Messenger status and error 800488fe
Since Monday of this week the Messenger service has been experiencing outages with signing in. If you’re using Windows Live Messenger after using Reviver and you encounter this problem, you’ll see error 800488fe during the sign in process. Third-party clients like Pidgin (libpurple), bitlbee and others have also been experiencing these problems and will have similar cryptic error messages.
I have seen a number of people attempt to explain the outage with explanations of the problem only affecting custom domains, age of account, or your current location but none of these have proven to be consistent and seem to be inaccurate.
Fixing the error
Although the error is a server issue, some people have reported that their account started working again after signing in and out of Outlook.com (Hotmail), so that may be worth trying. However in all accounts that I personally have been affected with, I simply waited for a while and trying again later has worked every single time.
Hopefully these server issues will be resolved soon.
Posted on July 18, 2013, in Messenger, News. Bookmark the permalink. 25 Comments.
Jonathan Kay, MessengerGeek 
have not had any problems yet (United Kingdom) but thanks for the advice and heads up.
I have not had any problems yet and thank for the heads up Jonathan.
I’m encountering the same problem (error 800488fe). I tried yesterday and today again, but it still doesn’t work. I’ve tried to reset my password in https://account.live.com/ResetPassword.aspx, they sent me to my email a link or resetting my password, but it failed.
Please help.
Greetings gadi. Well the error is on the server, so there isn’t much else you can do but wait and try again.
Signing in to outlook.com solved the problem for me. Thanks!
Dank, dank U wel dat ik mijn vertrouwde MSN MESS. weer terug heb. Nog maal bedankt Jonathan.
Can you please elaborate on that?
It’s been 3 days and it doesn’t seem to get any better.
I tried to login to msn from another computer on the same home network, same problem. So the problem is not in my computer. It’s either in my account (most likely), or in my router (port not open?) or in the server.
Well, Jonathan was right, there’s nothing to do but wait and retry. Messenger is working again.
i am now having this error myself. I tried to do the sign out of outlook thing, to no avail.
Hi 🙂 I’m still able to sign in fine, so I think it’s just a continuation of the server issues from last week…
I wouldn’t put it past them that this is deliberate attempt to try and “shake” people off Messenger
i signed out an erased the data (forget me) and then i went to the messenger in out look i went to sign in and i decided to hit ‘retry’ and it’s now working again
I’m from the UK and have been experiencing this problem for about a week. It is driving me INSANE. Some days it works fine then the next day I can’t sign on at all. This need fixed ASAP! 😦
my friend is saying my pictures showing up as a robot whennnn in fact I have a display picture? o.O;
There could be lots of reasons for this depending on what client they’re using also, but if you haven’t tried this yet, generally switching to another display picture, which they should hopefully see within a few seconds and then back to the prior one usually fixes glitches like this. Could also be a server glitch of some kind going on.
Interesting. I had one friend having major problems signing in using any kind of client, except Skype. As for myself, normal WLM 2009 has been behaving so far, but Trillian on my phone has been having big problems. http://help.trillian.im/discussions/android/1032-unable-to-connect-to-windows-live-messenger
By the way. I have to ask, since all these Snowden-‘leaks’, and rather nasty truth that Microsoft is spying on their Skype users the ( http://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data ), I have to ask, have you found anything suspicious about the WLM services?
Greetings Atlas. All the clients have been having problems due to Messenger server issues. Any logging of Messenger would occur on the server side because all Messenger instant messaging traffic goes directly through Messenger. We do know however that they have logged conversations in the past (for law enforcement). I’m afraid I don’t have a link source for that as that was sometime last decade and long gone.
Since Messenger is technically still up (just used via Skype), I suspect they are the same.
Still having this problem. Goddamnit. 😦
Never mind, the Outlook trick actually worked!
Could a new and persistant “you have signed in to messenger on another computer” related to those issues? I have it since the 6th of August.
Greetings Maxime. I haven’t seen this happen. If you look on the status dropdown in Messenger, what does it indicate the other location is?
In parenthesis below is what I mean:
I have, in that section:
Sign out from here (MAXIME-PC)
Sign out from everywhere
Exit Messenger
I should also add than people notified me than I was written as “online”, even when I wasn’t and than this is happening with regularity, every 1 hour exactly.
I still can’t sign to Messenger. I tried sign in to Outlook, but I have still this problem. Can anyone help me?
Pingback: Solving error 800488fe once again | Jonathan Kay, MessengerGeek