Skype for Linux is broken, and users aren't happy

Microsoft has been updating Skype on Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, OS X and Android pretty frequently in the past few years. The service’s Linux app, on the other hand, has not been updated for 3 years. Now, apparently, the app has stopped working on Linx since February 22, 2016. If you use Linux, you will not be able to join audio or video calls using Skype. Additionally, Skype Web is also broken on the operating system, according to several reports.

Nick Vernij, a Linux user who first reported about the issue told us:

“We have had issues with Skype for linux for a while, calls didn’t work, the client crashed etc. When I updated my Windows desktop to the latest Skype version, I noticed I got the message (1) “Boltgolt needs to update Skype in order to join this call” . He is using Skype for Linux, which is a Skype version from around 2012 ported to Linux in 2014 by Skype.

So we did a couple of tests, and it turned out the newest update broke Skype calls for him. When calling from a client that hasn’t updated on the 23rd, everything worked fine. With the newest update, he isn’t able to join with the message that he should update Skype. So you are still able to call users, and host group calls from Linux, you just aren’t able to join any hosted by the newest version. And their “replacement”, Skype Web also doesn’t work on Linux.

We tried to contact Skype Support, but as soon as we mentioned Linux, they did not get back to us. We have tried to contact them about the issues a couple of times before, where they also didn’t get back. So out of frustration we created this website, we figured that maybe they would respond to the issues with Skype for Linux when a lot of people mentioned it.

As we speak our website has 300 active sessions, traffic is still growing, and more than 17000 people have visited the site. We analysed the hashtag #ThanksBill, which is a parody on Thanks Obama, and in the last couple of hours more than 700 people which adds up to 435 000 impressions.”

Of course, this is a major issue for Linux users. It is worth noting that Microsoft’s Skype apps are also quite buggy on other platforms, including Windows and OS X. I personally have a tonne of issues with Skype on Windows, Windows 10 Mobile, and iOS — one of the most annoying issue is notification syncing. When I view a conversation on the Skype app for iOS and open it the same conversation on the Windows app, Skype forgets that I read the new messages and turns them into unread messages. There are some other issues such as the Edit Message feature not working, the app crashing every now and then, messages getting sorted in the wrong order, and many more.