i have looked around a few threads regarding ssl not supported for gaim and followed the instructions about adding a line pointing to firefox or mozilla in your /etc/ld.so.conf and then running ldconfig as root. this didnt do the job for me ( i tried /usr/lib/firefox and /usr/lib/mozilla ). I then removed gaim using packagetool and re-installed it using slapt-get. I typed in gaim from the command line (forgetting i was still root) and it worked i logged in no problem. Now when i try it as a regular user i get the ssl error message again. Why is this? Anyone have any ideas? i am a noob but i know that it would be a bad idea to use instant messaging programs as root. Thanks in advance for your help.

It's possible that some of your files in ~/.gaim are now owned by root. Fixor that with `chown -R yerusername ~/.gaim` and cross your fingers.

(BTW, if gaim is built carefully and told about Firefox at compile time, this problem doesn't happen. It "just works".)

If the above is correct, you need to start using `su - root`, not just `su root`. The dash is actually important--it makes the new login a proper login instead of just an euid change for getting extra permissions.

thanks for your quick response chief! It worked a treat, cheers.