hidden Buddies on IChat
 

Ok so i'm running 10.4 on an ibook g4 with ichat 3.1.4 and recently one of my buddies just disappeared from my buddy list i've gone to his house and he showed me how he hadn't blocked me or anything and i've tried to add him again as another buddy but nothings happened how can i reclaim my lost buddy :confused: without having to create a new screen name? We're really good friends and are now going to different colleges on other sides of the country so i would appreciate someone helping me and to him it looks like i'm logged off. Thanks guys.
and I haven't blocked him.

If you launch Address Book, does there seem to be any problem with his entry there? Does it include an AIM username?

If you create a new entry for him in Address Book, including an AIM name, then in iChat go to Buddies > Add a Buddy > select his entry > click the "Select Buddy" button > fill in any missing information > click "Add", does that fix it?

Trevor

Same problem
 

Hi all,
I have the same problem. Started a week or two.

One contact just won't show up on the list. I've tried removing his entry from the address book entirely (and re-adding), changing his address book entry around, reformatting my MacBook (not for this issue, but still didn't help). Nothing will make his name show up on my list.

He hasn't blocked me, and as far as I can tell, I haven't blocked him. I try to add him by pressing the little + in the bottom left, find him in the address book, add him, and ... nothing happens.

If he initiates a chat, it pops up the "Would you like to accept this message" box. From there I can chat normally, but his name never shows up in the list of contacts.

Everybody else in my Jabber list (all gmail contacts) work fine.

Thoughts? It's really odd.

Hi.

I just lost ALL my buddies from iChat... groups and all.

Did you ever find a reason/solution to your problem?

Nope, I wish I did, but I still have my one jabber (Google Talk) contact not showing up. It shows up occasionally but disappears immediately.

Something I didn't say in my last post: This particular buddy shows up just fine on my XP box in the Google Talk app.

First of, check it's not a problem with iChat by using a different client, like AIM Express or something. If you can chat with the person there, that means it's most likely an iChat problem.

BTW, make sure the other person isn't in Invisible mode...

I have the same issue where one of my many gtalk contacts does not show up. I have to "accept" every new chat sessions he initiates. Following ThreeDee's suggestion I download adium and my contact does show up in that client. He also shows up in the gtalk client on my XP box.

Ideally, I wouldn't have two chat clients installed, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to resolve this issue they would be appreciated.

My friend had a similar problem (buddies randomly not showing up in buddy list) and he found out that it was due to an ichat enhancment. He had Chax installed on his computer (I do too and I like it a lot) but he went and downloaded and installed a plugin for Chax from some other site. He did a archive and install and it did not fix the problem. He ran some free anti virus software and it told him the enhancement he installed infected his system. The program removed it and problem solved.

Do you have an app enhancments?

I have the same problems with my iChat but I don't have Chax or any of their plugins installed. The user names disappear only from my GTalk's Jabber acct. When I checked with Adium and Fire, they both worked fine so I belive it must be something with iChat.

Also, I just got a new Mac Mini and the problem has 'migrated' to it as well. Any ideas?

Usually problems adding or deleting buddies in these chat programs can be fixed by going back to the original source and making changes there. For example: I have problems deleting a Yahoo! buddy from within Adium. When I delete this buddy his name keeps coming back when I relaunch the Adium application. Solution: Go back into Yahoo! Instant Messenger and delete his name from within that program.

For Google, you may have to go to the Google website to make changes. They also have a very thorough help/FAQ section.

Tried removing then re-adding the people back to my list from the GChat webapp from within gmail. No dice.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Did you make sure to close iChat while you were doing this?
You might also try moving the cache files and/or preference files for iChat to an alternate location (such as the trash). Then log out and back in again.

I just tried it again after completely removing my iChat cache folder and all of my iChat preferences. The problem still exists. I did notice that address book actually shows the availability even though iChat doesn't recognize that the person is a buddy. Does that imply that the problem lies not in my system as awhole, but localized to iChat?

I would recommend creating a new user account and trying iChat within it.

I cleared my preferences and caches, created a new account. Added my buddies from google, (not iChat which is what I did originally) and the problem is still there. I'm thinking of just giving up on it.

I gave up a while ago. And to confirm: I actually reformatted my computer and have the same problem. So... yeah, I gave up. I'm just going to wait for the iChat update with 10.5 and hope that fixes things.

Sounds like a plan to me. I wonder why only a select few have this problem in the first place.

Did anyone ever hear of a fix for this problem?

Possible "fix"
 

This might sound dumb but I overlooked it for a while, I'm guessing maybe someone else did the same. Somehow I managed to open the Bonjour buddy list and close the normal buddy list (the one that shows AIM users). Relaunching kept the Bonjour window in place, and the normal buddy list closed.

To show the normal buddy list, press CMD-1 or select it from the Window menu.

Cheers Kyler, just wanted to confirm for anyone else looking, your workaround works! Christ knows why it shouldn't work anyway, but there you go. Cheers!

I have tried the 'possible fix' to no avail.

I have been struggling with this problem for a while now, but with only one buddy, today another one started with this trend.

Has anybody found a REAL fix, I know for a fact this problem is related to Address Book?

Also, iChat does not necessarily update my buddies from Gmail. I add most of my buddies manually to iChat.

How can I update to iChat 4 in Tiger? Anybody have an alternative to iChat (bluh, I don't want to), I don't have any other choice.

Thanks

I'm experiencing this issue initially with 1, and now 2 Jabber contacts. FWIW, they are PyMSNt contacts. Both contacts show up properly when using Adium via jabber or MSN directly.