Many users are currently experiencing trouble signing into Messenger getting error 8100031. Mario posted in the current forum topic on the issue with some instructions on how to temporarily get around it.
Add the following to entries to your hosts file:
65.54.239.80 messenger.hotmail.com
65.54.239.80 dp.msnmessenger.akadns.net
As he states, it’s a fairly dirty fix. Be sure to remove the two entries once the problem has been resolved on the server end. This post will be updated when that happens.
Update: Looks like it is now fixed for most users, make sure to revert any changes you made to your hosts file.
Following up on the announcement of an updated version of Windows Live Messenger, details of what has changed have been posted by Leah at the official Windows Live Messenger Space.
The biggie is a fix for error 80004005, caused by Messenger miscalculating the length of the local friendly name upon sign in:
Say limit is 6 characters per friendly name. Messenger would let me type “LeahJ†no problem, because it was counting the whole emoticon as one character, and thus my friendly name was 5 characters total. But the next time I tried to sign-in, Messenger would do a check which would count each character of the emoticon separately and thus “Leah:-)†added up to 7 characters, which is over the max limit of 6. Error.
You can get this new release from get.live.com
As many of you would know, many users have been experiencing problems such as missing contacts and Leah from the Messenger Team blogged about it acknowledging the problem
Windows Live Messenger is currently experiencing technical difficulties
Person A: So what kind of technical difficulties are we talking?
Person B: Apparently, some people are signing in and then are unable to see some/all of their contact list. And a little notification that says something about “Due to a connection problem…â€
Person A: Oh dear! What should these people do?
Person B: NOT WORRY. The Messenger team is working hard to fix the problem. They sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this is causing Messenger customers. They’re asking that people be patient and check back on the blog for more information.
Person A: Guess what I heard? Even the Messenger Blogger, Leah, is running into this problem on her computer. So she’s gonna make SURE this gets fixed as fast as possible. Isn’t that reassuring?
Person B: That is very reassuring. Will she let us know when there is more information?
Person A: Absolutely. (She promised me herself)
Last week Adrian posted about a new messenger worm that has now spread to many users. It spreads by sending a message like one of the following to online contacts:
check out these pics of us! http://p1392.pic-myspace.info
check out this pic of you on myspace! p1392.pic-myspace.info
According to the original post, it was using the domain pics-myspace.info, but on that same day pic-myspace.info was registered and the worm started using that instead. The whois information looks valid…?
Some helpful visitors have posted comments on how to remove it, check out SgSiaoKia’s comment and head over to Serena’s site for full instructions.
Doobies posted on the forum how they were able to stop Windows Live Messenger from crashing as soon as it signs in:
In “C:\Documents and Settings\<your user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft” there is two folders one called “Windows Live Contacts” and one called “Messenger” I deleted both of these and now I’m not having any problems.
The folder Messenger is data for the Sharing Folders feature, and the Windows Live Contacts folder appears to be where the list cache is now stored in Windows Live Messenger, as opposed to ListCache.dat in MSN Messenger 6.x and 7.x. The sub-folders in Windows Live Contacts are the sign-in addresses of all users that have signed in on that Windows account, and there are two sub-folders in each of those: real and shadow. The data in these folders seems to be what is encrypted when you enable Encrypt contact list data so that it is not accessible outside of Windows Live Messenger.
I’m not sure why it just isn’t encrypted by default, or why e-mail addresses are used instead of Passport IDs in the Windows Live Contacts folder.
I earlier made a program called List Cache Deleter which lets you remove ListCache.dat if it becomes corrupt and you are unable to sign in.
Many users are currently experiencing trouble signing into Messenger getting error 8100031. Mario posted in the current forum topic on the issue with some instructions on how to temporarily get around it.