Viewing old chat messages

[Terekhov]

Hi, relatively new CMDR here.

How do you view chat message history?

For example, I must have overflew an adjacent landing pad a little too slowly (I was going >25kph??) and received what I think was probably a rap on the knuckles message from the station for loitering. I was busy lining up to land and although the message flashed up, I stuck to my real-life pilot training and followed the “Aviate-Navigate-Communicate” prioritisation doctrine. I landed, went to review the message immediately after touchdown, but could not figure out how to. I decided to pay a brief visit to the station authority contact to check whether a fine had been levied (it hadn’t)

I know how to access the comms panel, switch between tabs, can read past emails ok, but it’s just the past chat message history I can’t find how to review.

My setup is VR (Rift s) XBOX one controller, Mainly default key bindings (certainly anything to do with the comms panel), Voice attack. I’m playing in “Solo mode”.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

AFAIK the only way is to manually search old Journal Files, is the Session(s) are in the past.
They'll contain every Comms you've ever received or sent.

Unsure if there's a specific Tool to extract Chat from the Journals though to easen things.
If anything, you'll have to remember the rough Date of whatever you're looking for.

For anything that happened during the current Session it >should< be enough to enter the Comms Panel and use the "UI Scroll Up" assigned button to scroll upwards in the Comms History to see it again. It only holds a limited amount of lines though I believe, so there's a limit of what it can do.
If the relevant Text went out of the Session History, looking at the Journal is again the only way to be sure (everything is timestamped there, so it should be easy to find).

Standard location of Journal Folder : C:\Users\{Your_Windows_Username}\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous

For Loitering Infractions (Station Comms) for example, the line will look like this :
{ "timestamp":"2020-01-08T21:20:04Z", "event":"ReceiveText", "From":"Chiang Prospect", "Message":"$DockingPadBlockWarningComms;", "Message_Localised":"Loitering infraction detected, clear pad approach immediately to avoid lethal response", "Channel":"npc" }

The "ReceiveText" string is a good search string to check the Journals for received Messages.

 

[Terekhov]

Thanks, I am specially thinking about recent messages in the current session.

If I understand your reply correctly, then if I select the chat messages tab, then use the UI Scroll up binding on the blank message page, that should make the most recent message or two visible (which is all I need)

I’ll give it a go tonight.

 

[Terekhov]

Unfortunately, I could not get the above combination to work. As an extra attempt, I also turned off the autp focus on text field option to no avail.

 

[shadowhand]

I get that loitering message occasionally when I'm coming in low. It gives you a generous amount of time to clear the space. Even if you're only going 25 km/h, which would be ah, 6.9 metres per second or so?

Anyway, unless you see an actual fine waiting for you at the authority contact, don't worry about it. You're fine.

 

[Terekhov]

It's not the fine I was worried about - that was just an example of being too preoccupied to immediately read a chat message.
It was how to get back to the chat message to read it a minute or so later (in game) that my initial question was about.

I has another case last night where a chat message came in - I could not read it at the time and it added it self to the unread message count on the chat tab 'bubble' icon on the comms panel tab bar. I could not then find a wa to read the message later.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I think there's another caveat to "review old chat from current Session".

Should you take a short break (Quit to Menu) , the chat is being cleaned from all non-Player Comms.
Only Text received/sent from/to Players is persistent and retained per Session (to the mentioned line limit).

So logging back into the Game and checking the Comms Panel, all you'd see is old Player-send/received Text - or nothing (if all you got was NPC/Station chatter).

In that case, it's already "Journals to the rescue", no other way.

PS.
On the "I got a number notification in the chat but can't find anything I missed", note that there's an older bug that'll cause this number to appear or increase - with no visible Messages you might have missed.
Very confusing (I remember I tried to figure this out myself in the past) - but can safely be ignored if no Message is found checking the Comms Panel.

Problem described by other Players is here : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/unread-messsages.536162/

 

[Terekhov]

Thanks,
I'd not quit out of the cockpit on either of the occasions that I cited.

Thanks for the info on the Journal log earlier - I'm sure that will be helpful in the future.

Regarding the Unread messages count - I'm fairly sure that there really WAS a message received on the second example that I cited. Just this time I didn't even brieffly focus on the comms panel at the time it arived. By the time I looked up to find it, it had vanished (with just the unread count and my memory that it had flashed up as testament to its existence). I had seen mention of the unread message count bug, but it's certainly not relevant in the example that I cited in my original post.

This WAS (official -not background) station chetter that I'm talking about. From what you are saying, that should remain as long as I s not get out of the pilots seat (so in the first example, get message 15s before touchdown, touchdown, (maybe enter hanger), focus on comms panel. Look for the message that I was too busy to read.

I'm convinced its one of a few things:

1. I'm using it wrong (using wrong controls, or using the panel in the wrong way)/maybe not having something bound that I sould have (but I've not messed with any bindings that might be related)
2. It's not possible (no past official station chatter is viewable?) - although sometimes when another message comes in -"Leaving no fire zone" or whatever - I do see previous messages in that same view)
3. A bug

If it's one of the first category - I'll be most embarrassed/annoyed with myself - 45 years of experience with technology, 35 years in IT, very experienced network technician. I generally hold computers the right way up without thinking!

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Just to recheck - did you succeed in scrolling your Text Messages upward for review of older Messages?

If not, remember the "UI Highlight" so to speak in the Comms Panel is initially on the left side of the Comms Panel. There, it is used to toggle (up/down) through different Tabs if those are setup (i.e. Player Messages or System Chat can appear in a separate Tab if setup so in the Comms Preferences).

So if "UI Up" Input initially doesn't seem to do anything despite having the Comms Panel in Focus, make sure you give it a single "UI Right" Input in order to put the UI highlight onto the Text Panel itself.

