I think the 'problem' the original poster was talking about was related to what happens when mirc or (more likely) windows crashes and the automatic merge does not occur (and/or corruption?)
I guess during a crash of some sort the merging does not occur, and if you dont remember to do it manually things could become a mess, or entire time periods missed, etc.
Indeed. I've got multiple #channelname.network.N.log -files due to crashes etc. I should take a look at the files and try to paste the .N. -files into the actual log file, trying to locate where they belong in the file.
Maybe a few logging options such as 'automerge on startup' or a command/timed automerge feature could be useful for both crashers and mircstats users.
These features would solve all problems I'm experiencing, I think. I don't regularly shut down my PC so the log files won't merge automatically (which means I'll have to part and rejoin channels to perform the merging.)
At the moment I have all mIRC Stats automated update sctipts turned off because it won't update the stats if i don't first part and rejoin the channel (or merge the log some another way).
Now the stats look mostly like this:
#xiit.org Quakenet Stats by JJS3. There's missing a great deal of lines in the log => stats (since they are in the .N. -files.) The channel has been quite active lately but in the actual log there's days of maybe 30 lines.