How to show offline contacts?

Some of my Yahoo Messenger contacts show that I am permanently offline to them. Why and how do I fix it?

• I have gone under preferences, but the only option highlighted and usable is the "show permanently offline" to this contact. Also, some of my contacts disappeared when I started up my system, and Yahoo Messenger was activated.

• Answer:

  check your online 'status'...i'm affraid you're in 'invisible' mode....if you're in invisible mode, all of your friends cannot see you when you're online. Change the status to 'available'. You can also double check your privacy settings because sometimes we can set invisible mode to a certain people in our friends list. Worst come to worst, please browse through the options/settings, there might some options had been set to be invisible/permanently offline. Good luck.