Shoutbox

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "refuse to get unblocked"? 

I noticed a couple of times when I wrote the script that although contacts appeared to be unblocked to me, I still showed up offline for them. It doesn't happen anymore, so I assume it was a server problem.

Have you tried fully exiting WLM (right click tray icon>exit) and then re-opening it and signing in? That usually solved it for me.