Skype server took a short break | Hacker News Reader

Skype server took a short break

skype.com

29 pointsdotpot20 comments

On Win7 Deleting "C:\Users\{Your Username}\AppData\Roaming\Skype\shared.xml" solves the problem.

And on OSX it's `~/Library/Application Support/Skype/shared.xml`

Thank you, that fixed it ! Love HN :D

Thank you, it worked for most people in my office.

Thank you, did the same on Ubuntu and it came back to life (~/.Skype/shared.xml, also incidentally deleted shared.lck but not sure if that was necessary or not)

Moved shared.xml out of the way, everything works again, thank you!

Ha, they posted the instructions for the different OSes (but Linux) here: http://heartbeat.skype.com/2011/05/problems_signing_into_sky...

I wonder if all users will have to do that, because it would be a huge pain.

Looking at that file, I see another case of severe XML misuse. If you have that amount of binary data to store, you probably shouldn't be using XML.

Wow, ok -- I thought I was crazy for about 40 minutes this morning as I tried launching Skype on 4 of my computers (2 Windows 7 machines, 1 Ubuntu machine, and 1 MacBook Pro). It crashed within seconds on each and every one.

It's good to know it wasn't just me.

BTW, thanks to those of you who posted potential fixes.

My Linux Skype client (ver 2.2) kept crashing on me since 3 hours ago, as in when I'm starting the client it stays open for about 3-4 seconds, then quits with message "Aborted".

To fix it, I first deleted ~/.Skype, then I disabled by Internet connection, then reopened Skype, then tried to login (of course it doesn't work, my net is down, but it's going in a loop mode continuously trying to connect), then re-enable my Internet connection.

Well, either that or just dumb luck, but I'm not touching it to see if the method is repeatable.

Deleting ~/.Skype worked for me. Did that earlier with no effect. A diff of the broken ~/.Skype with the working one shows loads of changes, most interesting is shared.xml, which appears to have some -1 values in the old one.

Reiterating the Windows and MacOSX fix:

http://heartbeat.skype.com/2011/05/problems_signing_into_sky...

For me on Ubuntu - simply moving the .Skype directory and rerunning the program worked

I fixed the problem by removing ~/.Skype/shared.xml, so if you need to do it again try that.

"Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype and making calls. We’re investigating and hope to have more details to share soon."

http://twitter.com/#!/Skype/status/73718207676022784

Don't worry they are migrating to IIS

very unique idea http://goo.gl/0yuHJ

Downgrading to Skype 4.2 seems to solve it. http://blog.alertfox.com/2011/05/mysterious-skype-crash-down...

Even http://heartbeat.skype.com/ seems to be suffering, and when it loads it claims that everything is "working normally".

Sigh.

Everything seems to be back now. I didn't delete anything and launched Skype normally without any crashes.

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