[Pidgin] #16574: Pidgin hangs on startup, refuses to be killed short of reboot

[Pidgin]

#16574: Pidgin hangs on startup, refuses to be killed short of reboot
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 Reporter:  ckbilyue     |      Owner:
     Type:  defect       |     Status:  new
Milestone:               |  Component:  pidgin (gtk)
  Version:  2.10.11      |   Keywords:  hang crash freeze unresponsive kill
                         |  end
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 Just to note, this may substantially be a duplicate of #13630 and at least
 one other ticket I could not again locate. However, the details are not
 precisely the same, and I post because I have a workaround.

 Most of the time when starting Pidgin on my Windows 7 x64 system, Pidgin
 hangs after creating the Buddy List window. Nothing is displayed in that
 window and the OS grays out the window because of unresponsiveness.
 Removing %APPDATA%\.purple\accounts.xml resolves the issue, but after
 logging in with the accounts it returns. The accounts I have had enabled
 on close prior to such a startup where the hang occurs are AIM, ICQ, and
 Facebook (XMPP). I do not recall if I have tried each individually, but it
 appears that several users have had similar problems since around 2.6.

 The workaround is to disable auto-login for all accounts in accounts.xml
 prior to startup, either by editing the file directly or disabling them in
 Pidgin prior to closing. I have not had a problem since I made a copy of
 my accounts.xml with auto-login disabled for all accounts and modified my
 Pidgin shortcut to run a batch file which copies that file over the
 accounts.xml prior to starting Pidgin.

 I include batch files containing commands to make the initial backup after
 disabling auto-login on all accounts (pidgin_backup_no_login.bat), and to
 execute Pidgin after restoring that backup (pidgin.bat). Note that the
 second batch file will overwrite accounts.xml so if any changes have been
 made to that file since the backup other than enabling accounts, they will
 be lost!

 The batch files require Pidgin's account.xml to be stored in
 %appdata%/.purple and for Pidgin's installation folder to be "C:\Program
 Files (x86)\Pidgin"; if either of these is not the case, e.g. on a 32-bit
 Windows installation, then they will need to be modified.

 If the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App
 Paths\pidgin.exe always contains the appropriate (Default) and Path
 values, then it may be fine for the path to Pidgin to be removed from
 pidgin.bat entirely, but I do not know if the start command heeds the
 values in that key.

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Ticket URL: <https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/16574>
Pidgin <https://pidgin.im>
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