IM timings

I am not in-world at the moment, but there appears to be an issue with the time stamps of my IM's. The ones I view when I log in, appear to show the actual sl time I log in and not the date/time they were actually sent. The same IM's to email appear to show the actual date/time they were sent (I am not sure if that is sl or rl time). Similarly if I send one to an off-line friend they are noted at the time I log off, not when I actualy sent them. Consequently friends are always complaining they missed me by a minute and vice versa.

Confused.com - can someone explain to me the timings on IM's please viz: online sent/offline received, because I don't understand the correlation.

regards
fox

Yeah, it gets weird, but it does make sense once you've got it figured out:

An offline IM (one you send to someone who is not online) is queued in the system until your recipient is online. Once your recient connects to the system, the queued IM is routed to that person's message box, with the time stamp showing when it was delivered. Embedded in the message, however, is another time/date stamp that shows when the message was queued.

If you have the option enabled, all IM's addressed to you will always be routed to your e-mail as soon as it hits the message queue, so your delivered e-mail will have the time/date stamp of when it was sent.

Hope that clears it up for you.

Offline IMs will show the time the IM was sent but in your own timezone rather than SLT.

I.e.: you send someone in the UK an offline IM at 1pm SLT. At 2pm SLT that person logs on and they'll see that you sent them a message at 9pm *local* time.

mmmm ok thanks..... i'll have to check that out. It seems that even with IM's to email enabled, I still get the same message when I log on. Duplication so to speak. As you mentioned kath, the queued timings are weird on both. I hadn't noticed the 'imbedded' timings you mentioned, only the fact that I seem to miss people by a minute and vice versa. Ho hum.

Since we just put our clocks forward one hour in UK, can someone tell me what the actual time difference to SLT, is at present please?

Eight hours - Daylight Saving Time ended in the USA last Sunday.

Pep (It used to be the last Sunday in October like Europe, until the candy manufacturers lobbied for a change - so the kids could get even sicker on Halloween.)

I tend to send an IM to my alt if I see or spot something I want to look at later (or to remind me of something) so here's a practical example:

What I saw (date/time in the log is in SLT):
[2009/10/29 17:18] Kitty Barnett: something
[2009/10/29 17:18] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

What my alt saw:
[2009/11/04 3:39] Kitty Barnett: (Saved Fri Oct 30 01:18:28 2009) something

The highlighted portion is the *sending time* (in your local time zone). Since I was 8 hours ahead of SLT at the time this was sent Fri Oct 30 01:18:28 2009 becomes "October 29th 17:18:28" which matches the SLT date and time of sending.

It's possible your friends aren't reading past the IM timestamp but then they just need a smack on the head for not reading what follows after it .

Okay, now that's interesting! I didn't know that it was displayed in the local time zone (how the heck does LL know what your time zone is, anyway?) since I happen to live in the US - Pacific Time zone, so my time IS SL time.

This goes along with an earlier complaint I had about group notices showing timestamps as UTC time, when it would be more relevant for them to be timestamped as SL time. Now we have offlines being timestamped as yet another time zone?

"Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?"

"25 or 6 to 4".

Pep (And there's flashing lights across the sky - it's Bonfire Night in the UK.)

If I wasn't confused before then I am now

Funny that.

I talk to my alts all the time too. Thay're a great buncha guys (and gal). We have a real good banter going these days.

I gave up worrying about the IM time confusion a long time back although I always wished they published the time a communication was sent. It makes sense to me that way since I *know* the time I got the damn thing when I log on. Of course it would be peachy keen if they published both time sent and time recieved. Something like:

Doobeedoobee Sinatra sent this IM [2009/11/04 11:25]

[2009/11/05 12:15] Doobeedoobee Sinatra: Hi
[2009/11/05 12:15] Doobeedoobee Sinatra: I'm bored out of my skull.
[2009/11/05 12:15] Doobeedoobee Sinatra: What you doing?

I don't like getting IMs in my email. SL business should stay in SL.

*confuzzled*

That's exactly what they already do... the first time stamp is when you received it. The date/time stamp in between parenthesis is the time it was sent to you (if in your own timezone rather than SL's).

Thanks for the clarification, Kitty. I should be more careful to engage my brain before I put the keyboard into gear.

All offline IMs will go to email if that is enabled. Additionally, up to the maximum of 20 or so, will be delivered to you when you log in. This is cuz the delivery of queued messages is not directly tied to whether or not they were sent to email. However, once you hit that magic number of queued items - IMs, inventory offers, group notices, whatever, you will still get emails, but they will not be saved in the queue for delivery upon login.

ok thanks guys i'll see what happens when i log in and if necessary try and explain to the thickos that IM me offline that, i really just didn't leave a minute before they came online )