Pidgin "Unable to validate certificate" fix.

This monday (15th) Microsoft issued a new wildcard certificate for your MSN contact list and as such you'll be unable to view your contact list until your client issues an update. Fortunately the fix is simple.

Step 1 - Go to https://omega.contacts.msn.com

Step 2 - If your browser makes a fuss about this (Firefox will) then add an exception when prompted and you'll be greeted with a Directory Denied error. Don't worry this is normal.

Step 3 - Click on the Favicon or the Padlock if it's showing and view the certificate

Step 4 - Confirm that the issue date is 15th of November 2010


Step 5 - Under the Details tab, export the certificate to a file and save it.

Step 6 - Rename the exported file "omega.contacts.msn.com" and replace your old certificate with it. You'll find the certificate in one of the following directories:

Windows - %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\.purple\certificates\x509\tls_peers\


Linux - /home/username/.purple/certificates/x509/tls_peers

At the moment in time I'm unaware of a Mac OS X fix or even that Adium is affected. I'll edit this post once I know more

Update 20/11/2010 - As of the time of writing aMSN and Empathy are unaffected so any Linux users having troubles getting the certificate to take have another option.