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Using pidgin from the command-line or launching it via the indicator is not working. I've tried reinstalling it, but the issue persists:

$ pidgin
The program 'pidgin' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install pidgin
$ sudo apt-get install pidgin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
pidgin is already the newest version.
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

How can this be fixed?

Update: removing pidgin-sipe did not help remove the diversion (see answers below). Doing sudo dpkg-divert --remove /usr/bin/pidgin, and then reinstalling the pidgin package fixed it.

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  • 1
    have you tried to start it like this: /usr/bin/pidgin? Or reinstall it via apt-get install --reinstall -f pidgin if it isn't there.
    – chaos
    Dec 16, 2013 at 22:06
  • what is the output of whereis pidgin and type pidgin? Also, the output of dpkg -L pidgin.
    – Braiam
    Dec 16, 2013 at 22:09
  • /usr/bin/pidgin isn't there, just /usr/bin/pidgin.orig. Using reinstall didn't help. Output: paste.ubuntu.com/6586027 Hm, the diversion looks funky. Dec 16, 2013 at 22:42

2 Answers 2

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As seen in http://paste.ubuntu.com/6586027/:

/usr/bin/pidgin
diverted by pidgin-sipe to: /usr/bin/pidgin.orig

Another package called pidgin-sipe diverted the original /usr/bin/pidgin to /usr/bin/pidgin.orig. I recommend to purge this package by:

sudo apt-get purge pidgin-sipe

and then mv pidgin.orig to pidgin:

sudo mv /usr/bin/pidgin.orig /usr/bin/pidgin
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  • I need the package though as it gives the ability to use Pidgin on a Microsoft Lync network. Is it possible to fix this while keeping SIPE (and a decently recent version of it; the one in repositories is kind of outdated)? Dec 16, 2013 at 23:12
  • You can still start pidgin by typing: pidgin.orig without purging the other package.
    – chaos
    Dec 16, 2013 at 23:31
  • Use the divert fix in the original problem and purge all the packages. Install pidgin, and start it. Add the pidgin-sipe repo and install while pidgin is running. Quit pidgin and restart it.
    – quaeritate
    Nov 23, 2015 at 22:08
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Apparently there's a package diversion that renames /usr/bin/pidgin to /usr/bin/pidgin.orig, for some reason. I can't verify the changelog now (servers are dead) but you may execute pidgin by typing pidgin.orig.

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