 

[Terekhov]

No, I've still not been able to review older messages in game. I'm beginning to think that the software, as it is, does not give a path to access them. This would also explain those reports of stuck chat text counts from a few years ago. If a text came in but was missed at the time by the player, set the chat unread counter on the speech bubble in the tab bar, but then was unaccessible to manually read, that might be reported as a stuck unread message counter.

I've dug into at the journal logs that you pointed me to and I can see that the channel that the messages are attributed to is "npc". reading similar messages on screen, the messages seem to be on the "local" channel from the starport name.

As I'm still only running the software in Solo play mode, I've not been communicating with real players and as such have not yet gained a lot of experience navigating that chat tab.I did however have a fiddle just before lunch, and ensured that I'd explored what I could do with the chat panel.

I did a short filght to pick up some local chat (just things like "No fire zone cleared" - no infractions. They appeared at the time on the local channel attributed to the station I was near.

With my Rift, I focused on the comms panel, it raised. I could used left and right buttons on my xbox controller to navigate the tab bar at the top of the comms panel.If I had the Messages (not chat) tab highlighted, then I could use the UI Scroll down and up to navigate the messages (and right, to access the delete message control.

With the Rift still pointing at the comms tab (unbroken focus from that initial look), and then using the Xbox controller left button to access the chat tab bar button, then at that point, the only UI Scroll button that seems to do anything is UI Scroll left - that takes me to the column of channel buttons on the left - I can then scroll up/down that list with UI Scroll up/down, and enter a channel with UI scroll right.

In the "Local" channel (titled "Chat | Main" above) I see nothing (and UI Scroll up/down does nothing). In the "System" channel ("Chat | System" above) I probably see nothing but after UI Scroll Up, I sometimes see "Entered channel" messages (but then of courde there have been no comms on that channel, so that looks right ot me).

It seems odd that there is not a way to access, in-game, shortly after the fact, recent messages of the class that I described, but that seems to be the case hmmmmm.....

 

[Lightspeed]

No, I've still not been able to review older messages in game. I'm beginning to think that the software, as it is, does not give a path to access them. This would also explain those reports of stuck chat text counts from a few years ago. If a text came in but was missed at the time by the player, set the chat unread counter on the speech bubble in the tab bar, but then was unaccessible to manually read, that might be reported as a stuck unread message counter.

I've dug into at the journal logs that you pointed me to and I can see that the channel that the messages are attributed to is "npc". reading similar messages on screen, the messages seem to be on the "local" channel from the starport name.

As I'm still only running the software in Solo play mode, I've not been communicating with real players and as such have not yet gained a lot of experience navigating that chat tab.I did however have a fiddle just before lunch, and ensured that I'd explored what I could do with the chat panel.

I did a short filght to pick up some local chat (just things like "No fire zone cleared" - no infractions. They appeared at the time on the local channel attributed to the station I was near.

With my Rift, I focused on the comms panel, it raised. I could used left and right buttons on my xbox controller to navigate the tab bar at the top of the comms panel.If I had the Messages (not chat) tab highlighted, then I could use the UI Scroll down and up to navigate the messages (and right, to access the delete message control.

With the Rift still pointing at the comms tab (unbroken focus from that initial look), and then using the Xbox controller left button to access the chat tab bar button, then at that point, the only UI Scroll button that seems to do anything is UI Scroll left - that takes me to the column of channel buttons on the left - I can then scroll up/down that list with UI Scroll up/down, and enter a channel with UI scroll right.

In the "Local" channel (titled "Chat | Main" above) I see nothing (and UI Scroll up/down does nothing). In the "System" channel ("Chat | System" above) I probably see nothing but after UI Scroll Up, I sometimes see "Entered channel" messages (but then of courde there have been no comms on that channel, so that looks right ot me).

It seems odd that there is not a way to access, in-game, shortly after the fact, recent messages of the class that I described, but that seems to be the case hmmmmm.....

EDDiscovery stores the NPC messages. You get the chance to read them in the "event" column of the spreadsheet that it produces.

It can be downloaded here. It's handy as a visual log of your travels, too , amongst other things !

 

[Yndar]

Newbeeee here. The prob wid a lotta new games is VR. They try to get away without using a mouse anymore.... understandably.
Any whooo these menus are confusing without a mouse but..... once you learn em they seem to be acceptable.
In yur case:

When you press "2" to bring up chat the default mode is to automatically put you in text mode. You'll notice you have to hit escape twice to exit all the way out.
Well just hitting "ESC" once puts you back not only in menu mode but in read only chat mode. That's where you can scroll up and down in the chat window with whatever you have set for UI Panel Up and UI Panel Down under UI Interface settings. I use "W" and "S" and can scroll all the way back up to the top.


I was frustrated by the same thing so.... yur not alone. Cheers. Hope this helps.

 

[Bottom Hat]

They've probably solved the necromancy by now, but good on your wizardry skills and helpful observations

 

[tnehjw]

They've probably solved the necromancy by now, but good on your wizardry skills and helpful observations

Newbeeee here. The prob wid a lotta new games is VR. They try to get away without using a mouse anymore.... understandably.
Any whooo these menus are confusing without a mouse but..... once you learn em they seem to be acceptable.
In yur case:

When you press "2" to bring up chat the default mode is to automatically put you in text mode. You'll notice you have to hit escape twice to exit all the way out.
Well just hitting "ESC" once puts you back not only in menu mode but in read only chat mode. That's where you can scroll up and down in the chat window with whatever you have set for UI Panel Up and UI Panel Down under UI Interface settings. I use "W" and "S" and can scroll all the way back up to the top.


I was frustrated by the same thing so.... yur not alone. Cheers. Hope this helps.

Yup thanks. Helpful comments Yndar even 2 yrs later!