Windows Live Messenger and its annoying bugs

Warning: Big rants below.

I’ve been using Microsoft’s (in)famous instant messenger app since version 4.6 which came out in 2001 (back when it was called MSN Messenger). Between then and now, I’ve seen it undergo a lot of changes. Some of them were great (like the ability to send files, which was introduced in version 5). Others were more questionable (winks, added in version 7). But if there’s one thing that never seems to change between versions of WLM, it’s the bugs.

Any programmer knows that software can never be perfect, and even the most expertly coded application can still have bugs. I accept that. What irritates me is that these bugs have been around version after version, and none of them have been fixed yet. I could understand if they were hard to find or repeat, but they’re all glaringly obvious, and in an average day of chatting, I can guarantee you’ll come across at least one.

Here are the four main bugs I come across every single time I use WLM:

Messages fail to send for no reason.

I put this bug at the top of the list because it’s the most tenacious and also the most annoying. After using WLM for a long enough period (perhaps a few hours), it will suddenly decide to fail every time you try to send a message. I did a few tests and concluded that the ‘error’ occurs on the client side, not on the server, so it must be a bug in the client. The only possible way to fix this is to close the WLM exe and start it again – simply logging out will only fix it for a couple of minutes.

Temporary solution: Close WLM down completely and hope it’s more merciful next time.

When a conversation gets too long, it breaks.

This is a slight improvement from the first official WLM release (version 8), in which holding a conversation that was past a specific length would cause every succeeding message to appear on the same line, turning the whole thing into a complete mess. Now, because the WLM team over at Microsoft are so good at debugging their software, having a long conversation will only break the window when you send/receive an ink (handwriting) message or a file. For files it’s just a minor annoyance, but when you just spent ten minutes drawing a detailed ink message, the last thing you want is for it to fail, especially if it happens on both sides at once (this does happen, and it means you’ll have to draw the entire thing again).

Temporary solution: Close the window periodically, to keep the conversation log short. Close and re-open the window before sending an ink message.

The entire file transfer system.

The WLM file transfer system is a sloppy mess of barely-working components, stuck together with a child’s glue stick in order to make something that just about passes itself off as a feature.

• About 1/3 of the time, the person you send the file to won’t even receive the file invitation.
• Other times, the invitation will be sent, but the file will never actually start sending.
• If you’re lucky enough to witness a file actually sending, don’t dare cough or even look at it the wrong way. It will fail. Since there’s no resume feature, you’ll have to send the whole thing again!
• Chance of failure is tenfold for every other file you try to send concurrently.

Usually when a file send goes wrong it’s port-related, but I’ve tested this with both my computer and the remote computer set to DMZ (which effectively exposes it to the rest of the Internet, as if there were no firewall), so how can this is due to anything other than their bad programming?

Temporary solution: Use email (GMail allows 20mb attachments) or upload the file somewhere, if you want it to be recieved before next Christmas.

Offline mode messaging

Although the offline mode system is handy, it’s still littered with bugs. Messages you send are even less likely to arrive than regular messages, and some will be saved in the MSN backlog for up to a day before you receive them. You can’t send a file if you’re in offline mode, even though you can receive them (well… I say receive… see the previous bug). If you try to talk to someone who’s in offline mode, there’s a chance you’ll lose the ability to talk to them until they talk to you first.

Temporary solution: Don’t send important messages in offline mode.

Minor bugs (honourable mentions)

• Sending too many custom emoticons at once sometimes makes them turn back into text.
• Certain system settings cause the status to stick to a specific value (such as ‘busy’) when you log in, ignoring the status you’ve actually selected.
• A single-person conversation sometimes goes quantum and turns into a multiple-person conversation containing two copies of the same person. When they send you a file, a new single-conversation window will pop up.
• Ink messages sometimes ‘wibble’ (the lines move back and forth of their own accord).

Why’s it so buggy?

I can think of three likely reasons:

1. Microsoft care more about making the interface looking pretty than about the application working properly. In every version of WLM since 8.0, the interface has changed but the bugs remain exactly the same. Get your priorities right, MS!
2. Microsoft only updates a product when it’s in their best interests, not when it benefits the users. IE 7 is a prime example of this. IE 6 was riddled with HTML and CSS rendering bugs, but MS only decided to bring out a new version when they realised Firefox was gaining popularity (5 years later). Fail.
3. It’s a bloated mess. The Microsoft WLM client is 30mb, three times larger than its closest alternative, Pidgin (which supports 15 other IM protocols alongside MSN). If you’ve ever tried to learn about the protocol it uses to communicate with the MSN server, you’ll realise how horrific it is to work with. A complete re-code is the only thing that can save the poor thing.

Despite all these bugs, I still continue to use WLM because I think it’s one of the best IM apps available. I just wish MS would pay more attention to their users for once, but I suppose that’s a pipe dream for now (isn’t it always?).