iChat keeps silently going offline I've been using iChat, and it tends to switch itself into "offline" mode from time to time. It will make no notification of this, so I often only discover it after I miss some messages, especially since its "connected" and "disconnected" menubar icons are nearly identical.

Sometimes this happens multiple times in a short time-span (sometimes even right after the other), other times it might just happen occasionally. But in general it's pretty frequent. It has happened during chats as well.

My internet connection throughout these disconnects is pretty stable: everything else seems to be working well, and the connection is wired.

I've looked at this related question - iChat periodically disconnects - but the situation described is a bit different, as I don't get any notice about "disconnecting", it just silently becomes offline. In addition, the proposed work-around in that question - using Chax - does not work for Lion.

Is there any way to solve this, or do I have to find an alternative IM client?
Adium can be good alternative. Lifehacker calls it best IM client for Mac:
http://lifehacker.com/5802325/the-best-instant-messaging-application-for-mac  

iChat is buggy, I had same problem and other problems too.