How can I force Mountain Lion's Messages app to refresh a conversation?

Sometimes when an iMessage comes in and I switch to the Messages app, the conversation doesn't contain the new message.

I know the message was received because an alert banner popped up with the correct message text, but it doesn't show up in Messages. It also doesn't seem to be present in Notification Center, despite being set to show 5 recent items.

Sometimes if I quit and reopen Messages it will refresh the conversation with the new message included, but sometimes not. And they still don't show up in Notification Center.

Is there any reliable way to force Messages to refresh or reload the current conversation? Or make it receive messages reliably in the first place?

Solution 1:

Is there any reliable way to force Messages to refresh or reload the current conversation? Or make it receive messages reliably in the first place?

No. Messages is very buggy for many users and there is not a known fix at this time. I believe the most prominent client-side issues are resolved in Mavericks, but I am not running the it yet so perhaps not.

As far as I know, the best solution is to sign out of your account, log back in, and then restart Messages. For me, this fixes the ordering of messages (so they are sorted by timestamp) and generally keeps Messages running smoothly for a little while. However, the fix doesn't seem to last longer than a few days.

Solution 2:

Scroll to the top of the conversation and keep scrolling beyond and it will trigger a refresh.

Doing this attempts to reload the conversation history and in the process loads any new messages at the bottom when you scroll back down.

Messages is very buggy from my use as messages take time to appear on all my devices and sometimes one device shows the proper order and the other device doesn't. You can also try both you and the person who you are messaging delete the chat history on all of each others devices to completely refresh the conversation if it is only happening to one person.