messages not sent to all pidgin clients if connect to same account from several machines (Jabber and Windows XP)

[Lynn Robinson]

I have a support question about Pidgin (version 2.5.1 or higher).  I connect to my Pidgin Jabber (XMPP) account concurrently on 3 different PCs which are located in different rooms (one is my laptop).  Each machine logs into the same Jabber account but I've set a different 'resource' name on the account on each machine.   Two machines are currently using Pidgin 2.5.1 and one has Pidgin 2.5.2.  All three of my PCs run Windows XP Professional 2002 SP2.   My Pidgin XMPP accounts on each machine are configured identically except I gave them each a different 'resource name'.

Sometimes I also might have remote desktop sessions on other machines (e.g. various server or test machines at my company) and may want to run the Pidgin client on those machines as well.   For example, I might want to use Pidgin to transfer files to different remote desktops or make the remote desktop task bar flash when I get new messages when using remote desktop in full screen mode.

 

I would like to receive all messages that people (including myself) send me on all three machines (or all 4 if I logged in to 4 machines, etc.).   When I asked friends to send me a message when I've got both my desktop and laptop in front of me, I usually do not always receive the message on both machines.   I've added myself as a buddy on each machine and see the same behavior - a message I send to myself seems to be received at the 'sending from' machine plus one other but not all of them.   Sometimes (but not always) when I send a message to myself, one of my Pidgin clients will disconnect.   I don't know how this is supposed to work - am I only allowed to have one 'current' (non-idle) session and shouldn't expect to get the messages on all?   

 

Note that I am not trying to run multiple instances of Pidgin on the same machine.  The issue concerns multiple machines, i.e. I'd like all messages someone sends me to be received on every machine where I have Pidgin connected to my XMPP account, whether idle or not.   That just seems intuitive.   

 

Someone told me I could right click and 'expand' on a buddy to see all the connected resources for that buddy, but it doesn't work.   When I click on myself in the buddy list (since I added myself as a buddy) and expand, I see only one entry (whose resource name is for the machine where I've clicked).

 

I switch between these PCs often during the day and don't want to miss any of my messages (which unfortunately is happening now).   I have all of them configured for message logging and would like to be able to see all my messages in the logs on any machine where I've left my Pidgin running connected to my Jabber account  (even if my status is idle on some of them).

 

Also, I notice that the Pidgin-generated messages like 'Lynn is typing', 'Lynn has stopped typing' or 'psychic' plugin messages ('there is a disturbance in the force') sometimes go to a different machine than the one that receives the message when I actually send the message.   For one example, I start typing a message to myself from machine A and machine B gets the preliminary 'Lynn is typing' message but machine C and machine A receive my message when I hit 'enter' and not machine B.   It seems as though Pidgin just sends it to one of the PCs (i.e. resources) randomly and thinks it has accomplished its goal.

 

Is there some Pidgin setting to fix this problem?  (I'm using all default settings except I turned on logging and psychic mode.)   Or is Pidgin not designed to handle this?   If not, is there another XMPP client I should be using instead of Pidgin that better handles receiving messages on multiple machines concurrently?

 

Thanks,

  Lynn
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