Find/Search not working with imported files

My writing partner and I do all of our planning online through an AIM application (Pidgin.) For ease of reference I save the conversations as files on my computer (Pidgin logs them automatically by date) and import them directly into Scrivener.

The imported conversations included the world logo (apparently an icon indicating web) and become invisible during searches. When I try to use the Find function all of the buttons (Next/Previous/Replace etc.) are grey and unclickable. If I use the search whole project option in the top corner the imported conversations disappear, even if they contain the words I’m searching for.

I’m not sure if this is a bug or if there’s a technical fix for it, I have reinstalled Scrivener to assure I’m using the most up-to-date program and I have tried restarting my computer to see if that would fix the issue.

At this point I’m just wondering if there’s any way to easily convert all of these files to text only rather than something apparently web based? I have considered copying and pasting each file individually instead of importing it but that’s a last resort, as 3+ years of work is a lot of files to have to do that with.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

imgur.com/DrBrBH0
imgur.com/jy9XRA2

If the files are saved as .html, you can tick the option in Scrivener’s Import/Export settings (under Tools > Options) to convert HTML files to text on import, then re-import the files. Otherwise I’d try just copying and pasting the text from your chat into a new document. I suggest using Paste and Match Style (Ctrl+Shift+V), as that should strip any invisible formatting that may be part of the current chat–I’m not sure how Pidgin does this, but I know copying and pasting from Google chats can end up with invisible tables and other quirky formatting that can cause problems down the line.