imessage conversations out of order?

Unfortunately, that didn't help me when I tried it. Glad your issue got sorted though! As I'm watching this issue, I am thinking more and more that there is some sort of time/date/syncing issue as my MBP is the only machine out of all of my Mac products that experiences this issue and issues with syncing Reminders - my MBP will actually un-complete a task and sync that around to all of my devices.

I've checked settings 100 times. I've removed accounts and added them again a dozen times. I've applied every update in order. At this point, I'm just going to have to deal with the frustration, I think. Unfortunate - as simplicity is Apple's hallmark (or used to be).

Thanks all for the discussion! Here's hoping it gets noticed in the right places!

Hi,

I followed those instructions and deleted the entire contents of my User > Library > Messages folder. So far the problem of out-of-order messages, in the Messages app on my Mac, hasn't returned.

BUT... one problem is, my Mac hasn't reconnected/redownloaded any of my past messages/conversations, prior to following the instructions. They're still all on my iPhone, but my Mac won't let me view them. Is this normal? I thought Messages was all cloud-based, in that, the messages are stored in the cloud.

Hi,

In Mountain Lion the Messages 7.0.x storage of iMessages in the chat.db (and other support databases) and the Archive for Saved chats are all in ~/Library/Messages which you said you emptied.

So the chat.db that was storing your iMessages "history" (and showing you them in the wrong order) has been deleted.

The Messages are on the iMessages severs. (nothing to do with iCloud)

I have sent from an iPhone on a Hotel WiFi on a Friday evening and picked up the Sync on my Mac on a Sunday evening.

I sure it may be possible to do this over the Friday to Monday when you might not have your work Mac, but I have not tried it over this length of time.

I.e. you might just get some of the latest iMessages synched.

However they are pushed from the server end and the app probably indicates it has received them so they are not sent again.

9:35 pm Wednesday; December 25, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

View > Sort Conversations > By Time

I seemed to have reached a resolution here - which for the moment seems to be sticking on my MBP (original issue here).

• Logged out of iCloud completely and allowed everything (contacts, calendars, etc) to be deleted from my MBP as iCloud was being turned off.
• Logged out of Messages.
• Deleted the following preference files:
  • com.apple.imservice.iMessage.plist
  • com.apple.imessage.bag.plist
  • com.apple.ichat.plist
  • com.apple.imagent.plist
• Logged out and back on to empty the trash.
• Opened Messages and saw that it was blank, although each conversation remained in the left side of the window. For example, I saw that I had a conversation with my wife, but when I open the conversation, it was blank.
• Logged back in to iCloud in Internet Account and resynced items I wished to sync.
• Logged back in to Messages app.
• Opened a conversation and watched as it was populated with previous iMessages - IN ORDER.

I have used it for about two days with no issues.

That's just too much work.

<Edited By Host>

Hi,

We are not Apple.

We are users just like yourselves - other then the fact we post more regularly with answers rather than Questions.

There are some Apple Employees here as Hosts (Moderators) who rarley if ever post in the Public Communities.

There are some Posters employed by Apple as "Community Specialists" who tend to only pick up on unanswered threads after about 24 hours. They tend to post links to Articles and Documents that Apple have On line about various apps and functions of the OS.

Engineers for a particular app or part of the OS don't read the boards.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ works. Although you get no answer enough people with the same reported issue can get changes made (it may take several updates to get there).

Swearing at us will not help.

9:51 pm Monday; April 14, 2014

I thought I'd just experienced this problem. In a second in one of my threads everything was in order, then without looking my hand did something inadvertent and the next thing I see, my thread re-sorted Newest to Oldest. Very wierd! I couldn't imagine what "secret" key I'd hit.

Then I discovered I'd hit one key while the cursor was in the Search box. Doing that found all messages with that character in it, stand alone, and resorted the search newest to oldest.

I erased the character that was in the search box and the thread re-sorted itself back to normal order. Hope that wasn't the problem for anyone who'd previously posted here. Until today I'd NEVER entered anything in the Search box in iMessages so didn't know how it would behave.

I was just having this problem as well! I fixed it easily though. I went to my messages on my Macbook air. I selected a chat then went to the top of my screen where i saw A bolded messages.... to the right of that you will see view hover/ click on view and you will see as a subsection called sort conversations. Click/ hover over that and then you will see the option to manually sort the messages manually or by time! I hope this was helpful!

If you want to fix it go check down below and see my response! I had this problem too and i fixed it very quickly!