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I use Adium in my mac as a client for MSN messenger. (I have also tried the "official" live messenger for mac for a while but it had even worse issues than what I am experiencing with Adium).

Everything works fine for the first 5-10 minutes, perhaps until the first automatic "away", then suddenly any message I send is followed by a dozen or so messages saying:

"Message could not be sent because a connection error occurred:"


Message may have not been sent because a timeout occurred:

If I send a few messages, they usually eventually arrive (all at once) after a long delay.

Windows machines on the same network running live messenger work fine.

Any ideas why this might be, or suggestions for a client that might work when both Adium and Microsofts own messenger for mac seem to disconnect?

Update: I added a google talk account to the same Audium install and it continues to work even when the MSN account disconnects. So the issue is only for the MSN protocol. Unfortunately I can't force all my contacts to swith accounts, so I still want to solve this.

The latest audium beta has the same issue, as does the latest MSN messenger beta. Am I really the only one with this problem? Nobody out there chatting over MSN on their macs?

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How are you connected? Wirelessly? Also, what version of Mac do you have? I know that some Mac models used to run into IM issues when the machine was on a wireless network. –  Psycho Bob Apr 22 '10 at 21:43
Wired or wirelessly I have the same issue, also from different networks and ISPs. –  Console Apr 22 '10 at 22:14

2 Answers 2

Give the Adium Beta a try. Despite its beta label, it's quite stable. I've been using it for months now.

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Take a look at aMSN.

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Thanks, I tried it but it has the same problem as Adium and Messenger. I guess it's not related to the client. –  Console May 13 '10 at 11:32

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