FAQ and Common Issues

This page provides answers to the most commonly asked questions and information about the most frequent technical support requests. If you are looking for a quick overview of Digsby, check the Getting Started Guide.

General Questions

• What is Digsby?
• Why is Digsby free?
• What protocols does Digsby support?
• How do I use Digsby? Is there a tutorial?
• Why do I need a Digsby account?
• What do you do to protect my data? Do you have my passwords?
• How do I import my chat logs from my previous IM client?
• Where are the chat logs stored? Can I delete them? Can I move them?
• Where do I get more skins, conversation themes, sound packs, and emoticons?
• What are Digsby Achievements?
• What is the "Tweet about Digsby" checkbox?
• What is the status tagging?
• How do I stop Digsby from launching when Windows starts up??
• How do I exit Digsby?
• How do I uninstall Digsby?

Connectivity Issues

• Digsby will not start
• Digsby tried to auto-update and now it won't start
• I can’t sign in to Digsby (Failed to Connect)
• I can't sign in to Digsby (Authentication Error)
• I can’t connect to my IM/Email/Social Network account
• I keep getting logged out of my IM/Email/Social Network account
• I keep getting the error "You are signing in to often"
• What is Local Mode?

Commonly Reported Bugs

• Where is group chat?
• I tried to make a single word bold. Instead, the whole message became bold.
• I can't open an IM window with a buddy
• IMs either fail to send/receive or just don't appear in the IM window
• A file transfer failed or got stuck
• Clicking links doesn't do anything
• The Twitter timeline stopped updating
• I just found a bug! What do I do?

Frequent Feature Requests

• Is Digsby available for Mac and Linux?
• Is Digsby available in other languages?
• Is there a portable version of Digsby for my USB drive?
• Will you add more IM protocols like MySpaceIM, Skype and IRC?
• Will you add other social networks like Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, Plurk, etc.?

What is Digsby?

• Digsby is a free software product that helps you manage all your IM, email, and social network accounts from one easy-to-use application.

Why is Digsby free?

• We show you ads during installation for optional software. You can decline the offers and still install Digsby.
• We use your CPU's idle time to conduct computational research. You can opt out of this as well. Learn more here.
• There is a detailed explanation of the above items in one of our blog posts here.

What protocols does Digsby support?

• IM Accounts: AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, ICQ, and Jabber
• Email Accounts: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP
• Social Networks: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn

How do I use Digsby? Is there a tutorial?

• Check out the Getting Started Guide. If you have any questions about features, you can ask on the Support Forum.

Why do I need a Digsby account?

• We wanted to make it easier to use Digsby at multiple locations. Your Digsby account is used to synchronize preferences such as what skin to use and whether to show popups or not. When you sit down at another computer and log in to Digsby, the experience is completely seamless.

What do you do to protect my data? Do you have my passwords?

• We have established very strong safeguards to ensure that your account information is never disclosed. We are 100% transparent about our security procedures and you can read about them in detail on the Security Practices page.

How do I import my chat logs from my previous IM client?

• One of our users wrote a log converter for just that purpose. The website is www.logconverter.com.

Where are the chat logs stored? Can I delete them? Can I move them?

• The chat logs are in the “Digsby Logs” folder in “My Documents”. You can delete the folder to clear your logs. You can also disable conversation logging in the future in the Preferences > Conversations. At this time, you can't change the location where they are stored.

Where do I get more skins, conversation themes, sound packs, and emoticons?

• We will release the official documentation on how to create these in the future and also create a website where our users can upload and download customizations. Right now Digsby is still in beta and a lot of the code that runs these customizations is still changing. In the meantime, you can downliad the beta version of the skinning documentation and there are customizations on the community run website at http://www.digsbies.org.

What are Digsby Achievements?

• Digsby Achievements allow you to share the milestones you hit within Digsby with your friends. In the future we may award points for these that you can redeem for prizes but for now the milestone are just shared with your friends via the Facebook or MySpace newsfeed. You can disable this functionality by editing the social network account in preferences and unchecking the option.
• The milestones are:
  • Adding an account into Digsby (eg: Joe added his Facebook account into Digsby)
  • Sending IMs (eg: Joe has sent 1,000 IMs using Digsby)
  • Setting your social network status (eg: Joe has set his Facebook status 1,000 times using Digsby)
  • Commenting on Newsfeed items (eg: Joe has commented on 1,000 Facebook posts using Digsby)
  • Liking Newsfeed items (eg: Joe has 'Liked' 1,000 Facebook posts using Digsby)
  • Browsing photos in the Newsfeed (eg: Joe has looked at 1,000 Facebook photos using Digsby)

What is the “Tweet about Digsby” checkbox?

• When adding your Twitter account into Digsby, you have the option to send out one tweet promoting Digsby to your followers. It is one of several humorous posts that links to the Digsby website. For example: “Tweeting without Digsby should be illegal. Give it a try.”

What is the status tagging?

• Status tagging makes it easy to spread the word about Digsby by automatically appending “check out http://digsby.com” to the end of your IM status message. You can enable or disable the option in Preferences > Status.

How do I stop Digsby from launching when Windows starts up?

• You can uncheck the option to start automatically in Preferences > General & Profile, or you can delete the Digsby shortcut in Start > Programs > Startup.

How do I exit Digsby?

• Like most IM clients, Digsby continues to run in the icon tray when you close the buddy list. You can exit by choosing the “Exit Digsby” menu item in the “Digsby” menu on the buddy list or the right click menu of the Digsby tray icon.

