Jill, can you try running Spark by right clicking its icon and selecting Run as administrator?
Also you can check the logs at C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Spark\logs. Check all the files for the recent entries (like today) and post them here.
Zip them all and attach it here (use the advanced editor link in the corner of text editor here to switch and find the Attach button at the bottom). Btw, don’t forget to try running Spark as administrator to see if there is any difference.
Sorry, no changes when I run as Administrator. Glad you guys like a challenge!
warn.log (2).zip (1750 Bytes)
errors.zip (1230 Bytes)
errors.log.zip (2594 Bytes)
errors.log (2).zip (126 Bytes)
error.zip (1218 Bytes)
Surely not your IT support guys
All the errors are related to emoticons. Which is puzzling:
Apr 14, 2017 11:47:22 AM org.jivesoftware.spark.util.log.Log error
SEVERE: A ChatRoomListener (org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonPlugin@1883ca5) threw an exception while processing a ‘opened’ event for room: org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl[,0,0,0x0,invalid,layout=java.awt.G ridBagLayout,alignmentX=0.0,alignmentY=0.0,border=javax.swing.border.MatteBorder @1c82301,flags=9,maximumSize=,minimumSize=,preferredSize=]
java.lang.NullPointerException
Do all the emoticons show you red cross? maybe some set is showing fine? what happens if you select one which is showing fine and save the settings? maybe also restart of Spark needed.
My IT guys have given up. They don’t see my chatting as a priority for them. 
All of the emoticons have a red X in Preferences. In the chat window, no emoticons are shown.
I have restarted Spark at least 4x today.
Your Spark for some reason can’t access emoticons and therefore it can’t load them and it looks like this is causing messages failing to show up. It’s hard to say why it can’t access/find them. Maybe there is some profile redirection in use or some weird permissions on your profile. Maybe others will see more in those errors, i don’t have any more ideas.
SEVERE:
org.dom4j.DocumentException: C:\Users\cogburnjill\AppData\Roaming\Spark\xtra\emoticons\Default.adiumemoticonset\Emoticons.plist (The system cannot find the path specified) Nested exception: C:\Users\cogburnjill\AppData\Roaming\Spark\xtra\emoticons\Default.adiumemoticonset\Emoticons.plist (The system cannot find the path specified)
at org.dom4j.io.SAXReader.read(SAXReader.java:270)
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonManager.addEmoticonPack(EmoticonManager.java:302)
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonManager.<init>(EmoticonManager.java:114)
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonManager.getInstance(EmoticonManager.java:86)
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonPlugin.initialize(EmoticonPlugin.java:53)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.PluginManager$2.run(PluginManager.java:616) Apr 14, 2017 10:58:17 AM org.jivesoftware.spark.util.log.Log error
SEVERE: Error sending message
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonManager.getEmoticon(EmoticonManager.java:394)
at org.jivesoftware.sparkimpl.plugin.emoticons.EmoticonManager.getEmoticonImage(EmoticonManager.java:413)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.insertImage(ChatArea.java:362)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.insert(ChatArea.java:270)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.setText(ChatArea.java:196)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.TranscriptWindow.insertMessage(TranscriptWindow.java:202)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:278)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:264)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:239)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom.checkForEnter(ChatRoom.java:706)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom.access$300(ChatRoom.java:89)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom$3.keyPressed(ChatRoom.java:335) at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.insertImage(ChatArea.java:362)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.insert(ChatArea.java:270)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatArea.setText(ChatArea.java:196)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.TranscriptWindow.insertMessage(TranscriptWindow.java:202)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:278)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:264)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.rooms.ChatRoomImpl.sendMessage(ChatRoomImpl.java:239)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom.checkForEnter(ChatRoom.java:706)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom.access$300(ChatRoom.java:89)
at org.jivesoftware.spark.ui.ChatRoom$3.keyPressed(ChatRoom.java:335)
I FINALLY got it to work! In Preferences, I disabled emoticons. Posting this in case anyone else has the same issue. Thanks everyone, for your help!@wroot
Well, i wouldn’t exactly call it a fix, but i’m glad you found a workaround