I use Trillian as my instant messaging client. It allows me to be signed in with both Yahoo and Microsoft messaging without having to have two clients running.
A problem I had been having with it was after waking my laptop from hibernation, the Microsoft connection would fail to reconnect. Yahoo would reconnect without problem, but Microsoft would keep trying for about 10 minutes before finally failing. If I did a Global Disconnect before hibernating and then a Global Reconnect after waking it up, then everything worked fine.
Well it worked fine providing I remembered to reconnect after waking up. This didn’t always happen, as my post a few days ago about my unexpected Plugoo message shows.
Looking at the logs for the MSN connection shows:
[20:46] *** Lost connection to network (Error Code: 10054).
[20:46] *** Reconnecting to MSN as “*****@********.com”
[20:46] *** Will attempt 10 connections with 60 second intervals.
[20:46] *** Failure resolving “messenger.hotmail.com”! Attempting to connect to a known server…
[20:46] *** Connecting to MSN as “*****@********.com”, attempt 1.
[20:46] *** Error while connecting (Error Code: 0). Disconnecting.
[20:48] *** Connecting to MSN as “*****@********.com”, attempt 2.
[20:48] *** Error while connecting (Error Code: 0). Disconnecting.
[20:49] *** Connecting to MSN as “*****@********.com”, attempt 3.
[20:49] *** Error while connecting (Error Code: 0). Disconnecting.
[20:50] *** Connecting to MSN as “*****@********.com”, attempt 4.
[20:51] *** Error while connecting (Error Code: 0). Disconnecting.
It appears that as the system comes out of hibernation, Trillian attempts to do a DNS lookup for messenger.hotmail.com. As the network connection hasn’t been re-established, the lookup fails and then it tries to connect to MSN using a different address. It never tries the lookup again and fails to get a response on the address it uses.
Checking the ip address for messenger.hotmail.com
nslookup messenger.hotmail.com
Server: xxxx.xxxxxxx.xxxxxx
Address: 192.168.1.3
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: dp.msnmessenger.akadns.net
Address: 65.54.239.20
Aliases: messenger.hotmail.com
This gave me the IP address 65.54.239.20 for messenger.hotmail.com
I then changed the entry for the MSN host in Trillian. In Trillian preferences, select Identities and Connections, select your Microsoft connection and press Change.
On the connection tab, I changed the host entry from messenger.hotmail.com to 65.54.239.20.
Since making this change, Trillian reconnects the Microsoft connection within a minute automatically after waking from hibernation.
Posts 
I have no idea what you are talking about except I am intrigued by something here. I have a reduced browser open all the time, with at the side gTalk and Pownce (a new IM in beta stage that I am on). So would this Trillian control these two in one window? Maybe I’ll explore further with it. Also when I close my laptop Pownce signes off and I have to sign in again when I come back. Pownce is good in that we are all on all the time without invitation as in gTalk.
This is a whole new world to me this IM business.
regards
jmb
Hi jmb,
Microsoft Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are both instant messaging products more similar to gTalk than Pownce.
Trillian is a solution that lets you sign in to Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL’s instant messaging systems and ICQ with a single client. If you upgrade to the Pro version, you can also connect to gTalk as well.
Pownce isn’t something I got around to trying yet, so I don’t know if your sign in thing is something that’s supposed to happen.
Regards,
Ian
Excellent! I’ve been having this same problem for ages, but couldn’t find a solution until now. I wish I’d have thought of this sooner. Thanks!
You’re welcome. I’m glad it helped someone else. Ian
Thanks for this tip ! It also works for Yahoo connection probs.
Glad it helped Alexandra.
Ian
This seems to have fixed the recurring problems I’ve been having with Trillian and AIM. Thanks for the tip. Have you tried getting the folks at Cerulean Studios to address this issue?
That’s good that it worked for you OC. I haven’t contacted the guys at Cerulean.
To be honest I don’t use Trillian any more. The latest Messenger allows me to do all I need, so I use it now.
Regards,
Ian
When using Yahoo messenger, I can use msn, yahoo, or hotmail accounts. When I use trillian, I don’t get my hotmail accounts even though I have a msn account. Is this correct?
Hi Jason,
It doesn’t sound right to me; both Yahoo messenger and Trillian allow you to IM with friends on Microsoft Live Messenger (previously MSN). I don’t know whether there are currently any problems, as I no longer use Trillian.
Regards,
Ian
The above posts seem to detail like you’ve provided a fix, a suggestion or advice on these error codes, but I don’t see any of that in your original 2007 message Ian.
“#
jmb
# MyAvatars 0.2 Ian Says:
September 11th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Hi jmb,
Microsoft Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are both instant messaging products more similar to gTalk than Pownce.
