Today, while away from the computer, my account was reported as being online for at least six hours. None of my computers were online or on msn. When I arrived back on my computer, the account was still online; I logged into it and WLM reported that only my computer was currently logged on to the account. My password is long and complex, and it seems unlikely someone could have guessed or have known it.

My question: is it posible for my account to been listed online as an error and, if not, would someone accessing my account be the only explanation? My account seems to be fine other than the odd log-in and nothing has been changed. All help and advice would be appreciated.

I recently noticed that my Messenger has not received contact sign-out events properly. That is, I see my friends online even when they've signed out. Maybe that's what your friends are seeing.

FYI, when this happens, I can't send messages to the "ghostly-online" friends (messages get rejected), and when I sign out and sign in back again, they're shown offline correctly.

Maybe it's just a server-side error.