MSN connection bug - HELP!

Stephen Stafford ("caracolo", CC'ed - not subscribed to the list as far 
as I'm aware, so please keep the CC) just popped up on IRC with a doozy 
of a bug report. It goes something like this:

Take a virgin core (no prior config). Add a local account on MSN. Set 
its password. Tell it to go online. It will fail mysteriously, 
complaining of having lost a connection.

Now connect another UI (it can even be another eb-console, it really 
doesn't matter). Don't do anything with it, just connect it. Now go 
back to the first UI, and try signing on again. It will work.

And, for a final kicker - this does not happen if you use ebqt.

What. The. Hell?

I attach a cortex script which will reproduce this problem (good time to 
get used to it, cause I'm going to start reporting core bugs like this 
whenever I can). To use it:

(1) Make and start a "virgin" core
mkdir ~/.ebdebug
core/src/eb-lite -d ~/.ebdebug

(2) Build this script into cortex, and run it.
cd core/cortex/
mv ~/msn_connect.cf ./cortex_tests.cf
make
./cortex -c ~/.ebdebug/authcookie


I would really, *really* appreciate packet dumps of the conversation 
between the core and the server (pcap format please - that's tcpdump, 
ethereal and friends), cause my ethereal is down the tubes at the 
moment.

This (type of) bug appears to be unique to MSN from what I can see.

Meredydd