Configuring Office Communicator in Pidgin

Posted on 05 Nov 2013 by Marcelo Moreira — Permalink

If you’re on Ubuntu, and you need to connect to MS Lync (formerly known as Office Communicator), install the SIPE plugin for pidgin:

sudo apt-get install pidgin-sipe

When you configure you account, dont forget to set the User Agent to: UCCAPI/4.0.7577.314 OC/4.0.7577.314 (Microsoft Lync 2010)

If you get the infamous “Read error” when you try to connect, then do the following:

• Create a file named /usr/local/bin/pidgin-workaround

vim /usr/local/bin/pidgin-workaround

• Put the following content inside:

#!/bin/sh
NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV=0 exec /usr/bin/pidgin "$@"

• make sure it is executable

chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/pidgin-workaround

Now, instead of launching the pidgin executable, launch this script and everything will work out fine.

I later found out that the piggin launcher in the Indicator Plugin does not work, because it still uses the old executable.

Alternatively, you can set the option NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV=0 directly under /etc/environment.