I was having some trouble too... couldn't sign in, then when I selected "always sign in as online" it worked fine... still can't change my display name though\
That's a good link. I'm adding it to My Favorites. Gives me a peace of mind that the problem is not on my end. Recently, MSN Messenger struggled to get going. Especially the Hotmail accounts. I love their combined services and wouldn't switch to anything else, but I wish they wouldn't crash so frequently.