Windows Live Messenger Buddy List Disappeared

so wen i was installing the new version of windows live messenger about a week ago, i had consistant issues with it freezing up and not working, so i tried installing Pidgin as my IM client, pidgin works fine but my buddy list will not display, i thought this might be an issue with pidgin but even when i tried my windows live account with an online IM client (meebo) my contacts STILL won't show up, for some reason, its seems my contacts have all disappeared and this issue only arrised after trying out the new version of Windows Live Messenger.

has anyone heard of this problem before or know of any solution?

Thanks