Hotmail Contact List Failure, Why?

After reading your post, I checked my own contact list in hotmail, which shows O, Q, X and Y in bold, and they seem frozen. When I checked the full list, I had no contacts that began with O, Q, X or Y. I do have contacts whose last names begin with O, but they have been sorted by first name, for some unknown reason.

I do not get any notes or reports when I try to access the "dead" letters, so I am not sure what might be going on with your server. I have seen "Runtime Error" on occasion when trying to access some web site, but never encountered this with hotmail. I have no idea what a <cusotmError> "tag" would be, and "Mode is supposed to be in off" sounds suspicious. Has your server been compromised?

As you are probably aware, some time back my contact list was hijacked (since you are on my contact list, you either received some junk mail apparently from me, or your server may have blocked all messages from me, which does not appear to be the case). I believe, but am not sure, the compromise was related to Instant Messenger. To fix this, I had to change my password on my hotmail account. I also have myself as a listed contact, so I get a heads up if someone is using my e-mail account to pass spam...So, any evidence someone has hacked your e-mail account?

If you are getting messages that appear to be poorly worded or composed improperly, it is most likely a hack.

I'll try changing my password.

I am never sure what forces compromise my communications.

It was implied by the message that the server was compromised, but no really useful information was given as to how to correct the problem.

The great spy Bill Donovan did not use codes, but wrapped letters in strapping tape.

Get the patch for the Aurora Attack too

Trans is on a mac & not using IE6

How to access Hotmail without one of these...on a Mac?

The patch will fix vulnerabilities in IE6, IE7, and IE8 on supported editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2—vulnerabilities notably exploited in the recent series of Chinese-based attacks against Google and 30 other tech companies.

One need not use IE to access hotmail. I use Firefox almost exclusively- although I have toyed a bit with Chrome as well. Mac's can run Firefox as well.

Hotmail is very similar to Gmail

a web based app, that requires neither IE of any flavor or Outlook [whew]

there is online storage

the cloud is alive & well even in MS land

The latest attack is another good reason to use fire fox, which isn't perfect

but certainly allows more control of the comings & goings than IE..

I can't think of a single reason to not to use IE, FF is awkward, Gmail is cool...

I cleaned up a machine yesterday that used FF and Avast; 27 active virus and 356 malwares including 8 bots corrected by Comodo...

Chinese espionage for one

The crappy password minder for two

It would take both hands to list the events of when FF was also cracked, I've settled well with IE, there are occasional glitches but overall usage is good and I don't care for FF; never did somehow seemed backward

Did tabbed browsing come from FF?

No it was from IE shell "NetCaptor"

IE Tab - add on for mozilla FF

I have no real evidence

just my personal experience

My surfing & browsing life have been nearly trouble free on both my vista & xp machines ever since I went back to FF 6 months ago.

I had switched to IE in 07 when they introduced tabbed browsing [the updates were more seamless]. The problems started towards the end of 08.

the download & add-on controls on FF are straight forward & easy to use & understand.

no idea about the IE tab thing, I don't remember running into any sites that didn't work on FF

on the other hand the download site for OO templates didn't work the last time I tried it with IE8.

When I can come up with a USB flashdrive [or IDE to USB adapter] this XP lap is going to become a linux box.

I had quite a few problems with outlook, accessing bookmarked sites, uploading files, etc last year.

I use a msn.com addy, not a hotmail account for a back up.

Many weeks of research led me to find MSN Instant Messenger was causing the problem.

So, I uninstalled MSN IM and Silverlight (which keeps on being called an important update by MS), and all of my problems ended.

I am no IT guru, can't explain any of this beyond the above, but know it worked for me.

Thanks.

Thought as OP, I might acknowledge around the help.

Sound like a Microsoft server problem to me. I used to use Hotmail and got sick of problems like that. I have a couple of Yahoo accounts and a Gmail. I never have these kinds of problems. But a real good way to find out more info about problems like that is simply google, "Hotmail contact list failure". I can practicely guarantee a correct answer. In this case I got this: http://windowslivehelp.com/community/42.aspx. If go there you will see that about gillion people are having this problem and as usual MS hasn't a clue. (This probably because they have sent all their help to India.) But they'll fix it. They always do.

Switch to Gmail. Avoid this cr*p.

Good luck,
Stephen

So far I've not cottoned to gmail, could be cause I've been using hotmail for 9 years now. Of course Garthh told me gmail was good, and I think he gave me instructions on how to move the addresses from hotmail to gmail.

I do have a gmail account, but I'm not sure yet what the password is.