So, gaim has started crashing several times an hour recently. It just decided to happen and it hasn’t stopped since. I’ve used it continuously for years, it’s crashed something like 2 times during all these years, and nowadays, it crashes 4-5 times/hour.

I keep thinking it must have something to do with my new AMD64 system, as a lot of other apps (e.g. Liferea) work flawlessly on a 32-bit machine, and barely start before they fall off their sticks on my AMD64 system. Oddly though, I’ve been using gaim since I got the machine back in June, and it’s only been acting up the last week or two.

What’s even more odd is that I upgraded temporarily to gaim 2 (the beta) and the problem remained. I’m now running on the SVN version of gaim 2, and hopefully things will be better now. I’m even considering finding alternatives, but I doubt anything out there beats gaim. :/

Update: *crash*

Renamed .gaim to .gay (I know, elementary school humor at its best) and re-entered all my account info. Running without all plugins, including OTR, so government nazi assholes of the world, here’s your chance to hear me speak really, really bad Japanese. A chance you mustn’t miss.

Update: *crash*

Testily compiled and started using gaim on the 32-bit environment instead. Man, it looks like shit, but if it stops crashing, who cares.

Update: *crash* (though I gotta give it to them, this time it stayed alive for over a day — trying again)

A few weeks later, I see this:

“Yesterday, Gaim started crashing for a bunch of people (most notably Windows users) when trying to connect a MSN account. This is due to a bug in Gaim which has been fixed in subversion (don’t use subversion), and we’re working on releasing a fix. We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, feel free to commiserate with your fellow MSN-using Wingaim users. ” (from gaim.sf.net)
I am not a notable Windows user, admittedly, but it didn’t say exclusively — it said notably. Here’s to hoping…

A few months later, the gaim people claim to have fixed it. I am thrilled to hear that, and might actually give 64-bit a shot again. Gaim was the major reason why I gave up on it. Go Gaim peeps!