Werid AIM Issue w/ Friends on Macs?? Help!

[mastafusion]

I am a Windows user who uses the most updated version of AIM to IM. I have two friends who log onto Adium with their Macs.

A week or so ago, I discovered that I could not see them when they were logged in. I was on my primary AIM account where we both have each other on our buddy lists. None of my other Windows-using friends could see them either. When I logged onto an alternate account (that my friend's are not buddies with), I could see them logged in. When I would IM them with my alternate account, the message would go through. However, the next day, I could not see them on that account either (because we have communicated?). Still, my friends could not see them either (so nobody is being blocked).

One of them IMed me the other day (she had signed in on AIM through Gmail and could somehow IM me) and even though we were chatting, she still did not appear on my buddy list, and appeared gray/offline in the chat b

More importantly, when I try to IM the grayed out username on my primary account when she is online (and not chatting with me through gmail), I get the message: "User is not online".

Thing is, even when one of the friends signs onto iChat, I still cannot see them. This may be an issue of Macs? However, I can see a few of my other friends who have Macbooks online clearly with no issue.

We have already tried (while communicating through facebook chat ) to unblock/block/readd..etc each other.

Any idea what's the problem?

Thanks!

[mastafusion]

Anybody?

[nixgeek]

Have your Mac-using friends made sure that they are running the latest version of Adium?

Adium also has the ability to make one "invisible" on all protocols that support it. Could it be that maybe they are not aware that they (or at least their AIM account) is set to this?