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Chat : Getting Started

Chatting with someone

You can chat with anyone who has a coloured ball icon next to his or her name. When someone's online, a green, yellow, or red coloured ball will appear. Here's how to chat with someone who's available:

From Chat:

  1. Find the name of the person you'd like to chat with.
  2. Click the person's name to open a chat window.
  3. Enter your message in the text field, and press Enter.
  4. Wait for your contact to respond!
* You can also search for a contact by entering his or her name in the box at the top of Chat. Just enter the name of the person you'd like to chat with, and then enter your message in the chat window.

From Contacts:

  1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. Select the name of the person you'd like to chat with, and click the Chat link to open a chat window.
  3. Enter your message in the text field, and press Enter.
  4. Wait for your contact to respond!
When you've finished chatting, click the X in the top right corner to close the window.

About Chat

Virgin Media Mail's chat features let you talk to people from directly within Virgin Media Mail.

Seeing who's online and available to chat

When your contacts are available to chat, a coloured ball will appear next to their names. The people you communicate with most often will show up in Chat, and those who are online and available to chat (with a green coloured ball icon) will appear at the top of that list.

  • Contacts who are idle, or away from their computers, will have yellow coloured balls next to their names.
  • Contacts who are busy will have red coloured balls next to their names.
  • Contacts who are offline will have grey coloured balls next to their names.

If a contact doesn't have a ball next to his or her name, you won't be able to chat.

Keep in mind that more of your contacts than those listed in Chat may be online. To see everyone who's available, click Show All at the bottom of your chat list. Beside Show in chat list, select All contacts.

Inviting someone to chat

Before you can chat with someone in Virgin Media Mail, you'll need to invite them by following the instructions below. Your friend will see the invitation above their Contacts list in Virgin Media Mail asking if they'd like to be able to chat with you. Until they accept, you'll see 'Invited' next to their name in your Contacts list.

Once they've accepted your invitation, you'll see a status button to the left of their name in your Chat list, which indicates whether they're available (green), busy (red), idle (yellow), or offline (gray). At that point, just click on their name to send them a chat message.

To invite a Virgin Media Mail user:

  1. In the 'Search, add, or invite' box at the top of the Chat area, type your friend's username. If they're already in your Contacts, Virgin Media Mail will pre-populate their username.
  2. Click Invite to chat.
  3. In the window that appears, click Send Invites. A yellow notification banner lets you know your invitation has been sent successfully.

Alternatively, you can click Add Contact at the bottom of the Chat area, enter your friend's username, and then click Send Invites. If you invite someone who doesn't use Virgin Media Mail or Google Talk, we'll send an email asking them to sign up for one of these services.

To invite an AIM user who isn't already on your Buddy List:

  1. Sign in to AIM.
  2. Click Add Contact.
  3. Click Or, add AIM buddies.
  4. Click Send Invites.*

*Please note: unlike Chat invitations to Virgin Media Mail contacts, your invited AIM contacts won't see your request until you send a chat to them.

Changing your status

Under Chat, click the arrow next to Set status here. Select the status you'd like to appear next to your name in your friends' chat lists. Here's what the different statuses mean:

  • Green: Available
  • Yellow: Idle. Your status automatically changes to idle when you're away from your computer for 15 minutes. You can't manually select to appear idle.
  • Red: Busy. This lets your contacts know you're busy and don't want to be interrupted.
  • Grey: Signed out of chat, or Invisible. (If you set your status to 'Invisible,' you'll appear to be signed out even while you're actually signed in.)
You can also create custom status messages. Here's how:
  1. From the Set status here drop-down menu, select Custom Message... (you can set custom statuses when you are available and when you're busy).
  2. Enter your custom message in the box, and press Enter.
Your status message can be anything you want - something funny, your favourite quote, a cool web link, or just a note to say you're hard at work or away from the computer. To clear your custom message, click the text under your name in Chat and delete it, or select another message from the status drop-down menu.

Browsers that support chat

Chat in Virgin Media Mail isn't yet compatible with all of our supported browsers. If you are using Safari or any other browser other than Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Firefox 1.0+, chat won't work in Virgin Media Mail. We are working to make chat compatible with additional browsers.

Chatting with non-Virgin Media Mail users

Chat in Virgin Media Mail lets you chat with any Virgin Media Mail user.

You can also sign in to your AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account from Virgin Media Mail to chat directly with your AIM buddies.

At this time, you can't chat with contacts who use MSN Messenger, ICQ or Yahoo! Messenger.

Turning chat off

There are times and places to chat in Virgin Media Mail. If that's not your time or place, you can follow these instructions to turn chat off.

