Serious personal message bug


Posted by absorbation on Sat 05 May 2007 (19:12 GMT) (5079 views)
As far as Messenger bugs come and go, I found one yesterday that tops the lot. Windows Live Messenger checks your personal message before you sign in, the length, and certain strings of text within it. It has caused signing in troubles in the past. I know little of the inner working of the problem, in fact I came across it in the Messenger Plus! Forums yesterday. Basically if you insert unreadable characters, Messenger simply will not sign in.

This could cause a massive annoyance, especially if you do it to your friends, their account will become useless! Anyone interested in the code, here it is:



If you were stupid enough to insert that into your personal message, here are the instructions to fix it, as provided by Jonathan Kay:

If you've done this, do the following (applies to Windows Live Messenger 8.1) ...

On XP:
Sign out of Messenger. Click Start, then Run, type:
%userprofile%local settingsapplication datamicrosoftwindows live contacts

and click OK. Right-click the e-mail folder corresponding to your email, and choose Delete. Then sign back into Messenger.

On Vista:
Sign out of Messenger. Click Start, type:
%appdata%..localapplication datamicrosoftwindows live contacts

and click OK. Right-click the e-mail folder corresponding to your email, and choose Delete. Then sign back into Messenger.



Use it how you like, I just want the Messenger team to take this post into account. People could turn something like this into an extremely annoying practical joke.

Update: I've changed the code into an image, it stopped our RSS feed from rendering correctly. Jonathan Kay has provided me with more information about the issue, as I knew little about the problem:

It has nothing to do with roaming and doesn't even get to the server. The server simply rejects the PSM and signs you out. Since the PSM is stored locally, it will keep trying to set this every time you sign in. Hence why removing the data where the PSM is stored solves the problem.

You could sign on another machine or Windows user account and it would be fine.


Tags:   Personal message  Bug    

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Comments:


Comment by Jonathan Kay
Posted on Sun 06 May 2007 (19:21 GMT)
Cheers


Comment by absorbation
Posted on Sun 06 May 2007 (10:57 GMT)
Like I said, I knew little of the inner working of the problem. I should of thought about the unreadable characters, I'm wondering what browsers would actually render them correctly. I've had troubles with the RSS feed this week, FeedBurner keeps changing something, and I'm usually very careful to keeping it valid. I guess I was in a rush to write this post, and I was given little information.

Thanks JK .


Comment by Chris
Posted on Sun 06 May 2007 (09:09 GMT)
@Jonathan Kay: Thanks, I've Fixed the errors .


Comment by Jonathan Kay
Posted on Sun 06 May 2007 (00:52 GMT)
Additionally, I really wish you would've made the string a screenshot so it couldn't be copied pasted. Not only for that, but your RSS feed is now broken as it no longer validates and most readers are rejecting it.


Comment by Jonathan Kay
Posted on Sun 06 May 2007 (00:51 GMT)
It has nothing to do with roaming and doesn't even get to the server. The server simply rejects the PSM and signs you out. Since the PSM is stored locally, it will keep trying to set this every time you sign in. Hence why removing the data where the PSM is stored solves the problem.

You could sign on another machine or Windows user account and it would be fine. You don't need a Mac.

Also, my name is spelt wrong


Comment by ValSpy
Posted on Sat 05 May 2007 (19:58 GMT)
I believe this only applies to accounts with PSM roaming on, which means the PSM is stored on the server. So if you sign into lets say, the Mac version of Messenger, it would not affect you.


Comment by Nathan
Posted on Sat 05 May 2007 (19:44 GMT)
Indeed,
Someone will create a executable or a script that will insert into the psm before sign in whether its added by registry or what not.

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