Shoutbox

I've been using the normal MSN Messenger for some time along with Plus and have been happy with it.

I recently upgraded to Messenger live and thus upgrades to plus for ML.

I've run into a problem with my chat logs that from a search, some other users have run into.

The problem is, since Plus kept the logs for this month in the root of my chat folder and  Live keeps them in a folder for March from the get go, my logs ended up split.

I figured, okay, no problem, I'll just append the new file with the content from the old log (ie, copy everything from the text file of the old log and paste it into the new log above the start of the old log) so they're in sync.

Unfortunatly, as soon as I did this, it started to create a new file for new conversations with a (2) at the end of the filename for that contact! I found this strange but decided after a few tries to rectify it to leave it alone and that I would merge the old files with new ones at the end of the month and from then on I assume that I would be all right.

For some reason though, it's started to create an additonal file (with a (3)) for one of my contacts! It started when I had a conversation with two other people. I kept it open after one person left. When I closed the window and we started to speak again, it again was logging it in the (2) file.

Does anyone know why it does this? It's annoying having my logs split up like this.

-edit-

Forgot to mention that the first time I had a conversation with the same two other people, it kept it in the (2) file as normal. So, I have no idea why it put it into a new file for the second time.

The problem went away for a few days then it returned. What happened when it returned gave me a clue as to what's causing it.

I was having a conversation with two other people. One of them crashed and left the conversation. I kept the window with the remaining contact open.

When the second contact came back online, one of them brought me into a new conversation between the three of us which opened in a diffrent window (while I still had the initial one open). At this point Plus began to log into the (2) file for the first contact (ie, the one that remained online when the other one went offline).

So, the problem seems to be that if you have more then one window open for a contact (such as being in a conversation with two or more people with said contact while also having a conversation with just him or her in another window) it will use a diffrent log for each window.

I don't recall this happening before Live. I think what it did was that it kept the logs in your temp folder for the chats. When you closed the window it would then append the chat logs. Live seems to appent then directly, which causes the problem when you have multiple windows open for a single contact.

Actually, that's by design. This is to prevent logs mixing up with one another which could happen in older versions. If you're talking to the same contact in different windows, another file will automatically be created. Thsi seem to be the best compromise so far, although I agree, it needs improvement, especially if you often get into multi-contact chats.