Errors with sign in and contacts - fixes are in or on the way!

Hello everyone,

First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
and tell you all what's going on.

On to the matters at hand.

There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:

- Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
- Login works but you can't add contacts
- Login works but you don't get any contacts
- Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)

Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
other system).

A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
handshake "policy" was in effect.

The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.

Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
will not occur.

The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.

Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!

Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
issues.

With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
possible.

If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!

Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!

SteveC

Thank you Steve for the explanation of the problem
But please can you provide the details of the fix HERE... or a link to where
this Fix instructions are? Please do not send us to another place

Costas

"SteveC" wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
> replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
> quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
> Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
> or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
> and tell you all what's going on.
>
> On to the matters at hand.
>
> There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
> process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:
>
> - Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
> - Login works but you can't add contacts
> - Login works but you don't get any contacts
> - Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)
>
> Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
> few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
> systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
> find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
> for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
> it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
> other system).
>
> A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
> small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
> unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
> handshake "policy" was in effect.
>
> The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
> it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
> handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
> machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.
>
> Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
> the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
> will not occur.
>
> The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.
>
> Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
> recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
> year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!
>
> Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
> prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
> period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
> any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
> small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
> lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
> issues.
>
> With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
> issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
> 250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
> this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
> that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
> protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
> we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
> possible.
>
> If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
> Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
> happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
> icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
> fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
> reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!
>
> Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!
>
> SteveC
>

This explanation does not appear to be the case. I've tried logging in on
multiple pc's that did not log onto msn last night (including some at work,
and some at home to no avail) None will log into my account. The reg fixed
worked for me friday but does not this time. I have another account however
which i can log into just fine from all the same clients.

Its important to note that this account will not log in via any client, i've
tried msn live 8.0.x, web messenger, windows messanger 6.x all refuse.

Heres the log:

http://donnyk.ca/msnlogs.txt

I have exactly the same problem as Donny. No matter what pc, which messenger
version, or even web messenger that I try to login from, something is
preventing me from using my old identity. Any other identity that I try on
any of these pc's will work. Editing the registry on just one pc seems
unlikely to fix the problem.

Well I must be one of the few. When I try to sign in, The "buddies" just
keep spinning. Rarely does a error number pop up, but one time the number
8004882c came up. I wouls appreciate any help to help fix the frustrating
situation.

"SteveC" wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
> replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
> quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
> Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
> or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
> and tell you all what's going on.
>
> On to the matters at hand.
>
> There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
> process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:
>
> - Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
> - Login works but you can't add contacts
> - Login works but you don't get any contacts
> - Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)
>
> Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
> few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
> systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
> find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
> for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
> it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
> other system).
>
> A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
> small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
> unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
> handshake "policy" was in effect.
>
> The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
> it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
> handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
> machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.
>
> Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
> the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
> will not occur.
>
> The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.
>
> Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
> recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
> year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!
>
> Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
> prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
> period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
> any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
> small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
> lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
> issues.
>
> With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
> issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
> 250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
> this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
> that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
> protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
> we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
> possible.
>
> If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
> Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
> happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
> icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
> fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
> reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!
>
> Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!
>
> SteveC
>

The fix for this 4882c error is to delete the following reg keys -

Messenger 8.0: delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies
Messenger 8.1: delete
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsLive\Communications Client\Shared

Be sure to log out, EXIT Messenger then restart for the keys to be refreshed.

As a general note there were a number of unrelated deployment issues over
the last few days that all manifested themselves as "unable to sign in"
situations for Windows Live Messenger. In the event you cannot sign in we
recommend you sign into webmessenger.msn.com in the interim. We take these
situations very seriously and are working very hard to ensure Messenger is
robust enough to recover from issues like these. We humbly appologize for the
inconvenience this has caused our users and we have added new code to our
latest 8.1 build such that it can recover if this situation is encountered
again. This new build is in its final stages of verification and should be
available very soon for our valued beta testers.

Thank you so much for your patience as we put the final touches on the next
release and thanks for helping us make Messenger even better.

