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RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) - Printable Version

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RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by blueirisflower on 02-17-2011 at 10:37 AM

Hey everyone!  I was wondering if you could help me.

I set my msn to save my chat history in a folder and moments later, when I went to check - it just wasn't there. I mean, not at all.
0, ziltch, nada. No file.

Absolutely nothing. This has never happened.
I went back to make SURE I had set it to save the history and it was. So I don't know what went wrong.

So, if it just isn't there does that mean that it failed to save it? Is there no hope?
Is there ANY way at all to get it or find it?

Help is appreciated!! Thanks!!!


RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by Menthix on 02-17-2011 at 02:49 PM

Did you recently change the path to where the logs are saved? Perhaps they still exist in an old folder? If you can't find the file anywhere it is unlikely it ever got saved.

Does it save new conversation you have from now on? Messenger doesn't always save conversations direct, if the conversation window is still open, close it. Conversation are often only saved to disk once you close the window, this is done to keep harddisk activity down during a conversation.


RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by CookieRevised on 02-17-2011 at 05:04 PM

I think he is talking about Messenger Plus! logging, not about Windows Live Messenger logging. Is this correct, blueirisflower?

If so, people have reported this issue before a couple of times (recently). It seems that there are some issues with the creation of logs in Plus! in certain cases.
.


RE: RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by blueirisflower on 02-17-2011 at 06:53 PM

quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
I think he is talking about Messenger Plus! logging, not about Windows Live Messenger logging. Is this correct, blueirisflower?

If so, people have reported this issue before a couple of times (recently). It seems that there are some issues with the creation of logs in Plus! in certain cases.
.

Oh, but it is Windows Live messenger and not Plus.


And the thing is, I didn't change the folder. You see, I had just installed windows live messenger on my new lappy so it was the first time I used it. Would the first time using it after it's installed be a problem for saving chat history?
RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by CookieRevised on 02-18-2011 at 01:45 AM

quote:
Originally posted by blueirisflower
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
I think he is talking about Messenger Plus! logging, not about Windows Live Messenger logging. Is this correct, blueirisflower?

If so, people have reported this issue before a couple of times (recently). It seems that there are some issues with the creation of logs in Plus! in certain cases.
Oh, but it is Windows Live messenger and not Plus.
Ah, I stand corrected then.

Strange though that both seem to suffer from the 'same' thing then... hmmm....
RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by blueirisflower on 02-18-2011 at 06:01 PM

Just wanted to update.

I had another chat on msn last night - making SURE it was set to save the history is a specific file and later on, I went to check and it wasn't there. Nothing at all was saved. Still not even a file.

So, I went searching all my folders to see if MAYBE it got saved somewhere else, and there's still nothing.

Let's say it IS somewhere on my computer, but it's lost. How would I go about finding it?


I don't want to yet resort to re installation because I still want to try everything to try and find the missing logs first. But Maybe eventually I should try.



RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by CookieRevised on 02-18-2011 at 06:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by blueirisflower

Let's say it IS somewhere on my computer, but it's lost. How would I go about finding it?
Search your HDD for a specific string used in the conversation. But don't search on unicode characters or other 'special' characters which might be encoded when saved in a XML/HTML file.

And by searching HDD I don't mean using Windows build-in file search utility because that has the tendancy to skip certain files (Microsoft's way of being 'intelligent' and helping the user :rolleyes:). You better use a tool which can realy scan your HDD byte by byte, like a disk editor. It will take a long time, but in that way you will be sure that everything is searched _and_ possibly deleted data is searched too.
RE: RE: RE: Help on MSN Chat History (missing history) by blueirisflower on 02-19-2011 at 10:48 AM

quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
quote:
Originally posted by blueirisflower

Let's say it IS somewhere on my computer, but it's lost. How would I go about finding it?
Search your HDD for a specific string used in the conversation. But don't search on unicode characters or other 'special' characters which might be encoded when saved in a XML/HTML file.

And by searching HDD I don't mean using Windows build-in file search utility because that has the tendancy to skip certain files (Microsoft's way of being 'intelligent' and helping the user :rolleyes:). You better use a tool which can realy scan your HDD byte by byte, like a disk editor. It will take a long time, but in that way you will be sure that everything is searched _and_ possibly deleted data is searched too.


OK, guess what happened?  I was just about to ask a friend of mine for help searching for it with a disk editor as you mentioned - and I clicked on the folder where my logs were supposed to be saved.... Lo and behold my most recent chat log was there!

It happened at around 9 pm a few hours after my last talk. It just appeared, but it's not the first one which is the one I want.

How do you think this happened? Was it just some kind of delay in saving and it just suddenly "woke up"?

It just seems to be working fine now. But I am still confuddled as to why it only started saving it now O.o?

I'm still going to try to do as you mentioned just to make sure the chat log I want is/isn't there. But this is all so unusual.