To stop chatting for the time being:

  1. Under Chat, click the arrow next to Set status here.
  2. Select Sign out of chat.
  • After you sign out, your contacts won't be able to see you online or IM you from within Virgin Media Mail, and you won't be able to see or contact them, either.

To turn off chat in Virgin Media Mail :

  1. Click turn off chat along the bottom of any page.
  • You will be signed out of chat, and your Chat list will be minimised. To turn chat back on, just click standard or click turn on chat.

Chat history

Chat history allows you to store the text of your chats in Virgin Media Mail so you can easily search for them later. You can even respond to these chats like you would to regular Virgin Media Mail messages.

To access your chat history, click the Chats label in Virgin Media Mail. A list of chats will appear, similar to the way conversations are listed in your inbox. You can forward, label, star, and bin chats just like Virgin Media Mail messages.

When you search in Virgin Media Mail, matching chat conversations will show up along with matching email conversations. All chats are labelled Chats and are marked with the chat icon (chat icon) so you can easily distinguish them from emails.

To take better advantage of Virgin Media Mail's chat functionality, learn how to change your chat history settings, how to go 'off the record' or browse our full list of chat topics.

Chat : Learn More

About AIM in Virgin Media Mail

AIM, coloured labels, group chat, and rich emoticons only work in the latest version of Virgin Media Mail, currently available for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. Please upgrade your browser to take advantage of these new features.

Virgin Media Mail chat now offers the option to sign in to your AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account to chat with your AIM buddies from Virgin Media Mail. Your AIM buddies will populate your Contacts list, and are searchable just like your Virgin Media Mail contacts.

Chatting with your AIM buddies is easy -- just click on a name in your chat list, and start typing.

Note that an AIM account is required to use this feature. AIM in Virgin Media Mail is the ability to sign in to your AIM messaging account from Virgin Media Mail. Virgin Media Mail uses Open AIM to provide this feature.

Here's more about AIM in Virgin Media Mail :

Changing your chat history settings

You can adjust your chat history settings in Virgin Media Mail.

  1. Click Settings at the top of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. From the Chat tab:
    • Select Don't save chat history in my Virgin Media Mail account to disable chat history saving, or;
    • Select Save chat history in my Virgin Media Mail account to enable chat history saving.
  3. Click Save Changes.

Keep in mind that if you've disabled chat history saving, people you chat with may still choose to save chat histories in their Virgin Media Mail settings. If you would prefer that someone you're talking to doesn't save your chat, you can take the conversation off the record.

Emoticons

AIM, coloured labels, group chat, and rich emoticons only work in the latest version of Virgin Media Mail, currently available for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. Please upgrade your browser to take advantage of these new features.

To use emoticons, just choose one of these options:

  • Type the appropriate combination of keys and press Enter.
  • Click the blue smiley-face button at the right of the text-entry field. A pop-up menu appears, where you can choose from different emoticon sets, including circular, rectangular, or standard.

Here's a list of our emoticons in standard format:

Emoticon
Key Combination
 
<3

It's a monkey!
:(|)

Rock out.
\m/
:-o
 
:D
 
:(
 
x-(
 
B-)
 
:'(
 
=D
 
;)
:-|
=)
:-D
;^)
;-)
:-)
:-/
 
:P

Note: if you send an emoticon to someone who isn't using chat in Virgin Media Mail, the emoticon may not display properly.

Contacts' pictures

If you'd like to keep other people's Virgin Media Mail pictures out of your account, you can turn them off by using only those pictures that you've selected for them yourself.

  1. Log in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. In the Contacts' pictures section, select Only show pictures that I've chosen for my contacts.
  4. Click Save Changes.

 If you haven't selected any pictures for your contacts, you won't see any pictures in your account.

Virgin Media Mail will automatically invite some contacts

If there are other Virgin Media Mail users whom you frequently email, you'll be able to chat and see each other online without having to send an invitation.

Virgin Media Mail automatically determines which contacts you'll be able to talk to without having to invite each other -- if you don't want Virgin Media Mail to automatically enable chat privileges with your contacts, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
  2. Click Settings at the top of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  3. Open the Chat tab, and select Only allow people that I've explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I'm online.
  4. Click Save Changes.
Want to manage who can and can't chat with you? Learn how to block a contact from chatting with you.

Keeping contacts visible in the chat list

Virgin Media Mail's auto-show feature automatically selects the people who appear in Chat based on the people you already communicate with most often. If you'd like to add someone so he or she always appears in Chat, follow these steps:

  1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. From the All Contacts list, select the person you'd like to add.
  3. Beside Show in chat list:, select Always.

Signing in and out of AIM

Signing in

You'll first need to sign in to Virgin Media Mail chat. If you're not already signed in, just click Sign in to chat from your Quick Contacts section, in the left margin of your Virgin Media Mail account. If you don't see Quick Contacts, make sure that standard with chat is selected as your Virgin Media Mail view, at the very bottom of your page.

