Who's Online

[CorbinH]

The "Who's Online" statistics are still giving very strange results. It appears that the information is not being refreshed as the same member can appear on multiple pages showing different Last Activity times.

Case in point - Seaslug appears on Pages 1, 2, 4, 5, 15, and 21 showing different Last Activity times.

It is not until page 22 until a full list of 10 viewers is shown, coincidentally all Guests.

Sorry for the large number of screenshots, but I feel I need to put them up to make my point.

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We have done all the things suggested in the posts above, but till the Who's Online feature continues to behave in an erratic manner.
Is this a problem peculiar to our forum, or are other people experiencing this?

[CorbinH]

I have just amended the Who's Online module to show only members. This seems to have reset the system and now only 2 members are showing, although one member is showing twice and there are two pages.
Also it states 11 members online, but only shows 2. This is confirmed by the What's Going On module.
Still not making sense.

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[Wayne Luke]

It reads the data out of the session table. That table is supposed to have expired sessions deleted every hour. If your Scheduled Tasks aren't running properly than this can happen. What is the last time the "Hourly Cleanup" and "Hourly Cleanup #2" tasks were run.

AdminCP -> Scheduled Tasks -> Scheduled Task Manager.

[CorbinH]

A screenshot of the Scheduled Task Manager, taken at ~8:11 A.M. today.

[CorbinH]

The Task Log for Hourly Cleanup and Hourly Cleanup #2 shows No Matches Found. Aslso Daily Cleanup shows No Matches Found

[Wayne Luke]

You're screenshot shows that your tasks are at least an hour behind. If the screenshot was taking at 8:11 am and the next run time is 7 am, then it was missed. Scheduled tasks rely on site traffic in a default installation. A single scheduled task will run per user on page load. They run every five minutes.

You can increase the frequency of Scheduled Tasks using your server's crontab system and the vbcron.php file provided in the do_not_upload folder. The instructions for using this file is in the file itself.

[CorbinH]

If I click the run now button on the Hourly Cleanup and Hourly Cleanup #2 action should my Who's on Line stats be accurate?
The task Manager Log shows no details for either Hourly Cleanup action.

[CorbinH]

Should I be seeing details of the Hourly Cleanup action in the Log?

[CorbinH]

Does it make any difference to the Who's Online stats if the member logs out or just closes their browser?

[Wayne Luke]

Does it make any difference to the Who's Online stats if the member logs out or just closes their browser?

Yes... If they actually click the "Logout" link, then their session is deleted at that time and the cookies are erased from their machine. If they simply browse away to another site or close the browser, then the session remains. It will be deleted 1 hour after the session expires. The expiration is 900 seconds (15 minutes) on a default installation but relies on the value in the Cookie Wait Timeout setting under Settings -> Options -> Cookie and HTTP Header Options.

[CorbinH]

Yes... If they actually click the "Logout" link, then their session is deleted at that time and the cookies are erased from their machine. If they simply browse away to another site or close the browser, then the session remains. It will be deleted 1 hour after the session expires. The expiration is 900 seconds (15 minutes) on a default installation but relies on the value in the Cookie Wait Timeout setting under Settings -> Options -> Cookie and HTTP Header Options.

Thanks Wayne, I checked the expiration time and found that it was set to 86400 (24 Hrs). I'm guessing that this could be the reason our members online figures are out of whack. Does the expiration time apply to "Guest's" also?

[Wayne Luke]

Yes. Guests receive a session within the session table based on their IP Address.

[CorbinH]

Thanks Wayne, that became obvious once I reset the session timeout to 900.

[CorbinH]

Okay, it looks like our Who's Online situation has been resolved. We are now seeing what I believe are more accurate figures. Just goes to show, to get the right answer first you have to ask the right question.

Now that we are getting accurate figures, is there a way to reset the "Most users ever online" back to zero and start again?