AIM Buddy Info: Stored on Server?

Excellent question! It’s both for 5.9 as well as 6.x. They’re stored locally and remotely, on the servers.

I’ll try not to make this sound more complex than it is, but there will be a lot to read…
I’ll start at the same point you did–having an old profile display on the “get buddy info” window even though it’s blank when you go to edit it.

The server keeps the most recent info.htm/common.cls on file after you logoff, but it’s disabled from view once you sign off. The next time you sign on with AIM5, if AIM sees an info.htm file locally, it uploads it to the server and the server updates with the one just sent. When you sign on with AIM6, common.cls is sent, but if there’s no content (html tags) for a profile, it keeps the default

Keep in mind how I said the info.htm/common.cls stays after you logoff, but is disabled. On AIM5, if AIM doesn’t see an info.htm file, then it uploads nothing, and the old profile is still active. On AIM6, the common.cls file does more than just the profile, so it recreates a new one if you try to use the screen name without one…but it doesn’t have anything related to profiles, until you create on within AIM (or tinker with it manually). Common.cls always gets transmitted, but if there aren’t html tags for a profile, then it doesn’t update the profile on the server. If there’s html for the profile, then the server updates to that when you sign on.

If you have an info.htm file, but it’s entirely blank, AIM will still send it because it found the filename “info.htm”–so it uploads it…then you’d end up with a blank profile because that’s what AIM uploaded–blank. AIM doesn’t look at the info.htm to see if anything is different, its only job in that respect is to upload info.htm upon logon (if one exists) and upload info.htm when it’s told to, after you commit changes to your profile using AIM’s profile editor. On AIM6, similar rules apply even though common.cls is always in existence, but if there isn’t content (html) for a profile in common.cls, then nothing gets updated on the server…but everything else in common.cls gets updated.

You can make changes to your profile through the profile editor that’s part of AIM, or you can do it manually. If you do it through AIM, when you save the profile, AIM does two things: 1) it saves the file info.htm/common.cls locally, then 2) it is instructed to upload the info.htm/common.cls.

In AIM5, the command to upload the info.htm is only issued in two cases: 1) when the screen name signs on and 2) when you edit your profile and save it through AIM. So you can make manual changes to your info.htm but AIM will only send it in those two cases. With AIM6, it always sends common.cls upon signing on and updating your profile through AIM’s profile editor, but I’m not sure what other instances provoke an upload since I haven’t poked around with AIM6 much.

I think it’s easier to explain and understand if you were sitting beside me and I showed you all of the situations I mentioned. Hopefully, you gain something from all the mess I wrote 🙂

Great 🙂

bump 😀