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Updated Aug 05, 2009 by felipe.contreras
Labels: Featured
FAQ  
Frequently Asked Questions.

Why msn-pecan?

The short answer is: there are many problems with the Pidgin development team. It's basically impossible to implement anything there.

MSN is basically ignored by the core development team. That's why many features simply don't work properly, and never will.

msn-pecan is an escape route. The initial goal of providing a better Pidgin plug-in has been achieved, now it's time to create a standalone library, and expand to other applications, like Empathy.

How do I use it?

See HowToInstall.

What is an alias?

An alias is a "private name"; something you set for your contacts. A nickname is a "public name", and it's different from an alias; it's something your contact sets for himself.

If the displayed name changes constantly it means your contact has changed his nickname. If the display name doesn't change it means you have set an alias; aliases take precedence over nicknames.

You can see both the nickname and the alias in the tool-tip in Pidgin.

My buddy's nickname is not updated

You might have an old alias. Try changing it by right-clicking your buddy and then select Alias, remove all the text so it's empty.

The text displayed should now be the nickname.

How do I change my personal message

There's no concept of personal message in Pidgin, instead, you must use the status messages.

You can try to select a new status at the bottom of the main window, but instead of selecting another status, choose Available again. A field should appear below, where you can enter your new status message.

If you would like this behavior to improve, please vote on issue 51.

The emoticons are different

This is an open issue that needs to be fixed in libpurple, see issue 5.

For now you can try Andrei Neculau's original smileys here.

I get an SSL certificate error

If you get this message "Invalid certificate authority signature". You'll need a newer version of Pidgin: 2.6.x.

The problem was introduced in recent versions of NSS and reported in Pidgin's tracker.

As a workaround you can try:

export NSS_ALLOW_WEAK_SIGNATURE_ALG=1
pidgin

I have an issue that is not mentioned here

Fill a report on the issue list, please attach the issue with a debug log.

On Linux, simply

pidgin --debug > debug_log.txt

On Windows go to Help, then Debug Window. If it's a crash, then you would have to download the debug version and attach the files created in %TEMP%.


Comment by ian.hawdon, May 27, 2008

I think a link to this page should be kept in the "Issues" session as that is the first place I'd look!

Comment by felipe.contreras, May 29, 2008

Perhaps, but I can't modify that page.

Perhaps I will add some permanent issues if this keeps coming.

Comment by michele.nasti, May 31, 2008

I set up some aliases over windows live messenger; I can see my aliases over all the other msn clients for linux (emesene, aMSN), but with pidgin and your plugin I'm suffering. I can't see the already inserted aliases with your plugin. I can set them, but I don't know if they conflict with the others (If I enter with emesene now, will I see the old alias or the newly set by pidgin?). Can you give me some hints? It seems that I'm the only one to have this problems. Right now I'm going to compile via GIT and see. Thanks for all, Michele (Italy)

Comment by dbercot, Jun 06, 2008

Hi, Thank you for this library (personal messages was the most important thing I was waiting for in Pidgin) !!! I have just a litte problem : smileys are not very numerous (less than with purple). It is possible to add some new ones ? Thank you. David.

Comment by dbercot, Jun 06, 2008

Hi again, I'm on Debian and I have dependances' problems with msn-pecan. Is there a Debian's version ? Thank you again. David.

Comment by seb.dailly, Jun 11, 2008

For debian, you have to edit the deb file. The deb file is an archive, with another one : control.tar.gz in this one, and in the control replace the line "Depends:" by this one :

Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libpurple0 (>= 2.4.1)

and it should work

Comment by JoaoSobral, Jun 25, 2008

I wish you the best and think that you proceed good in doing this!

Adium in version 1.3b4 will try your MSN Protocol! Bring us voice :D Mac users, like I am, will thank a zillion times!

Comment by stephan.belanger, Jun 30, 2008

Hi Felipe,

Do you think that it would be possible to add offline messages? It's kind of frustrating to see all other MSN clients offering it but not Pidgin :)

Comment by elektrofrukt, Jul 01, 2008

Hi, I was just wondering if you have contacted the Funpidgin / Carrier guys. (Carrier was forked from Pidgin by people who were also frustrated with Pidgin's development process). It appears to me they might gladly welcome your efforts on bringing MSN support up to date and it would be great to see your efforts merged.

Comment by affensoldat, Jul 07, 2008

There is a official package in Debian unstable since last weekend-ish.

