No Contact List in msn messenger

[Ekadant]

Hello all,
I downloaded latest version of msn today. Now when i sign in to my account, i cannot see my contacts. The whole list is gone. I don't know whats wrong. Can anyone help me please?

Thank you.

[Eric B]

Try to reinstall messenger again. If you face the same problem, then go on ebuddy.com and you can log on your msn account and talk to your friends from your contact list. It is really helpful and it works just the same.

[JonathanD]

Disappearing contact or contacts list may be caused by a corrupted cache file in Windows Live Messenger or the cached contact list may not have updated correctly. To update your contact list, follow these steps:

• Sign out of Windows Live Messenger.
• Click "Start," click "Run," type the following command, and then click "OK":

• %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Messenger\

• A new Microsoft Windows Explorer window opens. In the window, click your Messenger ID.
• Double-click the Contacts folder.
• Delete the two folders that are in the Contacts folder.
• Sign in to Windows Live Messenger again.

[Glenny]

I think your MSN Messenger Saved Contact List file may be corrupt. You can try CorruptedFileRepair. CorruptedFileRepair.com is the premiere resource to aid in the recovery of corrupted or damaged MSN Messenger Saved Contact List data files.

[Blixx]

Disappearing contact or contacts list may be caused by a corrupted cache file in Windows Live Messenger or the cached contact list may not have updated correctly. To update your contact list, follow these steps:

• Sign out of Windows Live Messenger.
• Click "Start," click "Run," type the following command, and then click "OK":
• A new Microsoft Windows Explorer window opens. In the window, click your Messenger ID.
• Double-click the Contacts folder.
• Delete the two folders that are in the Contacts folder.
• Sign in to Windows Live Messenger again.

Today the avatars are not showing in my Windows Live Messenger Chat Windows.
They are showing in the vertical Messenger box showing all of my Contacts, but when I click on a Contact to create a Chat box, that Contact's avatar is no longer visible, altho it always was in the past.

I tried your solution above.

"A new Microsoft Windows Explorer window opens. In the window, click your Messenger ID.[*]Double-click the Contacts folder.[*]Delete the two folders that are in the Contacts folder."

The Messenger window opened.
There is a folder labeled with my Messenger ID - not my handle, but my hotmail account which is linked to Messenger.
Inside that folder are two more folders - "ObjectStore" and "SocialNews".
There is no Contacts folder inside either of those, nor in the subfolders inside them.

In that initial Messenger window, in addition to the folder labeled with my Messenger ID, there is also "MsnMsgr.txt", and "ContactsLog.txt".

???

[Blixx]

Try to reinstall messenger again. If you face the same problem, then go on ebuddy.com and you can log on your msn account and talk to your friends from your contact list. It is really helpful and it works just the same.

I decided to try uninstall/reinstall messenger.
But in Control Panel/Programs and Features, I saw nothing called Windows Live Messenger.
I'm using Windows Live Messenger 14.0.
Is "Windows Live Essentials" what I uninstall to remove Messenger?

[Maq.H]

No buddy, Windows Live Essentials is your Windows Antivirus. Its not the live messenger. Well, probably Live messenger wont appear in Add and Remove Pragrams' list. What you have to do for removing it is:

• Go to Control Panel
• Click Add & Remove Programs
• Now in this opened window, click on "Add/Remove Windows Components".
• Here uncheck Live messenger or Live Explorer.
• Reboot the system and you are done.

[Blixx]

Maq.H - "No buddy, Windows Live Essentials is your Windows Antivirus."

Windows Live Essentials is most definitely Windows Live Messenger, plus some other Windows Live junk if you installed other stuff.

It is most definitely not "Windows Antivirus".

Just successfully did an uninstall/reinstall, but avatars still missing when I open a Chat window.

Anyone know how to restore that feature?

[EINSTEIN_007]

Windows Live Essentials is most definitely Windows Live Messenger, plus some other Windows Live junk if you installed other stuff.

It is most definitely not "Windows Antivirus".

Just successfully did an uninstall/reinstall, but avatars still missing when I open a Chat window.

Anyone know how to restore that feature?

Try the below method to fix the issue that you are facing, without even doing a reinstall.

If you're comfortable with editing your system registry, do the following to fix your Windows Live Messenger crash issue.

Start > Run > type "regedit" and hit ok.
In the registry editor, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftMSNMessengerPerPassportSettings

Under "PerPassportSettings", you may have multiple entries with numbers representing each Live account you've logged in with. In each (or if you only have one), expand the numbered key and look for the string "UTL". delete the value within "UTL".

After the UTL value has been cleared from each Passport, your Windows Live Messenger should open without crashing.

The UTL value contains various bits of XML data related to your Live account. It would seem in the past week especially, there's been a small server glitch resulting in "bad data" being stored in UTL. This "bad data" causes Messenger to crash on startup. The data in UTL will be restored with correct data on your next login.