msn messenger/hotmail nightmare

firstly, hi. I have a problem which has been annoying a few people I've been talking to today, it aint the most exciting post ever nut I need some, er..."expertise".

This afternoon I signed onto msn messenger as usual only to be greeted with a sign-on failure and a message reading rather oddly...

"We could not sign you into MSN Messenger. It appears you are behind a firewall that does not allow a direct connection to the internet. We tried to sign you in through an HTTP proxy, but your Internet Explorer proxy settings are either missing or incorrect. To adjust your IE proxy settings, click the IE tools menu, click Internet Options, click the Connection tab, and then click LAN settings"

I don't have a dedicated firewall. I've changed no settings since I was logging on fine this morning. I've spoken to three other people with the same difficulty, two have been affected today, one was months ago. Also, hotmail.com seems to be down, at least on my browser. Does anyone have any idea what's causing this problem and how I can go about sorting it? Any input would be gratefully recieved.

 

Yes Xp, no unfortunately it's a 56k connection.

 

MSN is currently updating their servers for the switchover to bar older and third-party clients. It may be that the server you connecto to (the one with your info) was down for maintenance. The software yells at you... well, because they want to blame the user rather than them. (I mean, nothing is ever MS's fault. ) Pretty much it seems that it tried to connect and couldn't, but it can talk to the rest of the Internet fine (DNS, etc.).

The fact that hotmail.com is down is suspicious, too. Especially since you can apparantly browse the rest of the internet. (Hey, you got here, right?)

I would make sure you're using MSN Messenger 6.0 (or whatever the most recent Windows Messenger version is... 5?). Then I'd wait a day or so to see if you can connect again.

 

I just signed on no prob. I have gotten that many times in the past. Sometimes when this happens you can't get on alot of thier other site as well. Microsoft.....Gotta love 'em.

 

Yeah, I've never understood that. It tells me I'm connected to a LAN/high speed internet connection when I'm obviously not, but it's always been like that. As for the msn thing....iut's still not working. I'll try it again tomorrow, thanks a million for the responses.

 

reasons like the problem you experience drove me to trillian, i have never had a problem with the free version and why i stopped using hotmail. God forbid u r using msn 8 , my mom tried it and reduced dsl speed by 50%

 

Of course, third party clients are probably going to be banned come October.

 

well, untill they find some way around it that is

Looks like AOL customers are getting hit mostly, 2 or 3 of my friends who use aol have been unable to log in, but they've been able to on other dialup services.

Hope they get it sorted...