but your mileage may vary.
- Any other Mac users - Download Messenger for Mac 7.0.1.