Skype login not working -- the dreaded Magic T-Value

Tue Aug 25 16:03:06 EDT 2020

Weird: I’m getting the 429 error again, all of a sudden. Nothing odd going on here—not reboots or anything; I have two machines and one phone connected to Hangouts, same as it ever was. The other machine and phone are both idle.

All of a sudden my primary machine got the 429. A few minutes later it connected briefly and let one IM through, but then got the 429 again. And just now as I was writing this, it reconnected again briefly, let the SAME IM through again, and then got 429.

Is there something that causes constant reconnections?

Huh, and now it’s connected and seems to be happy. Here’s what my IM window shows, with usernames and actual messages replaced:

(3:54:08 PM) me: msgA

(3:54:08 PM) me: msgA

(3:54:41 PM) him: msgB

(3:54:08 PM) me: msgA

(3:54:41 PM) him: msgB

(3:54:08 PM) me: msgA

(3:54:41 PM) him: msgB

Note mine (sent originally from another machine) appears four times, and his three, all with same timestamps, interleaved. An artifact, clearly, but maybe-interesting.

Perhaps the 429s are a problem on the Google side?

From: Eion Robb [mailto:eion at robbmob.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 8:53 PM
To: Phil Smith III <phsiii at gmail.com>
Cc: Pidgin Support List <support at pidgin.im>
Subject: Re: Skype login not working -- the dreaded Magic T-Value

Hi again,

The Hangouts 429 (rate limit exceeded) issue is a separate one again (I had a link just a second ago to the github issue tracker, but lost it again, sorry), and can happen if you re-authenticate too many times in an hour - we do a lot of requests at login to build up conversation and buddy history, which can easily push things over the limit.  You might have inadvertently run into it when reconnecting to the Hangouts account after installing the Skype plugin.

Cheers,

Eion

On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 11:26, Phil Smith III <phsiii at gmail.com <mailto:phsiii at gmail.com> > wrote:

And after leaving the machine for a half hour, came back and it's logged in. So perhaps this was just Google burping.

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Smith III [mailto:phsiii at gmail.com <mailto:phsiii at gmail.com> ] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 6:04 PM
To: 'Eion Robb' <eion at robbmob.com <mailto:eion at robbmob.com> >
Cc: 'Pidgin Support List' <support at pidgin.im <mailto:support at pidgin.im> >
Subject: RE: Skype login not working -- the dreaded Magic T-Value

Wait, my mistake: it's setting Alternative Login method that works. Still fails without that. But at least I can connect. Dumb me, changed two things at once, then realized later.

But still getting the error 429 from Hangouts. But now I'm even more confused: going back to previous dll didn't help (and why would Skype DLL break Hangouts?). So is something ELSE borked now?!

Yeah, I'm getting that same error on another machine, which I haven't touched. So it's not the Skype DLL (phew, that made no sense, of course).

But native Hangouts works OK still, can send/receive just fine.

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Smith III [mailto:phsiii at gmail.com <mailto:phsiii at gmail.com> ] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 5:52 PM
To: 'Eion Robb' <eion at robbmob.com <mailto:eion at robbmob.com> >
Cc: 'Pidgin Support List' <support at pidgin.im <mailto:support at pidgin.im> >
Subject: RE: Skype login not working -- the dreaded Magic T-Value

Hmm. Well, if this means the one in a .zip file, dated 8:47PM tonight, then the good news is, it seems to fix Skype. The bad news is, it breaks Hangouts.

Error seems to be:
Connection error on 054584E0 (reason: 0 description: Invalid HTTP response code (429))

Full debug log attached.

-----Original Message-----
From: Support [mailto:support-bounces at pidgin.im <mailto:support-bounces at pidgin.im> ] On Behalf Of Eion Robb
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 5:39 PM
To: Phil Smith III <phs3 at akphs.com <mailto:phs3 at akphs.com> >
Cc: Pidgin Support List <support at pidgin.im <mailto:support at pidgin.im> >
Subject: Re: Skype login not working -- the dreaded Magic T-Value

Hi Phil,

The issue to follow for this is
https://github.com/EionRobb/skype4pidgin/issues/656
There's a dll with a fix buried near the bottom of the comments, but the
gist is that using the 'Use alternative login method' setting is always
preferred, since it's less unreliable (although not everyone has been able
to use it because of an 'profile accrual required' error message -
something to do with not having a skype+microsoft merged account)

Just waiting to get more feedback on that fix before I push out a 1.7 of
the plugin later tonight

Cheers,
Eion

On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 08:52, Phil Smith III <phs3 at akphs.com <mailto:phs3 at akphs.com> > wrote:

> This has happened before, but following the flowchart always fixed it.
> I've done that, logged in on the web using Private Browsing, etc. I'm not
> using two-step auth. No change. Nothing fancy in password: it's ten
> characters, but all alphanumeric. I installed the latest DLL; no change.
>
>
>
> I've attached a debug log, as Word so as to preserve the colors etc.; can
> resend as .txt if that's too Evil.
>
>
>
> Any ideas?
>
> --
>
> ...phsiii
>
>
>
> P.S. I'm finally resubscribed! Took a few tries - the confirmations
> weren't showing up for some reason. Including in gmail.
>
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