How to fix MSN

MSN was supposed to die back in april 2013, but the old protocol servers are still alive.

However, a small fraction of bitlbee users were locked out of their accounts, and we didn't know why until now.

MSNXMPP was proposed as an alternative way to access it, but those servers were taken down in december 2013. Now the only options left are the old MSN protocol, or skype. And skype is awful.

The most common issue, the (null) error, turned out to be just a "security measure" implemented in the microsoft login servers, and it's easily fixed.

Identify your error

Error during Passport authentication: (null)

• The most common error, usually means "location blocked".
  This error says "(null)" because bitlbee can't parse the error message to show something more meaningful. Because of this, it could also get shown for other error codes.

Error reported by MSN server: Authentication failed

• This error can mean that the account is "temporarily blocked" and you need to verify it by providing a phone number.
  It has also been seen when using a non-primary 'alias' address to log in to an account (just switch to the correct one).
  Check your account recent activity page for more details.

Error during Passport authentication: wsse:FailedAuthentication (Authentication Failure)

• This error almost always means that the password is incorrect. It's harmless.

"Location blocked" error

This is the "security measure" mentioned earlier. You can get this error if your bitlbee server has an IP address in a location (usually country) that is too far away from the one you usually log in from. It's like an IP range ban for your account only.

The most common example of this is using the bitlbee official public server, located in the netherlands, which may get you instantly blocked if you don't live in the netherlands too.

Your account will still work in the "usual" location but it will ask you to complete a "security challenge" in the other ones.

(Microsoft seems to call this error "User is in familiar location interrupt state", but that's an awful name)

Unblocking a location

There are two ways to unblock a location:

1. If you can visit http://login.live.com/ from the blocked location, you will be able to see this "Verify your account" message. Just follow the instructions and verify it, it's fairly simple.

2. If the blocked location is elsewhere (as in the bitlbee public server example), visit http://login.live.com/ locally, log in and go to the "Recent Activity" page

In this example, there are several log in attempts and a few entries of "security challenge" from the netherlands. The other entries are my usual location, censored.

Just click in one of the "security challenge" entries to expand it:

And click "This was me". This should fix the issue immediately.

"Account temporarily blocked"

You might also get this error when logging in:

If you get this error, you won't be able to do email verification, and you'll have to enter a phone number. I have no idea why.

You can choose not to provide a phone number and write a message to the support people, but be prepared to wait. Might take a week before you can access the account again.

FAQ

Q: Why would I want MSN?

• A: It lets you talk with skype contacts who have microsoft accounts without installing skype, and seems to be fairly reliable.

Q: Isn't it going to die?

• A: Maybe! Maybe not! Who cares? It still works.

Q: Doesn't MSN use the XMPP protocol?

• A: MSN and MSNXMPP are two different things. MSNXMPP was just a gateway to connect to MSN through XMPP, but it's never been the main way to use MSN.

A note about outlook.com

Outlook.com is the new hotmail.com / msn.com / live.com. Some useful stuff you can do with it:

• Log in with any account previously registered with passport.net (yes, you can use anyusername@anydomain.example.com and get an empty email inbox)

• Set account aliases, which are other email addreses that point to the same microsoft account.
• Register new accounts that can be used with msn and skype.
• Use aliases to rename the registered accounts to any existing email address.

• View the "recent activity" of the account - mostly successful/failed logins, and security challenges.

• A few other neat security related features (two step auth, security codes, mobile authenticator app, etc)