Once you're signed in, just click the down arrow next to your status message and select Sign in to AIM. If this is your first time connecting, you'll be prompted to enter your AIM screen name and password. Click Connect to continue.

Some of your AIM buddies will appear in your Quick Contacts list, and the rest are accessible from the Search, Add, or Invite field. Just click a contact to initiate a chat session.

Note: to sign in to Virgin Media Mail chat, you'll need to use Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Firefox 1.0+. We're working to make chat compatible with additional browsers.

Signing out

Just click the down arrow next to your Quick Contacts status message, and select Sign out from AIM (your_screen_name)

Sound notifications for chat

If you have Flash enabled on your computer, Virgin Media Mail will play an audio notification for each incoming chat. Audio notifications are enabled by default, but you can always disable them. Here's how:

  1. Log in to Virgin Media Mail.
  2. Click Settings at the top of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  3. Open the Chat tab.
  4. In the Sounds section, select Sounds off.
  5. Click Save Changes.

Blocking contacts

Blocking a contact prevents the person from talking to you and seeing when you're signed in to Virgin Media Mail. Here's how:

  1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. Select the person you'd like to block.
  3. Beside Show in chat list:, select Block.

If you decide you'd like to communicate with someone you've blocked, just select Always or Auto from the menu beside Show in chat list:.

About group chat

AIM, coloured labels, group chat, and rich emoticons only work in the latest version of Virgin Media Mail, currently available for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2. Please upgrade your browser to take advantage of these new features.

The group chat feature lets you chat with many friends at once. There's no limit to the number of people you can chat with, and any participant can invite others to join. To get started, follow these steps:

  1. Start a chat with a single person in your Contacts list.
  2. Once you've started the chat, click Options at the bottom left of your chat window and select Group Chat.
  3. In the field labelled 'Add a person to this chat,' enter the name of the contact(s) you want to add to your group chat.

To end your chat, click the X at the corner of the chat window. Others in the group chat will get a message saying that you've left the conversation. If you want to rejoin, you'll need to be invited back by a contact who's still in the group chat. The group chat will continue until all participants have left.

Who can see when I'm online?

The only people who can see when you're online are the contacts you can see online.

You can see when someone's online if you invite him or her to chat or if you are automatically enabled to chat.

If you've blocked someone, that person won't be able to see when you are online.

If you prefer that no one see you're online, you can set your status as 'Invisible.'

Switching between AIM screen names

It's easy to change which AIM screen name you sign in with. Here's how:

  1. Click the Settings link at the top right of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. Select Chat.
  3. Click Change AIM Settings.
  4. Enter the new screen name and password.
  5. Click Add my AIM buddies.

Note that you can only be signed in with one AIM screen name at a time.

Does Virgin Media store my AIM password?

No. We ask for your password when you first sign in, and we forward it to AOL's OpenAuth service. Once AOL validates your log-in information, they send a token we can use to sign in to AIM on your behalf. We then promptly forget your password. The token is only valid when used by Virgin Media, can only be used to sign in to AIM, and expires after a while (which is why we'll periodically ask you to re-enter your password).

Joining a group chat

To join a chat, you need to be invited, and to have others join your chats, you need to invite them.

To invite someone:

  1. Click Options > Group chat at the bottom of the chat window.
  2. In the field labelled 'Add a person to this chat,' enter the name of the person in your Chat list that you want to invite.
  3. Click invite.

You can only add contacts who are currently online. There's no limit to the number of participants in a group chat, and any participant can invite others to the chat. When a new participant joins the chat, you'll see a message stating 'Contact Name joined the chat' in the group chat window.

Why are chat invitations necessary?

The invitation process lets you control who can chat with you and see you online, and vice-versa -- just in case you have contacts that you'd rather not chat with instantly in Virgin Media Mail.

If you ever decide that you don't want to chat with someone in your Chat list, you can block the contact from chatting with you and seeing you online.

Customising the chat list

You can change the way your chat list displays to make it easier for you to use.

To resize your chat list:

  1. At the bottom of your chat list, select Options next to Add Contact.
  2. Choose the size of your chat list by selecting Tiny, Small, Medium, or Large.

You can also minimise your chat list -- just click Chat at the top of your chat list.

To move the chat list so it displays under Labels:

  1. Click Settings at the top of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. On the Chat tab, select below from the Chat list location: drop-down.
  3. Click Save Changes.

You can't reorder your chat list, but Virgin Media Mail's auto-show feature organises your contacts for you, based on how often you communicate with them. However, you can make sure certain contacts always appear in your list.