Trillian is a solution that lets you sign in to Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL’s instant messaging systems and ICQ with a single client. If you upgrade to the Pro version, you can also connect to gTalk as well.
Pownce isn’t something I got around to trying yet, so I don’t know if your sign in thing is something that’s supposed to happen.
Regards,
Ian”
There is nothing in that post that seems to relate to any of the problems mentioned in the OP, or in any of the problems that the people who you have helped have had, so what am I missing?
Hi brrap brrap,
There is nothing specific from the original post in jmb’s comment/my response.
jmb is a regular reader, and commented that she didn’t know what Trillian was, but wondered if it would help with running gTalk and Pownce in one application. I tried to answer her question.
It appears that my workaround for Trillian has helped other people with the same problem, which was my reason for posting it.
Regards,
Ian
I found a simpler solution to this same problem. I also experience problems reconnecting MSN after hibernation. Even doing a reconnect on MSN doesn’t resolve the problem. However, if you do a global disconnect, then do a global reconnect, it will resolve the issue and MSN will connect without needing to change any settings.
Thanks Jen,
I had found that global disconnect/reconnect fixed the problem, but I didn’t always remember to do this after resuming from hibernate. This solution gave me a fix that didn’t rely on me having to remember.
Regards,
Ian
Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.
Hi James,
Thanks for your visit.
Ian
Thank you. I’ve been having the same problem and needed this fix. Thanks for posting it!
I’m glad my post helped you Tara.
Regards,
Ian
That’s a lot. This helped resolve my problem.
You’re welcome, glad it helped.
Ian
thanks, this fixed the problem!!
I tried that and it did not connect, it keeps saying partially connected, I must be doing something wrong. This only happens on my laptop, not my desktop. and I checked the setting on both. also, when I did a nslookup messenger.hotmail.com this came up 207.46.28.93, so I added that in there and still having the problem, can you still help?
AL
Hi Al,
I’m not sure why it isn’t working for you. I still get 65.54.239.210 when I look up messenger.hotmail.com. I have checked and the 207.46.28.93 address is a Microsoft IP address, but that said I cannot ping it.
Are you logged into messenger on your desktop at the same time? Maybe that might be the problem.
Regards,
Ian
Hey Ian,
Thanks for getting back to me, when I sign in to my laptop, I make sure my desktop it not logged on. I tried pinging the 65.54.239.210, but times out, could there be something blocking me, of course this is my work laptop but have admin rights on it. when i do the NSLOOKUP for messenger.hotmail.com, i get
C:\Documents and Settings\achacon>nslookup messenger.hotmail.co
Server: xxx.xxx.xxx.xx.net
Address: xxx.xxx.251.129
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: messenger.hotmail.msnmessenger.msn.com.akadns.net
Address: 207.46.28.93
Aliases: messenger.hotmail.com
messenger.hotmail.geo.msnmessenger.msn.com.akadns.net
Hope you can still help…
thanks again
AL
[Edited to mask IP address and server name - Ian]
I’m not sure what to suggest Al. I’m able to ping your DNS server, but it times out when I try a nslookup.
I was wondering about software firewalls on your laptop that might be causing the problem?
If you do a global disconnect and then a global connect does it work then?
Ping 65.54.239.210 also times out for me at the moment. That can be due to a network that you are travelling over blocking ping traffic. If you do a tracert 65.54.239.210 it will show you how far it gets before it stops.
Regards,
Ian
I will keep trying, might be a Firewall issue not sure, maybe thru the VPN, but not sure why it would go thru the vpn to connect, even when I reconnect globally, it tries to connect but keeps saying partially connected.
thanks for all your time and efforts.
I got 207.46.96.153 with the nslookup command for messenger.hotmail.com. With this ip address trillian connects to MSN.
Hi Walter,
Thanks for the update. Glad it has helped.
Regards,
Ian
Hi,
i am getting the same error. when i run nslookup i get the IP 64.4.9.254
Putting that in instead, makes no diff. Any ideas?
Regards,
Vincent
Hi Vincent,
I’m not really sure; I don’t use trillian any more. If I run nslookup I get 64.4.50.62 at the moment, so it might be worth trying that.
Regards,
Ian
Thank you for posting this – it worked instantly for me.
Hi Magpye
Glad to help.
Regards,
Ian
This indeed very helpful. I ran into the same problem Trillian Pro 3.1
Some how the server for hotmail account is set to messenger.msn.com and that’s the issue. Once I switch to messenger.hotmail.com (or use the IP), it starts to work.
Thanks for the additional information Harry.
Regards,
Ian
Worked like a charm! Brilliant. Thank you.
Thanks Mike,
It’s nice to know after all this time, it’s still helping people.
Regards,
Ian