MSN sends RISC OS clients packing - RISC OS News, Software and Information

MSN sends RISC OS clients packing

Published: 16th Oct 2003, 17:51:09GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

Page 1 of 1

Only one lone survivor [Updated]

MSN carried out last night their desire to lock out third party clients from the MSN instant messaging network. By switching to a new protocol and requiring an SSL based login system, MSN ideally wanted "unauthorised" clients to be barred from their popular instant messaging system. Their network, their bandwidth, their rules, you might say.

Where does this leave RISC OS clients? Phil Hardy's MSN client cannot log into the MSN network at all now, although he has released the client's source code under a BSD licence so that people can attempt to fix the client and bring it up to date.

The Natter developer hasn't returned our email yet, but the free demo version fails to connect to the network. Natter author Russell Palmer seems unconcerned however, as the Natter website reads: "I will be focussing my efforts on updating natter to work with the latest MSN protocols, and see no technical reasons why natter will not continue to work after the changes are introduced".

R-Comp's Grapevine has seemingly escaped unscathed after users received an SSL update earlier this month. A few users initially reported login problems to us, but the majority of people emailing us have confirmed Grapevine is still working as usual.

"My understanding is (at the time of writing), MSNP7 and earlier have been disabled, and of the three RISC OS MSN apps, only Grapevine is still working", R-Comp's Andrew 'so modest' Rawnsley told us earlier.

Update
Russell Palmer of Natter fame got in touch with us and had this to say: "I am working towards solving the issues, but unfortunately I cannot give you a date by which I expect to have finished. It will be a matter of weeks, rather than days. Of course, ICQ operation is still completely functional!"

Links
Microsoft Mum on Third-Party IM Licenses from eWeek

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imj 16/10/03 6:30PM	Grapevine certainly isn't working here.
Grek1 16/10/03 6:42PM	Does that mean you can't logon ? Which version are you using ?
arawnsley (+3.5) 16/10/03 7:00PM	*In reply to IMJ:* I'd be interested to hear what version number of GV you have, and let us know the particulars of the fault - email [Email: rcomp [at] rcomp.co.uk ] please, or reply to the last upgrade you received. I can confirm I've been chatting to other GV users on Grapevine all day, so it should work. If you're having trouble, then obviously we'd like to get you sorted. Bear in mind it is the show this weekend, however, so it will be next week before we can reply.
MENTAT 16/10/03 8:44PM	I've got version 1.16 and it won't log in to MSN. It appears to connect to the server but won't log in. Also, it does funny things to some icons on the iconbar. For example, it's just made the fresco icon go invisible!
Smiler 16/10/03 8:44PM	Well MSN's attempts are ideal seeing as I use a third party client on my PC called Easy Message. It's only 200k (compared to 6m of MSN 6) which is excellent and it works fine. I'm sure that when all clients support the latest protocol, they'll work fine too. -- Smiler - Alex Melhuish
imj 16/10/03 8:54PM	I'm also running the 1.16 version which was sent out just recently - login just doesn't.
Grek1 16/10/03 8:56PM	Hmmm, Grapevine 1.16 works perfectly here. No problems with login at all nor any disappearing iconbar icons.
vshears 16/10/03 9:06PM	Grapevine 1.16 works just fine here also. -- Victor Shears, Maidstone
cfrog 16/10/03 9:32PM	I am using Grapevine 1.16 and I am having the same problem as mentat with the iconbar and it's icons. Also when I right click to load the msn part it hangs the computer and I have to use Atl-Break to stop it.
arawnsley (+1.0) 16/10/03 9:52PM	Guys, please read above - we need reports via email, NOT here. It is the wrong place. If you contact us via email, we can actually sort your problems, and get traces and so on. So, please no more "me too" posts (either way!). When emailing, please include details of machine spec, and software running.
Snig (+1.0) 17/10/03 11:05AM	Probably the only good thing about Microsoft making their changes is more people going out of their way to buy Grapevine.
MENTAT (+0.1) 18/10/03 12:49PM	Tssk. Define 'better' in this context.
MENTAT 18/10/03 12:52PM	This is an article about MSN clients working/not working. So clearly there will be "me too" posts here - can't be helped I've emailed too, now, though. Me too! :P
inchiquin (-1.5) 20/10/03 3:28PM	Could I just add (a) when Microsoft announced they were changing the goalposts the clock started ticking furiously - most software development doesn't have a specific deadline by which it has to be ready at all costs, and (b) the Grapevine mailing list is a better place to raise problems than here.
MENTAT 20/10/03 5:36PM	*In reply to inchiquin:* See my previous post re. comments innit. Also - woo, version 1.17 has arrived in the email. Now I just have to survive ROUGOL and get home to see if it works.... crosses fingers and stuff
imj 20/10/03 6:09PM	And 1.17 looks prettymuch as bust as 1.16 ... still sits there trying to log in.
arawnsley 20/10/03 11:29PM	Well, 1.17 helps several of the people above, IMJ. Perhaps because you never reported your problem to us (via email, as instructed), and therefore never completed a trace, your problem isn't fixed???
arawnsley 20/10/03 11:33PM	Appologies if the above sounds a little "grumpy", but clearly we can only sort problems that are reported through the normal procedures. That's how the other issues have been dealt with
MENTAT 23/10/03 5:29PM	As with 'imj', 1.17 doesn't work for me either Trace file sent to grum^h^hem R-Comp...
arawnsley 23/10/03 10:54PM	We're testing a 1.17a at the moment which copes with more oddities in the multi-stage login process. Some of the problems seem to be due to very slow responses from some of the servers in the chain....
epdm3be 24/10/03 8:10PM	The odd thing is that Yahoo has started this 'Me, mine, and nobody else' attidute with 'their' client a few months before Microsoft made this similar decision. Oh well. IMHO we are better off with IRC. If those lamers just learned to use proper standards then we didn't need this bulls**. And as someone else mentioned. Lucky that ICQ still works correctly perhaps in time ppl will realise this and start using that more (untill they decide the same*). Regards, Manu T
MENTAT 26/10/03 11:15AM	Woo. First success (for me). 1.17a logs me in - most of the time. Exhibits some interesting behaviour though. Am looking forward to a non-beta version Still, well done R-Comp.
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