Google Talk - some buddies appearing offline when they're not

[Thomas Preece]

Hello,

I'm seeing an odd problem in Pidgin where some Google Talk / Hangouts
buddies are consistently appearing offline when they are in fact online
(verified using the Hangouts app on mobile). This is happening with a new
account, but I'm not seeing it with a previously-existing account on the
same instance of Pidgin.

Additionally, sometimes sending messages to these users produces as error
that the message fails to send, yet the contact confirms that they have
received it - annoyingly it's not reliably reproducible, so I don't have
the exact message to hand.

I'm using Pidgin 2.10.9 (with libpurple 2.10.9) on Ubuntu 14.04 - I realise
this isn't the very latest version, but I can't see anything in the
changelog that looks relevant.

The fact that it only happens for certain buddies on one particular account
suggests to me it's probably a server-side issue - although when I asked on
Google's help forums they helpfully told me that they don't support
third-party clients and directed me here.

Is this something that anyone has seen before, or can someone suggest any
good next steps for troubleshooting?

Many thanks,
Thomas Preece
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