How to solve Pidgin Yahoo Messenger Connection Problem

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Lately, it seems that some people are having trouble connecting pidgin to Yahoo Messenger services. The problem seems to be associated with the Yahoo server itself.

Solving the Yahoo Messenger problem
A temporary solution for this problem is to change the Pidgin YM server setting.

Go to Accounts->Select your YM screen name->Edit Account->Advance.

Then change the original value of “scs.msg.yahoo.com” to any of these ip address:
66.163.181.183, 66.163.181.166 , 66.163.181.169, 66.163.181.170, 66.163.181.172, 66.163.181.171, 66.163.181.181, 66.163.181.182

As shown on the screenshot :

Pidgin Modify Account

Note that this is only a temporary solution and you should only use this as the last resort.

54 Replies to “How to solve Pidgin Yahoo Messenger Connection Problem”

  1. I finally succeeded in loging onto my yahoo messenger account.

    Originally I encountered the “username@yahoo.com disabled” message, followed with an “Error 1013: The username you have entered is invalid. The most common cause of this error is entering your email address instead of your Yahoo! ID.”

    From start I had my full yahoo email address in the username cell (Basic Tab). I deleted the “@yahoo.com” part of my username and the basic settings worked. In case anyone was fooling around with their advanced tab, mine was as follows:
    Pager port: 5050
    File transfer server: filetransfer.msg.yahoo.com
    File transfer port: 80
    Chat room locale: us
    Encoding: UTF-8
    (checkbox) Unchecked Ignore conference and chatroom invitation
    (chckbox) Unchecked Use account proxy for HTTP and HTTPS connections

  2. I tried this method, but since the “Advanced tab” for pidgin 2.10.6 only has the following:
    Pager port: 5050
    File transfer server: filetransfer.msg.yahoo.com
    File transfer port: 80
    Chat room locale: us
    Encoding: UTF-8
    (checkbox) Unchecked Ignore conference and chatroom invitation
    (chckbox) Unchecked Use account proxy for HTTP and HTTPS connections
    Since 2.10.6 only has the above options, where possibly can I input the IP addresses for the pager server?

  3. We’re a bunch of volunteers and opening a brand new scheme in our community. Your website offered us with useful information to work on. You have done an impressive process and our whole community might be grateful to you.

  4. FYI I am using Pidgin 2.6.2 (libpurple 2.6.2)
    on opensuse 11.2
    and i leave the field blank
    In Accounts –> Advanced –> Page server
    Leave it blank it will be filled automatically and u r connected…
    Cool ??

  5. It’s really glad to read about the following topic which has enhanced my knowledge regarding topic and plus has given alot of ideas which I can think on.
    So I would say thank you to the blog owner for providing this amazing information.

  6. yahoo client with pidgin 2.4.1 has stopped working on fedora 8. Tried with Gyachi 1.1.71, but didnt work. :( can anyone suggest how to fix it pls?

  7. hmm anybody have a working pager server? Mine just went down today..I updated my to 2.5.8 (U3 version) and still doesn’t work.

  8. Seems to login but doesn’t fetch any buddy names or status… unlike the pidgin/Gmail account which does.

  9. On RHEL4, gaim started working for yahoo messenger, when I changed pager server to “cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com”

  10. yahoo just sucks … they are the only remaining ones to change without reasons and notices their protocols …

    just avoid yahoo.

  11. Upgrading (well linking to the latest repos in Linux) worked for me when this issue hit for the 2nd time back in June. But then on the afternoon of Oct 8th it stopped working and I can’t find any new info. Yahoo sux. I only link to it because my wife refuses to use Gmail.

  12. Upgrading just fixed mine. Oddly mine only worked wrong with 1 of several accounts, furthermore I was able to receive under the current Ubuntu version of pidgin in the one broken account, and appeared to send too but sent messages were not received.

  13. Yeah just upgrade to the latest version of Pidgin. I am using 2.5.8 right now and it is working perfectly fine. What a great program when its working and yahoo doesn’t make a workaround to stop it . Gmail, yahoo, hotmail all up and running its nice.

