After the release of Pidgin 2.5.3 less than a month ago, the guys behind this universal instant messaging (IM) client have finished work on yet another update, and consequently have issued it to the general public. With Pidgin 2.5.4, several bugs and problems within the software application have been dealt with, but the one that stands out of the crowd is the MSN or Windows Live Messenger protocol incompatibility issue that prevented users from accessing their account.

The problem sprouted when Microsoft upgraded their MSN Messenger client earlier this month; with the upgrade came a change to the protocol used by the instant messaging application. The direct result was that Pidgin users could no longer log-into their accounts, leaving them stranded. According to the Pidgin development team, this problem was addressed as fast as possible, but version 2.5.4 only will only “temporarily fix connection problems” between Pidgin and MSN. Expect a permanent fix in future updates.

Here is quick list of other changes made to Pidgin with the v. 2.5.4 release:
- The connection no longer timeouts when you have empty Gadu-Gadu buddy list.
- No more crashes when recovering offline MSN messages.
- Windows XP and Windows Vista users will be glad to know that the hang on exit problem has been addressed.
- Pidgin will no longer crash when changing protocols.
- GTK+ has been updated to version 2.14.6

A complete and detailed change log referring to Pidgin 2.5.4 is available here.

Just in case you forgot, or in case you are not aware of the capabilities of Pidgin, here is a quick list of IM networks it supports: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, Zephyr.

If you would like to get Pidgin 2.5.4, a download location is available here.