Dummy protocol?

[Eugene Grosbein]

14.06.2020 13:55, alex at alexoren.com:

> On 2020-06-14 2:43 AM, Eugene Grosbein wrote:
>> Pidgin keeps your contacts (no matter active or not) in the blist.xml
>> that is readable and editable with any text editor of your choice.
>> Just make sure you create backup copy of the file before editing
>> and don't edit it while Pidgin is running.
> 
> The buddies in blist.xml need to be associated with a protocol.
> If the protocol cannot start (YIM for example), the contacts will not be visible in the UI.

Try this: create "fake" account (or use existing one) of any living protocol of your choice,
for example XMPP (jabber) copy old logs to the directory (create if it does not exist):

logs/jabber/user at domain.com/oldbuddy at domain.com

No need to find living XMPP server, logs will be available anyway.