My buddies have been deleted

[J. Daniel Ashton]

On 1/11/2011 10:44 PM, Lucy Xing wrote:
> Ok I am kind of new to Pidgin, so I don't really know how it works,
> but here is my situation: The first day I install Pidgin, I use it,
> it's fine. Then, when I press the red X (close) button, a sound comes
> onto my computer. It doesn't go on continuously, but just once in a
> while. The sound is kind of like a music....a 3 note sound. The first
> time going from low to high, and the second time from high to low. The
> sound went on for the whole day, and only when I shut down my computer
> did it go away. The next day, I try to access Pidgin again, BUT all my
> buddies are not on the list! There are still all my contacts on Gmail,
> but on Pidgin there are no buddies!

Hello Lucy,

I can answer part of your question.  When you press the red X, it closes
the Pidgin window, but Pidgin is still running in your system tray.

If you want Pidgin to stop running, you can either choose Buddies ->
Quit (or press Ctrl-Q), or find the Pidgin icon in your system tray (it
looks like a white, square speech bubble with a green circle in front of
it) and choose Quit from the context menu there.

Also, because Pidgin was still running, you were hearing the sounds of
your buddies connecting and disconnecting from the server.  Those are
the three-note up and down sounds you were hearing.

I don't know why your buddies disappeared form your list.  To help
understand what happened you can choose Buddies -> Show -> Offline
Buddies and Buddies -> Show -> Empty Groups.  If these options are
checked and your buddy list is still empty, then perhaps your system
administrator has your computer locked down in a strange way.  (I can't
think why you would be able to install Pidgin but not save your buddy list.)

On the other hand, if your buddies show up when you check these options,
it means that they are simply offline, or that you are offline.  Make
sure your status is Available, then check back every so often to see if
any of them have connected.  That three-note ascending sound will tell
you when one of them connects.


-- 
Daniel Ashton      PGP key available     http://Daniel.AshtonFam.org
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