Messenger contacts not showing up in Outlook.com after switching from Hotmail.com

So I made the switch to an @outlook.com account from within my @hotmail.com account. All my messenger contacts and groups have been moved over to the new account, however all my contacts are offline and do not show up on the messenger tab on the right side of outlook.com. I've asked a friend and although it says I am signed in on the Outlook.com site, I am not online in their messenger. How can I fix this so that I can use outlook.com to chat with my messenger contacts? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!