How do I uninstall Digsby?

• You can uninstall by clicking Start > Programs > Digsby > Support > Uninstall. You can also uninstall in the “Add/Remove Programs” section of Windows.

Digsby will not start

• If you click the shortcut to launch Digsby and nothing happens, try downloading and running the latest installer from our website. Your preferences and account information will not be lost during a reinstall.
• If that does not help, please email bugs@digsby.com for technical support and we will figure out what went wrong.

Digsby tried to auto-update and now it won't start

• Please email the TWO log files located here to bugs@digsby.com:
• You may have to click “Tools” > “Folder Options” to show hidden folders.
  • Windows XP:
    • C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Digsby\Logs
  • Windows Vista:
    • C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Digsby\Logs
• After that, download and run the latest installer from the website. The log will help us diagnose the problem and fix it.

I can’t sign in to Digsby (Failed to Connect)

1. Make sure your network connection is OK and you can connect to the Internet.
2. Make sure your firewall isn't blocking Digsby.
3. Click the “Connection Settings” link on the login screen and make sure your proxy settings are correct.
4. If that does not help, please email bugs@digsby.com for technical support and we will figure out what went wrong.

I can't sign in to Digsby (Authentication Error)

1. Make sure you are entering the correct Digsby username and password.
2. If you do not have a Digsby account, you can create one for free.
3. If you have a Digsby account but forgot your username or password, click here so we can send you an email with your username and instructions on how to reset your password. Make sure to enter the email address you used to register the account.
4. If you experience any problems signing in, email us at bugs@digsby.com for technical support.

I can’t connect to my IM/Email/Social Network account

• If you are getting an authentication error, make sure the user info you entered is correct. If you are getting a “Failed to Connect” message make sure your firewall is not blocking the port needed to connect to that service.
• If you are still having trouble use Help > Send Bug Report after it fails to submit a diagnostic log. We will email you at the email address you used to register the account to help you get online.

I keep getting logged out of my IM/Email/Social Network account

• We have had a few reports of this and most often it is the result of either network flakiness at your end or temporary issues with the service you are connecting to. These usually resolve themselves. If it persists, use Help > Send Bug Report to submit a diagnostic log.

I keep getting the error “You are signing in to often”

• You hit a rate limit on the IM service. If you stop trying to log in for about 15-20 minutes it will resolve itself.

What is Local Mode?

• Your Digsby account is used to synchronize preferences such as what skin to use and whether to show popups or not. When you sit down at another computer and log in to Digsby, the experience is completely the same. If Digsby can't connect to our servers, it runs in Local Mode and loads the last set of preferences it knows about from your hard drive. It will keep trying to reconnect and will synchronize any changes you made to preferences when it succeeds.

Where is group chat?

• We had some bugs with group chat so we launched Digsby beta without it. However, we will bring it back in the near future.

I tried to make a single word bold. Instead, the whole message became bold.

• We had some bugs with per-character formatting so we disabled it for launch and currently only support per-message formatting. We will bring it back at some point in the future.

I can't open an IM window with a buddy

1. Try disabling the full screen options in Preferences > Status. Digsby might be misdetecting one of the applications you have running as a full screen application.
2. If that does not work, click Help > Send Bug Report in the main menu to submit a diagnostic log after getting the bug to happen. Mention the username of the buddy and the protocol in the bug report description.

IMs either fail to send/receive or just don't appear in the IM window

• Use Help > Send Bug Report to submit a diagnostic log. Please be as descriptive as possible about what went wrong. We will email you at the email address you used to register the account to figure out the cause.

A file transfer failed or got stuck

• We have a few more critical bugs to resolve and then we will take some time to make file transfers more solid. Submitting a diagnostic log after a file transfer fails will help. In the description, make sure to mention the name of the buddy the transfer failed with, whether you were sending or receiving, and what protocol (ie: AIM) it happened on. Also mention whether you are behind a router/firewall and if you know whether your buddy is behind a router/firewall.

Clicking links doesn't do anything

• You web browser is not set as the default browser. Go to the preference window in your your browser and click the button to set as default.

The Twitter timeline stopped updating

• If you are running more than one Twitter client there is a good chance you will hit rate limits. If that is not the case, check http://status.twitter.com. They are having some scaling issues and service has been spotty recently.

I just found a bug! What do I do?

• If it just happened please use Help > Send Bug Report from the main menu to submit a diagnostic log. Be as descriptive as possible - it will help us figure out what could have caused it. What were you doing? How did it manifest iteself? Can you reproduce it consistently? Include a screenshot if you think that will help. We reply to bug reports via email to the email address you used when registering the account. You can update your email address here.

Is Digsby available for Mac and Linux?

• Not yet. We built Digsby to be cross-platform from the ground up but we are launching it for one operating system at a time so we can respond to bug reports more quickly and not spread ourselves thin during this beta period. As the Windows version becomes more stable we have started preparing for the Mac and Linux launches. If you would like to be notified when they go live, click here.

Is Digsby available in other languages?

• Not yet. However, we will be translating Digsby into other languages in the near future and will ask the user community to help us out.

Is there a portable version of Digsby for my USB drive?

• Not yet. However, we will release a portable version in the near future.

Will you add more IM protocols like MySpaceIM, Skype and IRC?

• Absolutely! We are still focused on getting the kinks out but part of our focus has moved from bug hunting and optimizations to adding new features.

Will you add other social networks like Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, Plurk, etc.?

• Absolutely!