  14. I had similar problems with pidgin not connecting to yahoo chat rooms. Temporarily fixing the problem by changing the server did not work fully.

    However after upgrading to pidgin 2.5.8 for ubuntu, (see http://pidgin.im/download/ubuntu/ ) by setting up the PPA, the issue for a while did not get resolved!

    The problem was with the changed server settings- the ‘ ‘cs’ added before the default settings as bugfix earlier needed to be removed manually now. Once done, I am able to access Yahoo chat rooms as before.

  15. Tried cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com on Pidgin Portable. It worked…for about a minute, then started crashing it every minute. None of the IPs seem to work anymore. Any other suggestions? Currently using v2.5.5.

  16. Uhh.. cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com appears to be in China.

    Will all of our IM’s be passing through the Great Firewall of China if we use that server?

  17. I have downloaded pidgin 2.5.8 but still yahoo is not working.. :-( any other solution ??

  18. cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com
    This works for me, too. Thanks for that.
    I’ve got an Ubuntu 9.04 with Pidgin 2.5.5
    By the way, I had the same problem with Empathy 2.26.1
    and this helped, too.

  19. For those of you running Ubuntu (any version), go to the official Pidgin Website (http://www.pidgin.im/) and follow the steps for “downloading 2.5.7”. Basically, you have to add the official Pidgin PPA Repositories to Apt, then run Update Manager. It will then upgrade 2.5.7 over the version from the Ubuntu repositories.

  20. Even in Pidgin 2.4.1 Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy, cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com works . . .
    Thanks guys. :D

  21. Hi. Does anyone know a way to connect to the yahoo chatrooms? The list of rooms comes up but on clicking a room nothing happens.

  22. cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com confirmed working on Ubuntu Jaunty with 2.5.5 pidgin, no more “Connecting…” issue

  23. I also tried this solution and at work and it didn’t like the option, so I updated 2.5.7 and seems to be working fine now.

  24. none of the changing IP stuff works at all! Kind of pisses me off that yahoo pulled the plug. Anyway sha-1 suggestion worked for me!!!! I’m on Fedora 11 and pidgin 2.5.7-1

    cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com

  25. Hi, same for me. It worked a few days using the numeric ip address. Switching back to scs.msg.yahoo.com makes pidgin stuck in the “connecting” state (Pidgin 2.5.5 on Linux Jaunty)

  26. I tried every thing and still getting “Could not establish connection with server
    Connection refused”

    What else can I do :( ? please help..

  27. Could not establish connection with server
    Connection refused even after typing the ip addr

  28. yeah its work, perfect solution, i can connect pidgin after update my ubuntu. try to change with kopete but can’t connect to. NOW with change to cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com everything ok.

    thanks man

  29. Same here…. your solution worked great for a day or two but now I have the same problem… Pidgin cannot connect with Yahoo Messenger. I’m running Jaunty Ubuntu…

  30. This stopped working some time recently.

    Now we just need to get the Fedora folks to update pidgin and libpurple in Fedora 11.

  31. This used to work up until a couple days ago. Now I’m stuck again on my Ubuntu desktop (the fix is in pidgin 2.5.7 which is not yet in the repositories for Jaunty).

  32. Thanks!

    I run Ubuntu on my work desktop and connect to 3 different IM servers (Yahoo, Google & GroupWise). Yahoo stopped working when I logged in yesterday. Finally took the time to Google and your solution fixed it 100%.

  33. This instantly and completely solved my problem (using Pidgin 2.1.1 on Win2k, so a little behind the times). Couldn’t get the new Yahoo IM client to work at all (version 9), and earlier versions won’t even seem to start up anymore because of firewall proxy issues, so this is the only thing keeping me in touch when at work :) Thanks!

  34. I tried the solution, and I think it worked, but then Pidgin prompted me to download version 2.5.7, which has this issue fixed without any workarounds. Thanks for the info, though.

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