Things haven't been easy lately for AOL's Instant Messenger service, with recent layoffs striking such a chord that the company had to publicly insist that it wasn't going to be shuttering AIM altogether. Things got a little bit worse today, with Gizmodo reporting that many long-time users have found themselves unable to access their accounts via third-party clients. Some individuals faced with the "AOL does not allow your screen name to authenticate here" error were reportedly able to accept new terms of service and reset their passwords directly on AIM.com. Of course, with AIM having been out in the marketplace for such a long time — the service originally launched way back in 1997 — the question of long-forgotten email addresses and security questions can come into play rather rapidly. For its part, AOL told Gizmodo that it was aware of the issue and is "working on a fix" — thought that's likely cold comfort for those still locked out of their accounts.