IM history in-game?

Maybe I just can't see it, but is there a way to access IM history from within SL? I know I can go check the AV's name file in the folder where they get saved.... but that is inconvenient.

The other day someone IM'd me and I just saw the IM come up before SL crashed on me... so I didn't see who sent it or what it said (and it doesn't get saved under the history button once you logout or crash). I had to go searching through all the AV IM history files to try and see who said something new to me. Ridiculous.

Have you tried having them sent to you by email (it's an option in Prefs)? At least then, you would just have to go and retrieve the latest emails and they would be there right near the top.

IM "History" will show in your chat history only if you have that option enabled: Preferences/Communication/IM Options and check "Include IM In Chat History."

This *only* works until a crash or relog. You lose all Chat and IM history once you relog *unless*:

You have enabled logging all IM or Chat to your hard drive. It's just text, and with today's HDs in the gigabyte range, logging your IMs (if nothing else) may not be a bad idea at all. If you have a big HD, you may also want to log chat.

(BTW, those log files can be zipped and take even less space on your HD).

To turn on logging: Preferences/Communication/Logging Options and check your desired logging options.

I strongly recommend changing the path for your logs to something other than the default to keep your SL partition area clean and neat.

Yes, as Tid says, you can have them sent as e-mails.

Doesn't that only work if you are offline when someone sends you an IM?

Good point Mark. I do not have that option engaged so can't verify but suspect you are correct.

We need an option to have IM's sent to our email address regardless of whether we're online or not. I have people IM me and I don't always respond right away if I'm busy chatting to somebody. Then by the time I finally finish chatting, I sometimes forget about the IM's waiting and log off. DOH!. It's not so bad if I know who messaged me, but very often it's total stranger and I can't remember their name. ARRGH!

But the above issue aside, it would be nice to have an option to have all IM's sent to our inbox. The current IM mode puts too much pressure on people to respond immediately.

Why is it i feel my replies are sometimes a waste of time? My Reply #3 will solve your problem Suisei but evidently no one cares to review it.

I was aware of the new message logging feature. But I don't use it. It's far from ideal to reply to messages found in a text file.

But you're right, it would solve the problem of logging (crashing) out and missing important IM's. But that's only a small part of a bigger problem for me.

There is a solution to this particular problem. It won't show you the entire history, but will show you the most recent conversation.

Go into preferences, on the Communication tab, under Logging Options, check the box that reads "Show end of last IM conversation". You need to be logged in to change this setting (which means you can't try it until the grid is back up).

Yes, but it was the offline IMs that were lost (crashing just after logging in), weren't they?

Thanks for your response.... I will try that.

PS - i think you were probably the only person that actually READ my question... ha

I love you too. Sorry I wasted your time and mine trying to help you.

**Exactly** why I rarely contribute to these forums.

You could always try using a bigger font.

Maybe post in red too.

Looking at your post #3, it is obvious you did not read my post as you just tell me things that I already mentioned doing. Then the discussion kind of de-railed from my question until Kidd Krasner gave me an answer that actually fit my specific question.

Ooh I wonder if that's what's been happening to me... whenever I open a new IM to someone I never see previous chat history, even though I have chat logging enabled. Must check this out!

but that's easy. sort by date modified.

You know... I didn't even think of that! Stupid me.

No, not stupid... it's just not the first thing people think of doing. I personally would hate to have them all go to email. Holy email spam, Batman. It's bad enough as is, with group notices and offline IMs.

Have you ever spoken to a tech support or sales person who gave the answer they knew rather than trying to understand the question? it's common - they want to work fast, and siince 9 out of 10 people may ask the same question, they figure it's faster to just give the corresponding answer rather than waiting to be sure they haven't gotten the tenth person.

It's frustrating when this happens. It feels like you're wasting time asking, in addition to the other person wasting time answering the question that wasn't asked.

In this case, you assumed that the original poster first needed to turn on history logging, because most people don't. But it's clear from the base note that this person already had it on.

So don't moan, or complain that people are ignoring you. You answered a common question, it just wasn't the question that was being asked. Instead, do what you'd like that support person to do, namely listen and try to make sure they understand the problem before answering it.

I have reviewed the original post and willingly admit I failed to digest the ". . .check the AV's name file in the folder where they get saved . . ." to mean the IMs were already being saved to HD.

I like to think I rarely mis-read things but obviously this was something of a wake-up call and I apologize to all with intent to read future questions more carefully before shooting off a reply.

No worries, Amras!. I misread posts all the time.

...and I dont plan on changing.

Where exactly are the chat logs stored, by the way? (Like, where on the hard drive. I just poked my SecondLife Application Data folder and didn't see anything obvious.)

Have you enabled logging of messages in preferences?

They are only stored if you invoke the option as described in my errant "Reply #3" to this thread.

Yes, it's been enabled since we got the chat logging feature, but I've never found the files on my hard drive. Where are they?