messages all vanished

[revvernonsmith]

Help please!

I up-graded from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 a week ago and all my Skype messages have vanished.   My new messages since up-grading to 7 are OK but everything sent and received whilst using XP Pro has disappeared.   Can someone please advise how to recover them.   Some were very important to me.   Many thanks in anticipation of some kind soul pulling be out of the soup.

Best regards to all,

Vernon smith  

[ruwim]

If you have not made a backup of your Skype profile files prior to upgrading to Windows 7, then all your old messages are lost forever. Skype messages are only saved locally on the computer which was used for chatting.

[revvernonsmith]

Ah-ha!   Thanks for the heads- up Ruwim.   I have everything saved (I think) on my C: drive in a folder called "Windows Old".   Please let me know how to get into the appropriate part and pull out my Skype messages and save them.   BTW.   I don't even kow what Skype profile files are.   Thanks and regards.   Rev. Vernon Smith. 

[ruwim]

In your backup directory (“Windows Old”) find a folder named “Documents and Settings\your win user name\Application Data\Skype\your skype name\”. This was your old Skype profile folder. In this folder you should see a file named main.db. It may be shown as just “main” but with description “Data Base or “DB” in the Type column. This file contains all your old chat history. The only what you need in order to recover the old messages is to replace the new main.db file with the old one.

Make sure that Skype is not running on your computer. Go to Windows Start and in the Search box type %appdata%\skype and then press Enter. This will open your new profile folder. Locate there again the folder that is named as your Skype name. Open this folder. You should see there the new main.db file. It is this file that must be replaced with the old main.db file. However, be aware that this will result in that all the recent messages will be deleted. There is no way to merge the old and the new messages.

[Garry55]

Hi, I have similar problem with all my valuable messages vanishing for no reason. I use Windows 7 and Skype is set to keep History forever. However when I log out and then back in (ie if Pc is turned off)  all my message history has gone.  How do I stop it doing this and how do I get my messages back?

[ruwim]

---

Garry55 wrote:

Hi, I have similar problem with all my valuable messages vanishing for no reason. I use Windows 7 and Skype is set to keep History forever. However when I log out and then back in (ie if Pc is turned off)  all my message history has gone.  How do I stop it doing this and how do I get my messages back?

---

Do you see main.corrupt file in %appdata%\skype folder? See this case:

http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows/All-of-my-messages-were-suddenly-deleted/m-p/776346/highlight/...

[Garry55]

Hi thanks for responding. No main.corrupt anywhere on my PC. Just a main.dbf at 9,228KB in my Appdata/Roaming/Skype/username...Folder which would look like it has data at that size, but I see none in Skype?

[ruwim]

---

Garry55 wrote:

Hi thanks for responding. No main.corrupt anywhere on my PC. Just a main.dbf at 9,228KB in my Appdata/Roaming/Skype/username...Folder which would look like it has data at that size, but I see none in Skype?

---

I hope that you mean main.db and not main.dbf. The main.db file indeed should contain all your chat data. If this database file is corrupted, then you should in the same folder see the main.corrupt file. What Skype version are you currently on? In Skype go to help -> About Skype.

Download this free application - SkypeLogView.

nirsoft.net/utils/skype_log_view.html

Using this application you should be able to see which chats are still available in this main.db file. 

[Garry55]

RUWIM  - thanks - my Skype is 5.10.0.116 and file is main and type is Data Base File

Downloaded inspection file and inspect 'main'  - it has calls, send and receive file info but no 'chat messages'

So looks like Skype has deleted all chats. No other files found with anything in.

Perhaps time to re-think viability of Skype as a primary communicator, it is surprising how big this data loss is, but perhaps I needed to learn how to make a backup.

Thanks for prompt help - appreciated.

[ruwim]

A frequent backup of the main.db file is a good idea.

Are you sure that in Tools –Options -> IM settings you have   “Keep history for forever” set and that you have never pressed the “Clear history “ button?

Note that the size of the main.db file will not change on clearing the history. All the records will just be marked as deleted.