Buddies show as Offline when they are not!

[snackmaster]

1) Buddies that were functional and are online stop showing up as active.
2) If you enable "show offline buddies" the accounts show as offline. 3) Buddies are actually online.
4) No apparent reason why this affects select accounts (I had to recreate 5 of 40 this morning, 4th+ time I've done so).
5) Deleting the Buddy and re-adding solves the issue.
6) No way of detecting which buddies the issue is affecting.

Case example: The person seated next to me shows me as offline, I show them as offline, but we're both online. We both delete each other in our respective Buddy list and re-add. Viola we both show as online. This is creating madness as you're never quite sure who is online, who is ignoring you, who's been fired, who's died...

This issue seems to be related to AIM accounts but I have not confirmed as AIM is our internal IM and gets the heaviest use. The issue is causing folks to head back to Trillian.

Active plugins: Iconify on away, Windows Pidgin Options. Active IM's: AIM, Yahoo, MSN

OS - Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP2.

Issues has been knowingly experienced with the last 3 versions of Pidgin (currently on 2.5.4)

[snackmaster]

Screenshot of Offline Buddy chatting live - Buddy is never Online

[snackmaster]

Anyone else?

I'm still deleting Buddys that are "offline" re-adding them and they are instantly "online".

[bernmeister]

Is this still occurring in Pidgin 2.5.8?

[grazhopper]

Unfortunately, yes. I'm having this issue with 2.7.9 in fact.

[NishaKitty]

I'd like to add this is still happening with 2.10.0. Like the orginal poster said, except his/her point on step 6. Contacts who have this problem as soon as you sign in you see them go instantly offline.

[MarkDoliner]

Can anyone confirm that this DOESN'T happen with other AIM clients (especially the official clients)?

[orpheus]

I can confirm that this problem exists with MSN clients and has done so for several Pidgin versions (going back to 2.6.x at least).

Currently using 2.10.0 on Win7 Pro x86. Buddies are using latest MSN install. Win7 Pro x86. Deleting the contacts and re-adding them solves it until they log out of MSN.

Anecdotal evidence suggests users still running WinXP and latest MSN client do not go permanently offline.

[outfishing13]

I wanted to confirm that the same behavior began happening with my pidgin client a couple months ago.

Pidgin 2.10.11 Window 7 Professional

Other person who shows offline updated to Windows 10.

I can resolve the problem by right clicking on offline buddy, select unsubscribe and then re-authorize. Then we are good until I sign off and close Pidgin.

I tried deleting buddy and re-adding. Worked until I signed out.

The odd thing is some people in the office see this person as online and others do NOT. Very frustrating.

[grim]

AIM was shutdown on 2017-12-15 and will eventually be removed from the pidgin code base. See ​https://aimemories.tumblr.com/post/166091776077/aimemories for more information.