Always showing offline on Pingbox?
March 17, 2009 on 10:48 am | In Pingbox | 27 Comments
Occasionally we hear from users that even when they are signed into Yahoo! Messenger, their Pingbox that’s embedded on their web site, blog or profile page shows them as offline. This is due to your Yahoo! network presence being set to show you as offline.
To fix it, be sure you’re logged into the Yahoo! network (e.g. you see your name up at the top of a Yahoo! page) and then click the link below. Hitting that link will toggle your online presence back to “on”. Your Pingbox will then show you as being available when you’re online in Yahoo! Messenger. Note that you’ll only show as online in your Pingbox when you’re signed into Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, Yahoo! Messenger for Mac, or Yahoo! Messenegr for the Web. Signing in on a mobile device or to IM in Yahoo! Mail will not show you as available on your Pingbox.
IMPORTANT: Changing your Yahoo! network presence to online also means that you will be shown as online within other Yahoo! sites such as Yahoo! Groups, message boards etc. – anywhere the online presence indicator ( 
/ 
) appears within different Yahoo! products.
http://edit.presence.msg.yahoo.com/edit/config/edit_identity?.set=1&.opi=0
Note: After you click the above link, you’ll be taken to a blank, white page. That is by design. You won’t see any visual confirmation of the change. We also recommend logging out and back into Yahoo! Messenger after you click the link.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
too bad you cant use this on 8 version.
Comment by yolarrydabomb — March 17, 2009 #
@yolarrydabomb,
You can also sign into 8.1 and it will show you as online in your Pingbox. The benefit to using 9.0 is that you will see a separate group in your IM contact list for the Pingbox contacts.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — March 17, 2009 #
I had this problem for a long time now. Clicking the link gives me a blank page. Problem still not solved. I tried to change my Yahoo! network presence to online through the settings on 360: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/360/permissions/permissions-04.html and http://360.yahoo.com/edit/privacy.html;_ylt=AjxVwzsmvj0HbhA4atiDJDvDAOJ3
Problem still not solved….
I am logged in and visible through the messenger 9.0
Do you have another solution?
Ans
Comment by Ans — March 17, 2009 #
I clicked the link and it opens a blank page. I still can not change my status on pingbox on facebook
Comment by john — March 17, 2009 #
How would we normally access this option? It used to be on the same page which let us edit our aliases but since the new and improved profile has been released the option no longer appears on that page.
So, aside from remembering this blog entry and coming back here to find and click a link which, judging from the comments already posted doesn’t work, how would we normally access this setting to change it? What would be the navigation path?
Comment by Heir To A Dying Day — March 18, 2009 #
Is there anyway to change it to offline? Yahoo! Messenger preferences, privacy if I uncheck “Allow Yahoo! websites to show when I’m online” it doesn’t work. Plus on the old profile format that box to hide my online status never stayed check marked. I’d like to know how to hide my online status from Yahoo! sites such as Yahoo! Groups etc.
Comment by Annoyed User — March 18, 2009 #
Did you people actually read this post? If you did you must have missed the part talking about the blank page:
“Note: After you click the above link, you’ll be taken to a blank, white page. That is by design. You won’t see any visual confirmation of the change.”
Comment by Bob — March 18, 2009 #
@Bob – In all fairness, I just added that line today after some of the confused comments.
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — March 18, 2009 #
Ha ok. Now it works!! That’s good news. Good luck for the others who try to solve the problem.
Comment by Ans — March 18, 2009 #
@Annoyed user,
If you want to change your status to show you as offline on the Yahoo! network, e.g. in Yahoo! Groups, just change the “0″ at the end of that link to a “1″ and then visit it.
http://presence.msg.yahoo.com/edit/config/edit_identity?.set=1&.opi=1
0 = turns it on, meaning it shows you online
1 = turns it off, meaning it shows you offline even when you’re online
Comment by Administrator — March 18, 2009 #
These instructions seem backward. Typically 1 = on and 0 = off. opi=1 should equate to online presence indicator = on which should show you online.
Comment by Heir To A Dying Day — March 18, 2009 #
Backward, forward, none of it works. I set up a pingbox, select the MySpace code, paste it in and save.
The Pingbox is there but it never shows me available. I tried both OPI links above, repeatedly, just in case they were backward. I signed out of Messenger, I signed back in, I changed my status to available, then invisible, then back again. I did all of these in every conceivable combination. It still never shows online.
Comment by Heir To A Dying Day — March 18, 2009 #
You may have to reload the pingbox by clicking Refresh (or hitting F5) in your browser.
Comment by Cliff — March 19, 2009 #
Finally, some 8-1/2 hours after messing with the settings, it works!
Comment by Oops — March 19, 2009 #
Thanks! It didn’t work, but thanks anyway…
Comment by Owan — March 20, 2009 #
I googled the problem and someone on the Facebook group thing said I should 1) Log out of Yahoo! and Y!IM, 2) log back into Yahoo!, 3) click the link in the blog post, and 4) log into Y!IM and it worked!
Comment by Owan — March 20, 2009 #
Owan…
Thanks!!!! It totally makes sense now! I tried your 3 step suggestion and it worked!!! Yayee!
Comment by Cat S — March 21, 2009 #
ok this is good to know. thanks for the post. Robert Carl Parisien Natick MA
Comment by Robert Carl Parisien Natick MA — March 23, 2009 #
It would be nice to know WHY you have to jump through soooo many hoops to get something like this done. Yahoo Answers was a washout and finally “stumbled” across this blog. This is a no brainer, it should be an automatic step and should be explained in the Ping Box info.
Thanks to Owan and Facebook, not Yahoo!
Comment by Mikee — March 29, 2009 #
Today the link that’s supposed to take us to a blank page is taking us to a 404-Page Not Found.
Comment by Craig — April 12, 2009 #
Craig – thanks for your comment. I’ve updated the link,
Sarah Bacon
Comment by Administrator — April 13, 2009 #
Hi…
I tried everything in this post and I still can’t see myself online every time I’m actually online…
Somtimes I do for 10minutes and then it goes offline for hours?
Why? I have tried everything in hear!
help!
Comment by Angry Pingbox user — April 20, 2009 #
ohhhhhh thank u very much
at first i was a little bit confused by the blank page .. but then i tried signing out, then i signed back in
it worked
thanks for posting this
XD
Comment by Dandy — April 25, 2009 #
It works like a charm! thnx!
Comment by Sinerjay — May 1, 2009 #
Heck I just read all the comments on here and I am laughing . Yahoo pingbox won’t even load on my website. I am always signed into yahoo messenger, and sometimes pingbox loads and most of the time it doesn’t. It is just another one of yahoos poor quality products is all.
Comment by Robert — May 4, 2009 #
Any idea when this will work for Mobile IM and Yahoo Mail? Those are the two versions I use exclusively and it would be so nice to use the pingbox for my site. Are there other options?
Comment by Eric — May 27, 2009 #
This happened to me and it turned out I caused the problem myself. When setting up Privacy Options in Messenger 9.0, I unchecked the box that says “show availability in other yahoo sites” or something like that – and that caused my pingboxes to show always offline. The second I put the checkmark on that box, all pingboxes immediately worked.
Comment by Kate — October 5, 2009 #