I have a highlighting rule setup to match a nickname and the beginning of a message, but it only appears to work when the nickname has a channel mode such as op or voice.



The rule is setup as shown below.





This is using mIRC v6.21 with no custom scripts other than a few aliases I have written myself.

are you sure it's not from the color dialog? (address book > colors)

Did a little testing (not too much but i think enough)

This only seems to occur when you are matching 'nickname and message' and the highlight words include parts of both, and as the OP stated it only occurs when the user is a regular.

Did some testing using the colors in address book, this had no impack on the behavior, that is... highlighting was applied in the same manner regardless of address book color settings.

In these circumstances the highlighting (at least that specific highlight) does not seem to be applied at all.

Tested on mIRC 6.17 also.