Facebook Contact List shows addresses, but not aliases

What is the output of :

lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy empathy

Have you tried other clients too?

No, I haven't. The odd behaviour is recent, and I have used only Empathy since I started using Ubuntu about 5 years ago.

Pogo.

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

I'm sorry that I missed a bit.
The output of lsb_release -a; uname -a; apt-cache policy empathy is:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid
Linux Pogo 2.6.32-51-generic #113-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 21 19:47:04 UTC 2013 i686 GNU/Linux
empathy:
  Installed: 2.30.3-0ubuntu1.1
  Candidate: 2.30.3-0ubuntu1.1
  Version table:
 *** 2.30.3-0ubuntu1.1 0
        500 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.30.0.1-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

In the meantime, Empathy shows me as available, and I gather that I can be seen, but it displays no contact information at all.

For something to try, I have tried to update (no updates available) and have uninstalled and reinstalled in case something had been trashed.

Are there any other chat clients that can be used with Facebook Chat?

Pogo.

Well, you could give a try to Pidgin. I don't use FB but it is one of the available protocols.

Hmmm, it does?... Oh, it has a third party plugin. That won't let me log in (user name or password error). And it has an XMPP protocol (needed to geek up to figure that out), which keeps saying that it can't connect (odd, because I connect to FB through Firefox without problem).

Seems there is something in using a chat client that is broken on my little grey box.

Thanks for giving me something to try. I'll keep poking...

Lucid is EOL on the desktop and not supported in any way. I recommend you clean install Precise which is LTS and supported til April 2017. Alternatively you can upgrade directly from Lucid to Precise as it is LTS to LTS upgrade but a clean install will give fewer issues

And keep poking I did. I found in the FAQ that the server for FB was not facebook.com, but chat.facebook.com, and using that with the XMPP protocol got me a buddy list with avatars. One step forward.

lucid may be EOL on the desktop, but NBR under Lucid fits neatly on my netbook (funny that) and the Precise desktop fits like an elephant in a bucket.

I can't imagine that any new developments have changed Empathy so that it (mis)behaves like this, so I'm wondering what might have changed on my machine, or more directly, where I should look to see how the buddies list is displayed, and what it should look like.

I can (now) use Pidgin, and that is a workaround.

Lucid hasnt been developed for for a ling time now. Nor do the devs care about Lucid as it is dead.

Please mark as solved

Sorry to have troubled you. Please resume normal programming.