Some known bugs in Pidgin IM v2.5.8

It's been a long time since I've been a devout user of Pidgin Internet Messenger which is a multiple messaging client supporting multiple chat networks like Google-Talk, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Bonjour, miRC, IRC, GroupWise, Zephyr, MySpace, SIMPLE, SILC etc all at the same time. I won't be going deep into what it's additional features are because I've shed enough light on it in my previous blog dating back to March, 2009. You can read the blog here.

But what I've stumbled upon since the last couple of weeks are some bugs which are of utmost concern for users who look at Pidgin as the primary form of correspondence with their online contacts on Windows platform. Also as far as Linux users are concerned, those working on GNOME (i.e. Ubuntu, SUSE) and XFCE (i.e. xUbuntu) distros are also the unfortunate and unknown victims of these bugs on Pidgin. In this case, if the concerned user does not update his list of repositories and update pidgin by downloading the latest package he remains vulnerable to the bugs.

Some of the bugs I've spotted with my naked eye on 2.5.8 are as follows:

1] Windows : File-transfers still not 100% successful on Yahoo. Will it ever be ... ?

• File-transfer request terminates abruptly.
• Large file size transfer fail.
• File transfers on successful completion do not seem to show the operation as successful.
• A matter of fact, what was really shocking is that file transfers never used to happen completely in version 2.5.3. It was a flawed release I guess. Conditions do apply.
  

2] Windows : Contacts when added in MSN do not get added to the server list. Same issues in all versions till date but no permanent solution found as yet. 

3] Ubuntu 9.04 : Yahoo accounts fail to login.

4] Ubuntu 9.04 : Updated the repositories and downloaded the latest packages of Pidgin. Yahoo accounts now do login but contacts who LogOut are still seen as visible in IM.

5] Windows and Ubuntu 9.04 : Yahoo PingBox contacts do seem visible when active but users cannot interact with them in return.

To be frank, Pidgin which has been developed on Gtk+ seems to follow a very slow development process with their developers working at a snail's pace. In contrast, what's really worth an applause is that Pidgin over it's extra-ordinary features has it's own user survey section over it's official web-site which users can use to place their feature requests / annoyances / feedback. Users have placed their requests on features they would like to see in the coming releases of Pidgin IM but to their utter dismay the developers seem to be in a loop. The developers seem to be patching some bugs and they seem to arise back again in the future versions. 

Add to the woes of developers, Pidgin IM has been developed in Gtk+ which hitherto has been unheard of and has very little documentation and developer tools. Pidgin IM uses the libpurple library to connect to the IM networks, manage accounts and preferences, and lots of other helpful little things. With this very unlikely combination, it is very much obvious that the development process is surely going to be very complicated for developers. Also, libpurple library is still under development and is undergoing a revamp.

God help the developers of Pidgin !!!