Why is your messengers contact list not available?

I have been experiencing problems signing into Messenger (Version 2009), I keep getting a message saying "Can't sign you into messenger because your contacts list is not available". I tried everything on the MSN help pages and various forums and none of this worked, BUT I have just discovered that it only happens when I have Windows Live Mail running. If you close Live Mail and try again you should have no problems signing in. You can then re-open Live Mail and have both running at the same time without problems!