GregHowley.com

Instant Messenger Woes

September 8, 2006 -

I'm frustrated as all hell. I've used instant messenger programs at work for years, and I've tried a number of them. But over the past few weeks, everything has gone wrong.

My favorite IM client is GAIM, which I've used for years. It supports AOL, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, Jabber (for Google Talk), ICQ, and a number of others. It's great. But a few weeks ago, it started crashing every time I ran it. I uninstalled and reinstalled GAIM twice, but it would keep crashing.

So I downloaded and installed Trillian, and for a week or so, it worked fine, except for the fact that I could no longer talk to Google talk users, since the free version of Trillian doesn't support Jabber.

Today, Trillian stopped working. My contacts window was blank, and other users couldn't see me online. I uninstalled and reinstalled that, but it didn't fix the problem. What the hell??

Comments on Instant Messenger Woes
 
Comment Fri, September 8 - 9:01 PM by tagger
You don't say how your network is set up, but the first thing I'd do is talk to whoever is responsible for your corporate firewall.

If I see any IM client anywhere on my network, I clobber it, pronto.

Just a thought.
 
Comment Fri, September 8 - 9:33 PM by Brandon
Could work be blocking IM?
 
Comment Fri, September 8 - 9:41 PM by Greg
No - work allows IM use, and nobody else has problems.
 
Comment Sat, September 9 - 12:14 PM by Greg
Our IT guy handles the firewalling - I think they've got something else set up on the network. I use ZoneAlarm at home, but don't worry about it too much at work.

Registry cleaners scare me. I've had only bad experiences with them.

But after posting that GAIM link on my site, I saw this on their front page:
Yesterday, Gaim started crashing for a bunch of people (most notably Windows users) when trying to connect a MSN account. Gaim 2.0.0beta3.1 has been released which fixes this and other bugs in beta3.
I'm gonna try that on Monday
 
Comment Sat, September 9 - 11:46 AM by tagger
Recommendations from one of the Old Folks:

If you're running Microsoft Windows Firewall, turn it completely OFF. If you want a software firewall, I recommend Zone Alarm.

Check the IM settings, esp. SSL and anything else security related.

Shovel out your registry. ccleaner works OK for that.

Some browser plug-ins have been reported as problematic to some IMs-I don't have more specific information at this point.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

 
Comment Sat, September 9 - 8:33 PM by tagger
IMO it sounds too narrow to deal with the symptoms you describe, but it shouldn't hurt to try it.

Good luck.
 
Comment Mon, September 11 - 3:15 PM by Greg
Looks like the new version of GAIM has fixed the crashing problem I had. Fine with me, since I like GAIM better than Trillian anyway. :)