Both book sources sound to me like they're describing a longer friendship between the two. I don't see those conversations as being a one-time occurrence, but a long-term exchange of information. That would include the specific incident in LotR, but certainly not exclude others that happened before then.
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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