Good old Skype, it seems to have been in Linux Beta forever! I suppose now that Skype is part of the happy Microsoft “family”, it probably always will.

Anyway, I recently had a problem where Skype would not open on my Ubuntu 11.04 laptop. Well, to be precise, Skype opened and closed immediately. The solution was simple enough.

Firstly, open a terminal window

Type:

cd ~/.Skype
rm shared.xml


When you have done this, restart Skype. You will need to supply your username and password, and maybe check any configuration options, but Skype will be working again!