Linux AIM Client Crash?

[DarC_KonQuesT]

The other day I was screwing around on the AIM Linux client and I did the following which I found interesting (note: I use parentheses extremely often for clarification):

I hit the "Decrease Font Size" button a 'bunch' and when I hit enter/send AIM froze for a moment then disappeared. After further trial/error testing it seems that the magic number is 22 (for me). AIM didn't offer any error message or obvious crash out, only indication was that the AIM client exited. Being somewhat new to Linux I'm not sure how to go about finding logs for events such as this (anything that will provide deeper info, or if there is one). I'm testing this on Red Hat 7.1.

Further experimentation revealed that it also works for the "Increase Font Size" (again with the magic number being 22) and I also got the "crash" (I'll continue to call it this whether it truly is a crash or not) from "Bold" but could not duplicate the results later (with bold, increase font size was duplicated).

*********
I've yet to see a valid purpose for this flaw (if it is one) but further tracing by those of you who are more adept than me could reveal something. If the client is a binary then you'll have to watch the DMCA of course : ).

I'd like to know what others can do with this:
IE: can you simulate the results I got?
find the cause for this?
etc...

Note: I did notify AOL with this exact message minus the part following the ******* line.

-DarC KonQuesT

[DarC_KonQuesT]

I failed to mention that the client version I was testing was 1.5.234 (again thats the RPM for Red Hat Linux)

[DarC_KonQuesT]

--trying to get my thoughts together and provide every possible detail

After inserting the 22 increase or decrease fonts I typed "22" where the cursor was (IE: in the middle of the HTML code for the font size changes). if you just hit the increase/decrease 22 times yuo don't have any data to send so you don't hacve the send option so obviously you have to feed it something.

-Hopefully the last clarification post
-DarC

[baph0met]

sounds like a misconfigured installation, some files either belonging to AIM or the graphic desktop must be farked-up. The thing is that this could be caused by zillions of reasons. If i were you, I'd look for dangling symlinks, especially in the libraries the AIM package depends on. (I had the same problem under Debian with LICQ that screwed up the KDE installation).

good luck!

[guerrillase7en]

this is kind of unrelated but anyone know a aim clinet that u don't got to keep open all the time? I have gAIM(that came with RedHat 7.2) and u got to keep it open and in your taskbar anyone know?

...thanks

[baph0met]

Keep it open? As in unable to minimize the client window or what? If that's what you mean, get the client from AOL's site or get netscape 6, which comes with AIM client.

[guerrillase7en]

i can min. it but it taks up room in the task bar thing.... is there somthing for kde so u can add it to the pannel so it's not in the taskbar(i know in Gnome u can but....)

[dolemite]

http://kinkatta.sourceforge.net/

here is a decent AIM chat program
it does what you want
there is another one but i cant think of it

i use gaim so i can connect to my icq and msn accounts

[Gepeto]

Shameless plug... checkout gaim.sourceforge.net ! I use it for MSN and ICQ too, even though ICQ support's not stellar, and there are not a whole lot of options, it's great, especially the CVS version which gets better everyday!