Hi something is really bugging me and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this?  At certain times pictures of  certain contacts on my contacts list show up and at times it just shows the grey messanger box (the one when you don't have any picture) and was just wondering if it could possibly be because someone has blocked you.  One time by accident I had a certain contact that I had on two seperate msn profiles and when I logged in the one she was online, when I logged in the other it was showing her offline.  I immediatly went into windows live and checked on my contacts and sure enough on the one where I saw her online I could see her picture in the contact list, in the other contact list I could only see the messanger man (grey box) is this one way of knowing that I have been blocked???? but what stunns me is that I have other contacts that I know have not blocked me and I don't see a picture of them in my contact list, but with these certain people I never have, with this particular friend I see the picture at times and then I don't....hopefully this makes sense if anyone has had this happen to them or know an answer could you please reply to this thread!  thanks so much!

P.s  I know that when I saw her on one profile in msn and not the other I can see from there I was blocked but my question is with the picture appearing on the contacts list because once she saw me log into the other one she probably realized oops I forgot to block her on the other msn, so now the funny is at the same time I will see the pictures in the contact list and when I only see the greybox msn man it is at the exact same time in the contacts list...Do you think I figured something out?????

Well I just tested with 2 accounts and it just showed a normal display picture, even when blocked.

When I changed my DP and then unblocked it, the DP went grey for a few seconds while it was loading the new one, that's it.

So in conclusion, there's nothing that links a grey display picture with being blocked.

All you can do is ask the person. We can't tell you if they've blocked you, nothing can.

At the end of the day - If you got blocked, you got blocked. You have to deal with it.

Hi, I'd dispute what Chris says.

I just got a crack to run two msn clients at the same time, and logged in with different accounts - A and B.

Results:

When B blocked A,  account A could no longer see B's display picture in the list of contacts / network. Instead, B's display picture was changed to the default grey msn box.

This happened every single time, with both accounts, so I would conclude that when a user is blocked, not only can they not see the blockee's online status, but the display picture is also blocked.

If this is the case, it's a huge oversight because I don't think it's right that a user should be able to tell when they're blocked....but I really believe that you can...which is sad in a way because I was pretty gutted that this person chose not to talk to me anymore ( But hey...

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Originally posted by frazzledazzle
Hi, I'd dispute what Chris says.

I just got a crack to run two msn clients at the same time, and logged in with different accounts - A and B.

Results:

When B blocked A,  account A could no longer see B's display picture in the list of contacts / network. Instead, B's display picture was changed to the default grey msn box.

This happened every single time, with both accounts, so I would conclude that when a user is blocked, not only can they not see the blockee's online status, but the display picture is also blocked.

If this is the case, it's a huge oversight because I don't think it's right that a user should be able to tell when they're blocked....but I really believe that you can...which is sad in a way because I was pretty gutted that this person chose not to talk to me anymore ( But hey...

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Of course there's nothing you can do about it. I think the real issue is that there absolutely shouldn't be a way to detect whether you've been blocked.

However this test worked every single time I tried it and obviously worked for the other user who started this topic.

I can't categorically say this is a proven way to see if you've been blocked, because I don't know all the variables. However...under the general circumstances in which I tried it, it did work time every time.

It's something that definitely requires further investigation because if you can indeed tell whether you've been blocked, this needs to be fixed...or at least the block feature should be improved to disallow this.

There is no way to detect if you are blocked, or whether they went offline.

Instead of telling us here (a website for a 3rd party add-on), you should report it directly to the WLM team through the help menu in Messenger. If they do determine there to be a problem, it will be fixed.

Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not having a go...and I appreciate your advice, I just don't think you should categorically dismiss my hypothesis just because you cannot replicate it on your own machines.

I'll give it to you scientifically then. The protocol that let's Messenger communicate with the servers send your display picture to the server. The server will only send out messages to update how you look to other people if they are not blocked. Blocked contacts should see you with your display picture still, at least until Messenger has been restarted (if your display picture has not been cached, in which case they should still see that one; although if you're offline you may not have a display picture showing at all)

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Originally posted by frazzledazzle
Also, I don't know what it means when you say you're an 'official tester' but if you are, then you should know that it really isn't acceptable to write off an issue that's being experienced by multiple users, by saying that you cannot replicate it.

You should either A - be able to provide an alternative explanation of why this is happening (given your knowledge of Windows Live etc) or B - investigate further, given this issue has been raised by a lot of people on the internet (as you will see if you google it).

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This has been driving me crazy too!  I am pretty sure the person has me blocked whilst they are online as I have witnessed their display pic disappear the moment they sign off after we have been chatting.

It's doesn't bother me that this person has me blocked as they do it during their work hours when they are using msn at the office for work.  When they are not working, they don't sign on. 

So I see the grey out figure until they sign on at office.  If they are online but I see their pic but not status, I am blocked.  Obviously if I see pic and status I am not blocked.

In fact just now I had it happen with another 'friend'.  Before they signed on, grey figure.  They signed on, display pic shown but soon afterwards they were no longer online but I can see their display pic. 

