Broken user lists

I found reports of this problem, but they date back several years.
The Invisible List, Visible List, and Online Notify don't seem to work
any longer in the current Debian (etch/stable) release.  I also
downloaded an SVN snapshot from the end of June and built it, but it
also exhibited the same behavior.
In other words, if I log on as invisible, I stay invisible no matter
what. Even users in my visible list no longer see me online with these
latest versions.  Is this a known issue, or is there something else
new that I'm overlooking?  Thanks!