Broken Chat List

[Rob O'Keefe]

I may have posted this in the wrong place yesterday (attached to a version release announcment). Proabalby better as its own post:

I have a long standing problem and wonder if others have same problem. In the Chat list (of past chats), chats with the same person get broken up into many small chats, even if they happen on same day and are close togehter. So my chat list looks like:

Sally

Sally

Jim

Sally

Steve

Steve

Jim

Jim

Steve

Sally

Sally

Showing a list of 10 or more chats instead of one per person. Does this happen to everyone?

Skype for Mac 16.8.198 , but this has happened for a long time.

Rob.

[#2]

Rob-

This is something that I frequently see as well. 

I'm not sure why this is different than the windows version or the old version of Lync. 

Thanks

-Ben

[#3]

What is your retention period for chat? We have retention turned off, which terminates the chat if not read soon enough, and this can cause the issue you see. A record of the chat is recorded, but the content is no longer there. 

[#4]

We have not changed retention (nor would I know where). To be clear though, I am not seeing empty messages. What i was talking about is a series of chats in history with one person rather than it being shown as one long chat. I don't know what starts and stops a chat.

[#5]

I'm seeing the same thing. Windows does not have this issue.

[#6]

As with others, I see the same thing. No such problem in Windows.

In particular, the chats are mostly, kindof the same. I can click any one with a given name and most of the time I'll get the entire conversation, but sometimes I'm missing the latest updates. Very difficult, since it's causing gaps and repeats.

I've even had me type in a chat to someone, and when they replied it started a newer chat that continues this thread. I thought they hadn't replied, but it was a new chat created where they thought I wasn't replying.

Currently using 16.10.97 but this isn't new, it's been this way for 6+ months at least (when I started).

Worst chat interface ever.

[#7]

This is continuing to be a pain, if anything it got worse recently. So frustrating. I wonder if microsoft even acknowledges this bug?

I'm on v 16.11.115.

[#8]

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@Jo Rhett wrote:

As with others, I see the same thing. No such problem in Windows.

In particular, the chats are mostly, kindof the same. I can click any one with a given name and most of the time I'll get the entire conversation, but sometimes I'm missing the latest updates. Very difficult, since it's causing gaps and repeats.

I've even had me type in a chat to someone, and when they replied it started a newer chat that continues this thread. I thought they hadn't replied, but it was a new chat created where they thought I wasn't replying.

Currently using 16.10.97 but this isn't new, it's been this way for 6+ months at least (when I started).

Worst chat interface ever.

---

This continues to be a problem, it is so frustrating. Does anyone know a MSFT contact here in the Skype area to get some attention to this?

[#9]

This is a known issue and has been discussed at length in other conversations in this forum.  Skype for Business has always had a session-based, not people-based, conversation model.  Every conversation session is saved as an independent entry in the Conversation History folder in Outlook, and the Chats list is a direct reflection of the Conversation History.  If you look at the Conversation History tab in the Windows app's main window, you will see the same list.  (Note that if you leave a chat tab with a user open in Windows, all conversations go to that tab and will be visible as long as the tab is left open. If you close the tab, messages in the Conversation History are saved in their individual sessions, as on the Mac.)

There are many reasons why what seems like one conversation get divided into separate sessions. One example that happens frequently (but is transparent to a user on Mac) is when you send a message to a someone who uses Windows, and they close the chat window on their side and later open a new window -- that is a new conversation session.  

The good news is that we have a new feature that we have released in Insider build to help with this problem.  Please read my post here and give us your feedback!

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Mac-Insider/Feedback-wanted-on-the-new-Gro...

Phil Garding

[#10]

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@Phillip Garding wrote:

This is a known issue and has been discussed at length in other conversations in this forum.  

 ....

There are many reasons why what seems like one conversation get divided into separate sessions. One example that happens frequently (but is transparent to a user on Mac) is when you send a message to a someone who uses Windows, and they close the chat window on their side and later open a new window -- that is a new conversation session.  

The good news is that we have a new feature that we have released in Insider build to help with this problem.  Please read my post here and give us your feedback!

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Mac-Insider/Feedback-wanted-on-the-new-Gro...

Phil Garding

---

Phil,

Thanks for posting, we appreciate getting posts from MSFT employees. Can you post a link to the "discussed at length" threads in this forum? I have been on here a long time and searched a lot and did not see them, nor anything I would describe as a "known issue". My original post of this thread was June 2017. 

For the existing problem and the proposed solution you posted, the end user should not have to know or care or be exposed to how the data is stored. I don't see any functional reason why all of my 1-1 chats with another person would not be one long history. So to find something I have to scroll back in the first one, then scroll back in the next one, etc. -- or search and get a bunch of results to look through.

Having said that I am soon moving to Teams and I have not experienced the same issue on Teams, hopefully it does not work the same way.

Thanks,
Rob.

[#11]

My mistake - the conversation that has had the longest discussion was actually in a different forum, although I thought this had come up here, also.  (We have a lot of feedback on this behavior.)

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-IT-Pro/Multiple-chats-sessions-with-same-c...

I agree that the user doesn't care about the storage, but I offered this as explanation for why the behavior is what it is.  This is long-standing architectural design for Skype for Business as a whole.  You are correct that Microsoft Teams does not have this issue because the architecture and storage is entirely different from Skype for Business. 

Thanks for your comments.

Phil. 

[#12]

All good... I somehow didn't see that post and thought the problem was more Mac as i hadn't seen it on Windows. 

Seems like you are doing the best you can with what you have -- grouping is better than not grouping -- but merged together would be even better!

Again, thanks for posting @Phillip Garding