Was using Skype 4.2xxx from the openSUSE repositories, and all was well. Working fine, video/audio no problems, VOIP working flawlessly...until this morning.

Tried to sign in, and got a "Could not connect" message. I knew it wasn't my password, since I checked it by signing in via web browser to Skype. So, I downloaded the 4.3x version from Skype's website (the dynamic one, not the 12.1 openSUSE package), and untarr'ed it. Just copying the 4.3 'skype' file to /usr/bin overwrote the existing 4.2 Skype executable. Since it was the dynamic package, there were no libraries to worry about. After that, Skype came right up, no problems.

The rest of the Skype dynamic .bz2 file just contained desktop files, .wav files, and other stuff, that all matched the files from the package. Just copy skype to /usr/bin/skype, and off you go.