Trouble on the line: Skype acting up again

Users of Skype are having problems using the phone service again this morning. This is the second time this has happened in just one month.

A number of Skype customers are finding that they cannot sign in, with the process getting stuck at the ‘connecting’ stage. The same thing happened about two weeks ago, when the solution was eventually to delete a file called “shared.xml” on each individual user’s machine. This file had somehow become corrupted, but as this was a fiddly process to explain to each user, Skype has now automated the solutions process of this particular glitch.

Skype says it is in the process of looking into what’s causing the problem this time, and says on its website: “A small number of you may have problems signing in to Skype. We’re investigating the cause, and hope to have more details to share soon.”

Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion last month. At the time of Skype’s last outage, just days after the takeover announcement, there were suggestions the problems were related to Microsoft and transfer processes to the .Net framework. If that’s true, it would be a shame for Microsoft, which is already accused of having overpaid for Skype. If it ain’t broke, try to keep it that way.