Why did I get a note about 'IM history in Virgin Media Mail'?

This simply means that the person you're chatting with uses AIM® messaging in Virgin Media Mail and may be using the chat-history feature. Chat history allows Virgin Media Mail users to store the text of their chats, so they can easily search for those chats later. Here's a bit more about AIM in Virgin Media Mail, chat history, and how you can go 'off the record':

AIM in Virgin Media Mail

Virgin Media Mail now offers users the option to sign in to their AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) account so they can chat with their AIM buddies without ever leaving Virgin Media Mail.

Chat history

Chat history is a feature of AIM in Virgin Media Mail that allows Virgin Media Mail users to store the text of their AIM conversations right in Virgin Media Mail, so they can search for those conversations and respond to them at any time in the future. Your friend can also turn off their chat history -- that's called going 'off the record.'

Going 'off the record'

Chat history in Virgin Media Mail is private and is viewable only to your friend when they sign in to Virgin Media Mail. If you'd prefer your friend not to save your conversations, however, you can always ask your friend to go off the record.

Chatting off the record

Chats that have been taken off the record aren't stored in your Virgin Media Mail chat history, or in the Virgin Media Mail chat history of your contact. You and the person you're talking to can both see when a chat is taken off the record, and you'll be notified if off the record mode is disabled. Your off the record settings will apply whenever you chat with this person, until one of you makes a change.

To take a chat off the record:

  1. Click the down arrow at the top-right corner of the chat window.
  2. Select Go off the record.

When you take a chat off the record, a message will appear confirming that future chats with this particular contact won't be saved, unless one of you changes the setting. If you decide at any time that your chats no longer need to be off the record, click Cancel at the top of the chat window, or Stop chatting off the record in the chat window's Options menu.

Chat : Troubleshooting

I'm blocked from using chat

Your network administrator has disabled Virgin Media Mail's chat features for all users on the network. You won't be able to use chat in Virgin Media Mail any time you're connected to the network on which you received the error message.

If you'd like more information, we suggest contacting your network administrator. If your administrator hasn't blocked Virgin Media Mail's chat features, please try reloading your browser.

Chat is frozen

It's possible that Virgin Media Mail and/or chat features may "freeze," or get stuck, if you leave your browser open and idle for extended periods of time. You might also experience problems connecting -- if this happens, refresh your browser and log back in to Virgin Media Mail.

I don't have chat

There are three common reasons why chat disappears:

1. Using a browser that doesn't support chat.
Make sure that you're using a fully supported browser to log in to Virgin Media Mail.

2. Make sure you're using the standard version of Virgin Media Mail.
Scroll to the bottom of any Virgin Media Mail page and click standard to select this version. Chat is not available in the basic HTML view.

3. Make sure you're using a language interface that supports chat.
Chat is currently available in these display languages: Danish, German, English (UK), English (US), Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Greek, Estonian, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Thai, Tagalog, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Technical difficulties in chat

If your Chat window indicates that you're having 'Technical Difficulties,' clearing your browser's cache likely will solve the problem. If the error persists, you can use our troubleshooter to resolve the issue.

Chat won't load

If the chat window appears in your inbox but doesn't finish loading, you can use our troubleshooter to resolve the issue.

I can't invite contacts to a group chat

The group chat feature is available for anyone using Virgin Media Mail. Some of your contacts, including those connecting through a federated network like Earthlink, Gizmo Project, Tiscali, Netease, Chikka, and MediaRing, won't be able to participate in a group chat. You'll still see their addresses in your Chat list, and you can still chat with each of them one to one; however, when you invite one of them to a group chat, a message appears stating that the person cannot be invited.

Chat is disabled

If chat is disabled, your network administrator may have chosen to block chat in Virgin Media Mail.

A friend doesn't appear in the chat list

If someone is not appearing in your chat list, it is likely that you have blocked that person or he or she has blocked you.

To ensure you haven't blocked that person:

  1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Virgin Media Mail page.
  2. Select the person in question.
  3. Beside Show in chat list:, ensure you've selected Always or Auto.

If you still can't see your friend in your chat list, please contact the person in question to make sure that he or she hasn't blocked you accidentally.

I don't hear sounds for incoming chats

There are a number of reasons why you might not be able to hear notifications for incoming chats:

  • Notifications aren't enabled. Make sure sounds are enabled in your Chat settings.
  • Flash isn't enabled. Macromedia Flash must be enabled on your computer if you'd like Virgin Media Mail to play an audio notification for each incoming chat. Download it here.
  • You're using Flashblock. If you're using Flashblock, you'll need to adjust your settings.
  • Your computer's speakers are muted, or the volume is very low. Make sure your computer's volume and speakers are on, and turned up high enough to hear sounds.
14-04-2009