It happens in both the web version and 2009 version.  If it's just a coincidence......

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
It happens in both the web version and 2009 version.

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Originally posted by Spunky
Instead of telling us here (a website for a 3rd party add-on), you should report it directly to the WLM team through the help menu in Messenger. If they do determine there to be a problem, it will be fixed.

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Originally posted by Chris4

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
It happens in both the web version and 2009 version.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spunky
Instead of telling us here (a website for a 3rd party add-on), you should report it directly to the WLM team through the help menu in Messenger. If they do determine there to be a problem, it will be fixed.

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Originally posted by frazzledazzle
Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not having a go...and I appreciate your advice, I just don't think you should categorically dismiss my hypothesis just because you cannot replicate it on your own machines.

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
This has been driving me crazy too!  I am pretty sure the person has me blocked whilst they are online as I have witnessed their display pic disappear the moment they sign off after we have been chatting.

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
If they are online but I see their pic but not status, I am blocked.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by frazzledazzle
Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not having a go...and I appreciate your advice, I just don't think you should categorically dismiss my hypothesis just because you cannot replicate it on your own machines.

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The sole fact that some people can not replicate it is already proof in itself that your 'hypothesis' does not work and as such is not a way to detect blocks!

As you said yourself, you do not know all the variables which come into play with stuff like this.

The people here are 100% correct in what they've said: there is no reliable way to see if someone has blocked you.

And a grayed out display picture proofs absolutely nothing in this regards. eg: a display picture can also be grayed out because the syncronization between you, the server and the contact couldn't be established or if there was an error on the way. It even could be that your contact doesn't have a DP to start with. All things which you can not verify in any reliable way.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
This has been driving me crazy too!  I am pretty sure the person has me blocked whilst they are online as I have witnessed their display pic disappear the moment they sign off after we have been chatting.

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That still is no proof that they have blocked you. It could still mean they have deleted the picture. It could also still mean that you don't have cached DPs or that your messenger experiences some bad connection so it can not cache DPs at all. And those are only 2 of the many possebilities which could occur besides being blocked.

Again, there is no way to see the difference between any of those scenarios.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cassandra424
If they are online but I see their pic but not status, I am blocked.

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They could also be 'appearing offline', or even be completely offline while your Messenger does has a cached version of their DP.

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I only quickly skimmed over this thread, so I'm sorry if this has already been posted.


Display pictures appear blank because the picture isn't "recent".

Display pictures are transfered by direct connections. In order to open one, both conversations must not have their status set to "Appear offline".

When someone changes their display picture (Or when you've just added them), your MSN asks the MSN servers if the contact has a display picture. If they do, the server gives them their IP and connects you to them to download the picture.

The picture is then saved in some obscure folder that nobody can find. Where it is located isn't important, just the fact it's saved locally is.

Now, let's say you have three friends, Anna, Bob, and Chris.

You can see Anna and Bob's picture, but Chris has never appeared online. She likes to always appear offline so people don't bother her. Nobody will *ever* see her picture unless she appears online at some point *and they open a conversation with her*.

Meanwhile, Bob has appeared online before and you can see his picture, but he claims to have a new one. He's been appearing offline for a long time. MSN doesn't know that he has a new picture, so he needs to appear online and people *need to open a conversation* with him to get the new picture.

Finally, Anna's display picture randomly disappeared overnight.  This is most likely what the people here are confused about. What has happened is Anna has signed in from a new account that has a different display picture (or no display picture) while you were offline or appearing offline. Since she's signed in with a different DP, her MSN has told the servers that her DP has changed. When you sign in, your MSN checks the server and says "Hey, I need to re-download Anna's picture. I'll delete her picture so my user knows he/she needs to open a conversation with her." So it does.

Basically, this all happens under totally normal operation. It's not a bug (Though it acts like one), it's not a way to tell if people blocked you, if they're appearing offline, if they've been hacked, etc, etc.. It's just confusing to some people.


If you want to fix the problem, just open a conversation the next time you see the contact in question online. Sometimes you may also need to send them a message to make sure the connection opens, so if you want to guarantee your MSN will get their picture, open a conversation with someone and say something to them. If their picture doesn't change after a minute or two then they've either really got a blank display picture, someone's firewall is somehow blocking communication (Albeit rare), or they're not using Windows Live Messenger.



I hope this helps.

Thanks Nofew.

I have been trying to follow the comings and goings of the display pics and have noticed that where the other person signs on makes a difference.

If the person logs on and off from a desktop computer the dp is saved on my msn but if they sign on and off from their mobile, dp disappears.

So if I am chatting with them, dp shown, they sign off from desktop, dp stays for days on end but if they are on mobile the moment they sign off, dp disappears and does not reappear until they sign back on.

The display pic is always the same and it doesn't matter if I start a conversation or not.

So yes, not a function of being blocked but how/where msn stores the dp but it is weird that this never happened in last version....

So for many of the disappearing dp, the person tends to use mobile so that explains why pic is there during work hours and odds are I am blocked (not something personal as they are working and using the msn for work so personal contacts would be blocked until they had free time)