Shoutbox

I've got this stupid problem with live, at first it wouldn't sign me in but I removed discoverylive and it signed me in.
Now I cano nly send one message to each contact and they can send me 5 in return but then nothing.
I get no notifcations of my messages failing to be delivered, I can't send nudges {it nudges on my screen but doesn't go to them}, I can't send voice clips, again they show up my side but not theirs, same goes for handwriting things, I can't even send webcam requests ...
Sounds firewall-y to me, but I've not got one on my machine and my router has the "open IM ports" box checked.
I've disabled all pluslive scripts with no luck and I'm not running anything else with messenger.
I'm on the new 8.5.1302.1018 version of messenger with pluslive 4.50.0.312
Any ideas ?

doesn't windows have a built in firewall??

In the connection status in Tools -> Options of messenger live, it says that I am connected via my default browsers HTTP Proxy server settings ... but I'm not using a proxy server.
Should that connection status not say "You are directly connected to the .NET messenger service" ?

*EDIT* ::
this is weird now, when I do use a proxy server it logs me in fine and sends messages to everyone and works perfectly AND the connection settings thing says that I'm directly connected to the .NET messenger service going through a uPNP NAT restricted connection.
but without the proxy server it says that I am connected via my default browsers HTTP Proxy server settings.
Any ideas anyone ?