Skype has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

May 26, 2011

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or no reason whatsoever my Skype just crashed and I’m not able to restart it. The crash happen for no reason, it just crashed while I was on chat with a friend.

With crash it shows following error window:

Skype has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

First I thought it is just those of unusual moments when Skype crashes. But later I discovered that something unusual has happened.

I restarted Skype couple of times but still not working and kept crashing.

The error report doesn’t give any useful information.

I checked task manager and could see that 2 Skype process are running, so I killed those processes and restarted Skype but still no success.

Next I did some search on Google to find out any solution but there are none.

However I just found that Skype website is down, or when it is up it is very slow. Does this cause problem?

There is a thread on Skype community discussing Skype fails to load problem but this is down too.

Next try was to reinstall Skype, downloaded Skype from Skype Download page. It took over 10 minutes to just install skype. Day by day Skype is getting heavier and more money minded.

While installing it crashed again.

Next I uninstalled all Skype programs from control panel -> Add or Remove Programs and tried to reinstall.

It didn’t work either.

The last option which I can think of is to uninstall skype, restart computer and reinstall. I’ll check this out later.

After Bill Gates bought Skype he has turned it into another monster as his other miserable product known as Windows. So get ready to encounter more Skype death window.

It seems time has come to switch to other free messenger but I’m afraid Skype was the best free messenger ever existed till date.

Ok I gave another try and it worked, here is how.

I uninstalled skype again. Then from Application folder – C:\Documents and Settings\Ajay\Application Data I renamed Skype folder. (just in case I need anything from old installation).

Then I reinstalled Skype. And viola it worked.

However I’ll have to reconfigure all settings again.

Comments

18 responses to “Skype has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

peter

May 26, 2011

well the fact that just you had a problem with skype doesnt mean anything, you can just have a virus, corrup files or whatever

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  May 26, 2011
  
  No, not when your skype crashes all of sudden while you are chatting. It must be a bug with skype. I do agree that it might be caused by virus, malware etc too but this is not the only reason.
  
  Messengers such as Skype, YM etc keep crashing but this is first time that I’ve encountered such problem with Skype.
  
  Reply
James Dion

May 26, 2011

I had the same problem and I was tired with installations and uninstallations but thanks to your help my problem is solved.
With your above information, I searched carefully the Skype folder looking the specific problematic file or files. After examining the files, I found out that the problem is the file “shared.xml”. Deleting the shared.xml the skype worked normally. I don’t know what specific information are stored in this file, but deleting it, didn’t take to reconfigure the skype.

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  May 26, 2011
  
  Glad that I could be of any help.
  
  Yes I was aware of the fact that deleting config.xml or other .xml file solves the problem as well.
  
  See http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=62937 for more details where they have explained step by step to solve this problem.
  
  But guess what, who has time to go through all those steps one by one? It takes ~10 minutes to reinstall then top it up with the computer restart time and multiply it by the steps and then sum up all the times.
  
  So what I did was quick, easy and dirty solution which worked very well and I haven’t to search for problematic files.
  
  Since I didn’t need the .xml files as I remembered the skype settings by heart so it took me just few seconds to bring back all settings again.
  
  I don’t store history so I was not worried about loosing message history either.
  
  At the end with quick thinking I came to conclusion that getting rid of whole skype folder and reinstalling skype was easiest solution and I didn’t have to restart computer.
  
  Reply
Vibhore

May 27, 2011

You can resolve this issue by deleting shared.xml from your /Application Data/Skype.
And try to login again.

Reply
Ravindra

May 27, 2011

It worked for me.

I just renamed the Skype and SkypePM folders under C:\Documents and Settings\Ajay\Application and run Skype. No issues.

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  May 27, 2011
  
  LOL!!
  C:\Documents and Settings\Ajay\Application
  
  That is on my computer, you have to replace “Ajay” with whatever is your user name on your computer.
  
  Reply
Jim

May 27, 2011

You are the man you fixed my problem! I’m in AFG and this is how I talk to the family back home. You sir, have my gratitude!

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  May 27, 2011
  
  Lol! I swear I didn’t fix your problem ;) I even did’t touch your computer.
  
  AFG means in Afghanistan? Man you must be the luckiest person on the Earth. Free high, Free sun and no law to control you.
  
  Have fun!
  
  Reply
tripti sethia

May 27, 2011

Thanks alot. This really works.I was really not getting any answer for the same, but u saved my Life. Thaks alot.

Reply
angeluz

May 28, 2011

ty more power! woo hooo im saved

Reply
Sandeep

July 28, 2011

Thanks Ajay. I was facing this issue for past few weeks and couldn’t understand what happened suddenly.

Reply
Atif

December 10, 2011

I’ve reinstalled skype for like 10 times but it doesnt work..and i cant find any folder named “Skype” in the application data folder..please please please help me out of this crap!

Reply
Gertrude

January 7, 2012

I keep getting the message “Skype has stopped working.” It lets me start a call and then crashes with this message. Help, anyone out there?

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  January 7, 2012
  
  Uninstall Skype completely, restart PC and install again.
  
  Reply
helen

February 14, 2012

Tried everything you said 5 times and it still down’t work. I hate Skype! Permanently uninstalling and hope one day they get their sh– together!

Reply
1. Ajay
  
  February 14, 2012
  
  Sad to hear that. Did you try followings
  
  “I uninstalled skype again. Then from Application folder – C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data I renamed Skype folder. (just in case I need anything from old installation).
  
  Then I reinstalled Skype.”
  
  Reply
Sarah

April 5, 2013

Uninstalling and installing again works. I hate it when this happens to skype.

Reply