Shoutbox

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...

quote:

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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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Firstly, you don't need to "crack" Messenger to run two WLM clients at once, it's a feature of Messenger Plus! Live, the piece of software who's forums you're using .

Secondly I have to back up with Chris said, I just tested it with my brother and girlfriend and they both blocked me and I saw no change in their display pictures.

There is NO way to tell whether you've been blocked, nothing is 100% reliable and even if you did know there's nothing you can do about it....and confronting someone who's obviously blocked you for a reason is only likely to make things worse .

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.

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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).

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)

quote:

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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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I am an Official Tester of Messenger Plus! Live, the add-on that this forum is dedicated to.

The fact that I cannot replicate it is what disproves your hypothesis.  I'm not denying that it happens to you, but the fact that it doesn't happen to everyone proves that it is not categorically linked to being blocked.

My best guess would be that it's linked to the server synchronisation issues that are happening at the moment affecting reverse lists.  I can't provide a complete explanation for the problem, but what I can do is say that blocking someone does not cause the display picture to become greyed out and so for the benefit of other users, it is not a test of whether you've been blocked or not.

People are always looking for block checkers, or tricks/work-arounds to detect if you've been blocked..and dispelling myths like this helps the community as a whole as it won't result in people complaining that the method doesn't work.

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......