MartyS - Test Manager Windows Live Messenger


"Joeb1Kanobi" wrote:

> Well I must be one of the few. When I try to sign in, The "buddies" just
> keep spinning. Rarely does a error number pop up, but one time the number
> 8004882c came up. I wouls appreciate any help to help fix the frustrating
> situation.
>
> "SteveC" wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
> > replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
> > quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
> > Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
> > or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
> > and tell you all what's going on.
> >
> > On to the matters at hand.
> >
> > There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
> > process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:
> >
> > - Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
> > - Login works but you can't add contacts
> > - Login works but you don't get any contacts
> > - Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)
> >
> > Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
> > few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
> > systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
> > find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
> > for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
> > it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
> > other system).
> >
> > A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
> > small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
> > unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
> > handshake "policy" was in effect.
> >
> > The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
> > it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
> > handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
> > machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.
> >
> > Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
> > the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
> > will not occur.
> >
> > The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.
> >
> > Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
> > recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
> > year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!
> >
> > Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
> > prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
> > period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
> > any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
> > small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
> > lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
> > issues.
> >
> > With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
> > issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
> > 250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
> > this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
> > that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
> > protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
> > we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
> > possible.
> >
> > If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
> > Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
> > happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
> > icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
> > fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
> > reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!
> >
> > Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!
> >
> > SteveC
> >

I have done all the registry deletions, removed and reloaded messenger live,
etc and still cant login. I have sent a feedback reply over 12 hours ago now
detailing what is occuring in my case and no reply or fix

The suggestion by Marty to use the web version is useless cause i cant
access that either.

here is the process: which i have relayed in my feedback which has not been
responded to

exit messenger, delete keys, restart messenger, get error: 81000314, try
again, get error 81000306 - over and over.

try web based messenger, try to sign in and after about 10 seconds it just
reverts back to sign in screen, getting no where.

This happens on any pc, using various networks, isp's. Other users can sign
in readily on the pc that i cannot.

Please realize that for the majority of people posting here now, this does
*NOT* solve the problem, my account will not log in regardless of where i log
in from, web messenger, windows or msn messenger and no matter what computer.
In the meanwhile, i have a second account which logs in just fine
everywhere. Alot of people are having this same problem, i get error
81000314 and ocasionally 316.

"Martys" wrote:

> The fix for this 4882c error is to delete the following reg keys -
>
> Messenger 8.0: delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies
> Messenger 8.1: delete
> HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsLive\Communications Client\Shared
>
> Be sure to log out, EXIT Messenger then restart for the keys to be refreshed.
>

Could you be a little more simplistic in how you find these reg keys?

"Martys" wrote:

> The fix for this 4882c error is to delete the following reg keys -
>
> Messenger 8.0: delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies
> Messenger 8.1: delete
> HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsLive\Communications Client\Shared
>
> Be sure to log out, EXIT Messenger then restart for the keys to be refreshed.
>
> As a general note there were a number of unrelated deployment issues over
> the last few days that all manifested themselves as "unable to sign in"
> situations for Windows Live Messenger. In the event you cannot sign in we
> recommend you sign into webmessenger.msn.com in the interim. We take these
> situations very seriously and are working very hard to ensure Messenger is
> robust enough to recover from issues like these. We humbly appologize for the
> inconvenience this has caused our users and we have added new code to our
> latest 8.1 build such that it can recover if this situation is encountered
> again. This new build is in its final stages of verification and should be
> available very soon for our valued beta testers.
>
> Thank you so much for your patience as we put the final touches on the next
> release and thanks for helping us make Messenger even better.
>
> MartyS - Test Manager Windows Live Messenger
>
>
> "Joeb1Kanobi" wrote:
>
> > Well I must be one of the few. When I try to sign in, The "buddies" just
> > keep spinning. Rarely does a error number pop up, but one time the number
> > 8004882c came up. I wouls appreciate any help to help fix the frustrating
> > situation.
> >
> > "SteveC" wrote:
> >
> > > Hello everyone,
> > >
> > > First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
> > > replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
> > > quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
> > > Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
> > > or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
> > > and tell you all what's going on.
> > >
> > > On to the matters at hand.
> > >
> > > There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
> > > process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:
> > >
> > > - Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
> > > - Login works but you can't add contacts
> > > - Login works but you don't get any contacts
> > > - Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)
> > >
> > > Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
> > > few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
> > > systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
> > > find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
> > > for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
> > > it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
> > > other system).
> > >
> > > A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
> > > small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
> > > unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
> > > handshake "policy" was in effect.
> > >
> > > The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
> > > it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
> > > handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
> > > machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.
> > >
> > > Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
> > > the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
> > > will not occur.
> > >
> > > The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.
> > >
> > > Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
> > > recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
> > > year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!
> > >
> > > Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
> > > prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
> > > period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
> > > any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
> > > small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
> > > lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
> > > issues.
> > >
> > > With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
> > > issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
> > > 250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
> > > this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
> > > that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
> > > protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
> > > we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
> > > possible.
> > >
> > > If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
> > > Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
> > > happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
> > > icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
> > > fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
> > > reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!
> > >
> > > Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!
> > >
> > > SteveC
> > >

