Setting the character encoding on an AIM account

[Ethan Blanton]

willywag spake unto us the following wisdom:
> I'm using an AOL Instant Messenger account with Pidgin. Occasionally I'll get
> a message from someone that gets replaced with the error message:
> 
> (There was an error receiving this message.  Either you and {screen name}
> have different encodings selected, or {screen name} has a buggy client.)

Hmm, I don't think that should happen on AIM accounts, only ICQ.  What
client is the remote user using in this case, do you know?

> This happens when people copy and paste things from Microsoft Word with
> smart quotes in them, and so on. Now, the people who send me these messages
> generally have no idea what a character encoding is, or even what a client
> is, buggy or otherwise. I'd be happy to change my character encoding to suit
> them, and I can probably guess which encoding they're using (based on their
> operating system, etc.) but I can't find an option to do that anywhere in
> Pidgin's interface. I also don't know the details of the AIM protocol to
> know which encodings it can or does use.

We don't provide a way to set encoding for AIM.  This shouldn't be
happening.

> I feel like I must be missing something blindingly obvious here. Can anyone
> help me out?

You're seeing either a bug in Pidgin, or a bug in your buddies'
clients.  Can you by any chance get a debug log (Help | Debug Window)
when this happens, and send it to us?  (Preferably, open a ticket on
the tracker and attach the relevant portion of the debug log to the
ticket, along with the information above and the remote user's client,
if you can find out what it is.)

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 481 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://pidgin.im/pipermail/support/attachments/20090711/ab49fdda/attachment.sig>