Can't add MSN contact

[Jeff Mills]

Hi all,
I'm having trouble adding a contact to MSN buddies in Pidgin 2.7.9.
When I try to add, I get the error:

Unable to add the buddy xxxx at smartdatainc.com because the username is
invalid. Usernames must be valid email addresses.

At home I was on version 2.7.7 and managed to add the buddy after trying a
couple of times.
At work on 2.7.9 I'm unable to add the contact after several attempts.

Has anyone seen this issue? Anything I can try, or is this a bug I need to
submit?


Thanks,
Jeff