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October 25, 2003
Who Needs Many Friends?
I've recently hit a bug in the iChat AV: I've been trying to add a new buddy, and it replied me with the "Feedbag Error 17", then the person would go 'offline' from the iChat point of view, making it impossible to message the same person again. So I went ahead and filed a bug on it on the Apple's Radar. This is the reply I've received to my bug: Thank you for the bug report on iChat AV. Please know that the ability to add more than 150 buddies is a limitation imposed by the AIM server. The lack of a good error message is a known issue that is currently being investigated by engineering. Ack. OK, now I know this is ain't Apple's fault I cannot add any more buddies to my list. That doesn't makes me feel any better though -- are we in 1980 again when AOL decided that "150 buddies outta be enough for everybody" as in "640K outta be enough..."? I realize I may be a talkative person, and have more buddies than many of other people do, but man, I want the ability to talk to more than 150 people, and I don't want anybody to control how many friends I should have. Oh well. Maybe someday they will upgrade their servers, or something. Until then, I'll stick to 150 chosen few. UPDATE April 2, 2004: There are a follow-up to the problem here. Check it out.   Posted by slava at October 25, 2003 09:44 AMTrackback Pings: TrackBack URL for this entry: Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Who Needs Many Friends?: On "Feedbag Error 17"... from plasticbag.org Tracked on October 27, 2003 4:14 PM Some empirical support for the magic number 150 from McGee's Musings Tracked on November 13, 2003 11:31 AM Feedbag Error 17? from jjeff.com Tracked on January 8, 2004 6:12 PM Related:
Comments
Adium 2 might have this functionality someday. I remember some discussion on it. Posted by: on October 25, 2003 11:01 AMwould it be possible to create a little app to swap out buddy lists... so you could have 150 work buddies and 150 female buddies and 150 geek buddies and so on... Posted by: timbo on October 25, 2003 2:14 PMYou're lucky you are using A/V. With plain old iChat, it wouldn't splash an error, but did the rest. It confused the heck out of me... So I went to the AOL made version of AIM and tried adding someone and it said, "You've reached the max number of buddies" or something similar. Great example of what good error messages will do for you! My SN is jonknee41, but since you're at the max and I'm at the max, it's not like that matters :P Posted by: Jon Gales on October 25, 2003 2:35 PMI do believe Player vs. Player ( http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20031020 ) recently did a comic about that. It's called "Auditing your friends". ;-) Posted by: Jason Anderson on October 25, 2003 10:39 PM"would it be possible to create a little app to swap out buddy lists... " Probably not - as the buddy list is server based (ie: not in a local pref file.) Posted by: Josh on October 25, 2003 10:42 PMI've noticed most of the error messages in iChat and iChat AV (especially errors during login) are useless. Apple really needs to update them for the common man -- it reminds me of the obscure error message numbers in System 7. Of course, I only have 35 people on my iChat buddy list, so I don't much care about the limit. :) Posted by: Michael on October 26, 2003 4:08 PMif you use adium you can have multiple accounts. so BOB1 and BOB2 can both be online at the same time. Posted by: no1son on October 26, 2003 8:50 PMSlava, this isn't Apple's fault at all (well, except for skimping on the error message...), it's a limitation imposed by AOL. This isn't Apple's job to fix, it's AOL's job to upgrade their servers. Of course, I can just imagine the faces of those who see an error about a feedbag :) Posted by: timdorr on October 26, 2003 10:22 PMVague, or obfuscated error messages are better then incorrect ones. I'd rather have to call someone to ask what "error number 9" means, than call up tech support because "there's a problem with my hard drive..." Posted by: otherguy on October 27, 2003 1:26 AMWell you can say there is a problem with my hard drive, a number 9 error. :) Posted by: Jon Gales on October 27, 2003 5:10 AMToo bad AIM is THE standard for instant messaging, and Apple also had to go with just AIM for iChat. AOL really sucks... Posted by: NetworkShadow on October 28, 2003 10:22 AMWell... maybe it's time to set up our own instant chat comunity? With apps written by Unsanity? :) Can it be done? just babbeling, don't listen to it ;) MiGjel Posted by: MiGjel on October 28, 2003 12:05 PMUnless there's not a problem with your hard drive, it's actually an error reading from memory (or whatever), and it's error number 9. I was just saying I'd rather have messages be vague than incorrect. If it says that there's a problem with your hard drive, and it's correct, than that's all well and good, but I'd rather have "error #9" than "hard drive problem" (when it isn't). -Cameron Wilhelm Posted by: otherguy on October 28, 2003 5:01 PMActually, as far as I can tell (using the AIM client) the limit is 200 buddies, not 150. Posted by: veklita on November 4, 2003 1:39 AMThere's already a community that supports infinite numbers of people. It's called IRC :) Posted by: Feanor on November 16, 2003 6:40 PMI seem to be hitting the feedbag error 17 at a much lower number of contacts than 150. More like 40 or 50. I wonder if different AIM servers have idfferent limits. Posted by: Lassoguy on January 13, 2004 6:02 AMI find this error really surprising. I've used Gaim and AIM on Windows for years, and just switching to a Mac I encountered this error while attaching names and e-mails to my buddies in iChat. It seems to be an iChat only type of thing--or what is going on? Plus, I don't have anywhere near 150 buddies. Posted by: btrz on January 18, 2004 3:39 PMRight there with you...I have maybe 75 buddies at max...and I still keep getting this error. Even if i delete five people it will only let me add like three new people...which accomplishes nothing at all. Apple didn't even bother to respond to me. Posted by: Christian Cull on March 4, 2004 5:56 PMI have the same problem. I counted the number of buddies I have, 58, way less then I want to have on their. It'll say that my buddy list is full, so I have to delete someone to add someone else. I don't like this at all... Posted by: Martinique Martineau on April 12, 2005 3:45 PMWhat if you clear out the file ("Userinfo" (AOL Feedbag)) and then make it READ ONLY..... That might work Posted by: ??? on June 4, 2006 5:39 AMKeep comments on topic. If a comment is unrelated to this post, it may be removed or moderated. |