Given that he original message here was almost a year ago, I think its safe to assume that whatever problem was occurring with MSN at that time is most likely past. I say
most likely because we all know that MSN's reliability is flakey at best most times.
The orginal MSN Perb chat group is gone, yes. It was closed down rather abruptly at the end of September.
There is a new one that has been up and running for a little over a month now:
Perberts Anonymous and Friends MSN Group
There's about 115 members currently. Everyone is welcome to join.
SWG