Comment by felipe.contreras, Jul 07, 2008

So what would be the recommended way to get msn-pecan in Debian?

Comment by radar64, Jul 07, 2008

> So what would be the recommended way to get msn-pecan in Debian?

Wait.

Comment by mutantedelorto, Jul 08, 2008

i think the pidgin guys are not seeing that people care about details. thnx to your plugin i dont have to make msn go trough a jabber transport to se the status messages :P.

Gracias Felipe :D. Cheers from argentina

Comment by eclipx1, Jul 09, 2008

thank you for this nice msn alternative

Comment by sinaloha, Jul 30, 2008

I don't have the mail notification working with this msn-pecan...

Comment by shenhanc, Jul 31, 2008

Thank you for your work!

One question, do you have release schedule? Say, when will a new release be out?

Comment by matej.spiller, Aug 18, 2008

I would like to know how this plugin fares compared to pidgin's 2.5.0. They are advertising that they support MSN 15. Is there any codesharing between pidgin and msn-pecan. Do you merge patches from pidgin into your implementation?

Comment by jgibbins92, Aug 20, 2008

Wasn't sure where to post this so this will do!

Is there any chance you could make it so I could rename this to libmsn.dll and it would work? In other words, completely replace the Pidgin stock one.

Thanks.

Comment by mal1cious.int3nt, Aug 25, 2008

thanks mate, the original Pidgin one keeps getting a "server reading error" even when the Official MSN client works fine, this bypasses the problem completely :)

Comment by felipe.contreras, Sep 02, 2008

jgibbins92: yes, everything's ready to make the replacement.

Once we reach 0.1.0 I'll suggest doing that.

Comment by jgibbins92, Sep 02, 2008

Excellent, thanks!

Comment by landronimirc, Sep 05, 2008

I've just upgraded to version 0.0.15, and it---Pidgin, and for MSN---finally (!) seems to work flawlessly through a proxy server. Thank you.

Comment by jamesdlow, Oct 10, 2008

libpurple / pidgin seems to support MSNp15 now, with offline messaging!

Comment by Jedrik.san, Oct 23, 2008

I use Pidgin Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/pidgin_portable) on win32. How can I extract the actual dll from "msn-pecan-0.0.16-win32.exe" ? This file is an installer and keep telling me that "failed to find Pidgin installation". That's true: I have no pidgin installation on my PC I have pigdin portable that is not a "standard" installation. Is it possile to have the bare "msn-pecan-0.0.16-win32.dll" ? Thanks.

Comment by felipe.contreras, Oct 23, 2008

Jedrik.san: just use any extractor: 7-zip for example.

Comment by Jedrik.san, Oct 23, 2008

I have tryed 7-zip v4.57 It say "msn-pecan-0.0.16-win32.exe is not supported archive" ...

Comment by felipe.contreras, Nov 01, 2008

Jedrik.san: 0.0.17 will be released soon. I'll make sure that it can be extracted, or I'll provide the .dll separately.

Comment by felipe.contreras, Dec 06, 2008

Jedrik.san: I tried with 7-zip and it can extract the dll from 0.0.17.

Comment by horstp, Apr 20, 2009

Does this plugin work with finch as well?

Comment by felipe.contreras, May 01, 2009

horstp: should work on any libpurple client, so yeah :)

Comment by yibbon, Jul 27, 2009

" choose Available again. A field should appear below, where you can enter your new status message. " this worked, thankyou!

Comment by armstrong.timothy, Aug 01, 2009

Not sure if I'm allowed to request a feature here, but...

I really hate the fact that Pidgin does not show who is typing in a "Group Chat" situation: that is, when in a chat room with a couple of MSN buddies, the regular typing notifications that come up in a one-on-one conversation do not appear. I know that it must be possible, as Windows Live Messenger does show typing notifications in this situation. If this feature could be added to this plugin, that would be exemplary!

Comment by imbaray, Aug 08, 2009

Hi,

the new live messenger has an option that enables me to log my account in different places at the same time, and receive msgs in both places. Is it possible using your plugin?

Thanks

Comment by xerxesdaphat, Oct 04, 2009

Like imbaray, I'd love to know if there's plans to introduce the multiple-login feature. This would be really useful.

Comment by felipe.contreras, Oct 06, 2009

All the feature request should go into issues so that people can vote for them.


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