Microsoft on Monday confirmed
Posted 07/17/2012 | by Paul Lilly



Microsoft on Monday confirmed that a wily bug in Skype could, in some instances, cause instant messages (IMs) to be delivered to a different IM client than the one intended. It only occurs when Skype crashes during an IM session, which Microsoft said could result in the last IM entered or sent ending up finding its way to a random contact. Today Microsoft started rolling out a hotfix.

"The hotfix addresses an issue that occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user," Microsoft said today. "Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs."

According to Microsoft, only certain Skype clients are affected, including Skype 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5,8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, and Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone. Unaffected clients include Skype 5.9 for Windows, Skype 2.8 for Android, and Skype 4.0 for iOS.