Pidgin unable to connect to yahoo

I am using pidgin as  chat client for both yahoo and gtalk. Recently, yahoo has stopped support for older versions of their own yahoo messenger clients. ( anything less than version 7.5  fails ) . It also means that most of the third party clients such as pidgin has  problems  in login.

On my ubuntu 9.04, the default  pidgin version is  2.5.5.   You can work around the yahoo login problem  as shown below.

Open Accounts-> Manage accounts.

Click on the account you want to  fix

Click on modify.

Click on advanced tab.

The pager server is set to  scs.msg.yahoo.com

Change it to    cs101.msg.mud.yahoo.com

Click on Save

Restart  pidgin

It seems yahoo is  rolling out a new authentication protocol. Let us wait for  a new pidgin  update

Update:

Pidgin 2.5.7 which fixes the yahoo login problem is out. You can install it as given below.

Import the  public key  for Launchpad PPA for Pidgin Developers

$ sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \     67265eb522bdd6b1c69e66ed7fb8bee0a1f196a8

Add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/pidgin-developers/ppa/ubuntu   jaunty main

Run apt-get update and apt-get install pidgin.

The PPA contains new pidgin releases for other versions of ubuntu (  dapper gutsy, hardy ,intrepid and karmic) You can just replace jaunty in sources.list line indicating this ppa with you distro and enjoy yahoo messenger on pidgin.

8 comments

  1. Really appreciate your article, no wonder today i cannot login to Yahoo using my pidgin.

  2. Hi, I followed your instructions. It worked till yesterday. Now I get a connection refused if I change the pager server to your suggestion. That is cs101.msg.mud.yahoo.com.
    Thanks

  3. I tried the steps above but it didn’t changed any thing so I tried to use scsd.msg.yahoo.com and it worked just fine.

  4. Your example for apt-key is incorrect:

    ~# apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 67265eb522bdd6b1c69e66ed7fb8bee0a1f196a8
    Executing: gpg –ignore-time-conflict –no-options –no-default-keyring –secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg –trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg –keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 67265eb522bdd6b1c69e66ed7fb8bee0a1f196a8
    usage: gpg [options] [filename]

  5. The correct syntax is:
    apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys 67265eb522bdd6b1c69e66ed7fb8bee0a1f196a8

  6. Hi there.
    I want to inform you that solution provided by @Salim Yasin really works (using scsd.msg.yahoo.com).
    Thank you!

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