Comment 5 for bug 303862

I also experienced the bug (13.10, Pidgin 2.10.7 (libpurple 2.10.7), pidgin-otr 4.0.0-1). After doing some research I think I can conclude that the reason must be that Pidgin tries to get the initialization randomness from /dev/random and stalls until /dev/random delivers sufficient data.

For me pidgin unfreezes after typing random data into an arbitrary text field for a few minutes to produce entropy for /dev/random. It would be adviseable to give a hint to the user as to what pidgin is waiting for, and how he can speed up the process (like using mouse/keyboard/whatever devices feed entropy to /dev/random).