diff --git a/lib/util.php b/lib/util.php
index 5d16e39b56..e0eda0114b 100644
--- a/lib/util.php
+++ b/lib/util.php
@@ -519,11 +519,16 @@ function common_shorten_links($text)
 
 function common_shorten_link($url, $reverse = false)
 {
+
     static $url_cache = array();
     if ($reverse) return isset($url_cache[$url]) ? $url_cache[$url] : $url;
 
     $user = common_current_user();
-
+    if (!isset($user)) {
+      // common current user does not find a user when called from the XMPP daemon
+      // therefore we'll set one here fix, so that XMPP given URLs may be shortened
+      $user->urlshorteningservice = 'ur1.ca';
+    }
     $curlh = curl_init();
     curl_setopt($curlh, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 20); // # seconds to wait
     curl_setopt($curlh, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Laconica');
@@ -1334,4 +1339,3 @@ function common_database_tablename($tablename)
   //table prefixes could be added here later
   return $tablename;
 }
-
diff --git a/scripts/xmppdaemon.php b/scripts/xmppdaemon.php
index 0ce2f2a280..b79fa1b3ba 100755
--- a/scripts/xmppdaemon.php
+++ b/scripts/xmppdaemon.php
@@ -152,11 +152,6 @@ class XMPPDaemon extends Daemon
             $body = preg_replace('/d[\ ]*('. $to .')[\ ]*/', '', $pl['body']);
             $this->add_direct($user, $body, $to, $from);
         } else {
-            $len = mb_strlen($pl['body']);
-            if($len > 140) {
-                $this->from_site($from, 'Message too long - maximum is 140 characters, you sent ' . $len);
-                return;
-            }
             $this->add_notice($user, $pl);
         }
 
@@ -255,15 +250,13 @@ class XMPPDaemon extends Daemon
     function add_notice(&$user, &$pl)
     {
         $body = trim($pl['body']);
-        $content_shortened = common_shorten_link($body);
+        $content_shortened = common_shorten_links($body);
         if (mb_strlen($content_shortened) > 140) {
-            $content = trim(mb_substr($body, 0, 140));
-            $content_shortened = common_shorten_link($content);
+          $from = jabber_normalize_jid($pl['from']);
+          $this->from_site($from, "Message too long - maximum is 140 characters, you sent ".mb_strlen($content_shortened));
+          return;
         }
-        else {
-            $content = $body;
-        }
-        $notice = Notice::saveNew($user->id, $content, 'xmpp');
+        $notice = Notice::saveNew($user->id, $content_shortened, 'xmpp');
         if (is_string($notice)) {
             $this->log(LOG_ERR, $notice);
             return;