I removed the handshaking cache and still cannot login. However I can login
with my school account. Neither of these are hotmail, msn, or live accounts.

The account I cannot sign in with is an @rogers.com and the account I can
sign in with is @fanshaweonline.ca.

These accounts are used both on the same PC.

As well, I cannot sign into any web clients with the rogers account but I
can with the fanshaweonline.ca.

Hope you can give some insight as to what this might be.

"SteveC" wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> First off, I'd like to introduce myself to the group. I am LeahPear's
> replacement and...well, talk about hitting the ground running! This has been
> quite the first week of work. I just physically moved offices here in
> Redmond and got my computers up and working again. Then I spent the last two
> or three hours hunting down statuses and explanations so I could post here
> and tell you all what's going on.
>
> On to the matters at hand.
>
> There have been a series of issues related to contacts and the signin
> process with a bunch of symptoms. These include:
>
> - Attempting to login but all you get is eternally spinning buddies
> - Login works but you can't add contacts
> - Login works but you don't get any contacts
> - Error codes when signing in (for example 81000314)
>
> Although these problems seem to be unrelated, they actually stem from a very
> few common issues we've had when handshaking with a pair of updated back end
> systems. These are, unfortunately, the most difficult types of issues to
> find. The short explanation is that messenger was trying to send a request
> for the contact list (for instance at start up / login time) and the response
> it was getting wasn't what was expected (due to the modifications in the
> other system).
>
> A fix was rolled out last night which corrects this but there are still a
> small set of customers who are affected by this issue. These customers are
> unique in that they happened to log in during the window when an erroneous
> handshake "policy" was in effect.
>
> The work around for these folks has been posted to the techincal blogs and
> it consists of deleting a registry key which caches the policy used to
> handshake with that back end. This is not unlike the problems some vending
> machines had when the treasury changed the appearance of various bills.
>
> Once the work around is applied, the saved (cached) policy is deleted and
> the next handshake retrieves the correct value. From then on, the problem
> will not occur.
>
> The Messenger code is being modified so that this never happens again.
>
> Despite rumors, this is completely unrelated to the Windows Security updates
> recently release. These are important and their delivery at this time of
> year is absolutely coincidental. Please install those!
>
> Last but not least, we had an outage in one of the data centers which
> prevented some customers from updating or accessing their contacts for a
> period of a few hours. That server has been replaced and we apologize for
> any lost work during that period of time. This should only affect a very
> small set of folks and no contacts who existed prior to the outage should be
> lost, only new ones added during the time the specific server was having
> issues.
>
> With any major release of any system, there is the potential of discovering
> issues which weren't caught during testing. Consider that there are
> 250,000,000 Windows Live and MSN Messenger customers out there! A system of
> this size is impossible to fully duplicate in a test environment. Combine
> that with the very extensive protections in place on the back end systems to
> protect private information (like contact info and buddy lists) and ... well,
> we work very hard to make sure the software delivered to you is as perfect as
> possible.
>
> If you do have issues using the system, please feel free to use the Help /
> Send Feedback menu option. When using this, try to be clear about what's
> happening -- for instance, "I can't sign in" won't help us but "The two buddy
> icons keep spinning around, then error message 81000314 shows up" is
> fantastic! Please know that yes, there is someone here at Microsoft who
> reads those. I know this to be the fact because he's me!
>
> Take care and thank you for using Windows Live Messenger!
>
> SteveC
>