Most Online users, how doe's it actually work

[tomwin]

Mine doesn't seem to be working or do i have to manually add more when i see there are more people on the site. That doesn't make sense if that is the case.

Mine is set to 3 and never move so i raise it to 4 but nothing happened. I have more guest online when this at same time. Doesn't guests include in this or it just logedin members that counts?

Is it possible to just disable this counting on most online user so it not visible on the site. I want have the latest member and how many register members there are on the site but disable this counting on most online. 

[tomwin]

Is that why no one answer? It doesnt work?

[Cyboman]

I would also ask for a clarification please.

My maximum simultaneous users count shown in the (footer) community members widget is approx. 25% less than I can see active online users (=members + guests) at several times during the day.

So if max users are 2000, on other times/days I realize 2500-3000 active users, but it still shows 2000.

Is the number maybe a calculated average number per day?

What is the problem? Please clarify. Thanks.

[tomwin]

In the future i think it's better to show how many members that are online at the moment. That will give exact information for people that are visting the site. And i think more easy for selling ads on the site. Many people knows that IPS counting system is just a fake and the admin easy can set the count to 100 000 most online or what ever he want. So please change and remove this counter and show how many are online at the moment instead.

[PPlanet]

I think the number is determined by a period of time controlled by your server, and not by any preference in the software. So, if your server measures how many people have been online at once in a 15 minute period, that will be very different than if your server measures by 30 minutes, or by 1 hour.

I think that up to IPB 3.4 you could select the amount of minutes, but now you cannot. If you have access to your server or maybe your host can see to it, maybe it can be set to 1 hour period.

The question has been asked before, and a more comprehensive answer has been given by a member of staff. I cannot find it now.

[opentype]

27 minutes ago, tomwin said:

So please change and remove this counter and show how many are online at the moment instead.

Why does it have to be one or the other? There is a Member Statistics widget and there is a Who is Online widget. It’s up to you what you want to show. 

Regarding the server settings: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/437360-length-of-session/

 

[motomac]

On my forum this number is far from reality: 15,967. But for many years before I changed phpBB to IPS my record was about 500 users online. 15,000 is absolutely impossible value. Maybe IPS uses a different algorithm, but I think this number should match the data in WHO'S ONLINE widget. But in that widget I see more or less real information.

[All Astronauts]

The most online users statistic is only tracked if you have the stats widget embedded on a page. Every time a page with that widget on it is loaded it queries the number of sessions that are active/existing within the last 30 minutes. If it is larger than the saved most_online number, it saves it as the new value, otherwise it uses/displays the stored value. It tracks all member and all guest sessions, ignoring search bots like Google, Yahoo, etc.

If you do not have the widget on a page somewhere this statistic is NEVER tracked so it isn't surprising that the number is off for many people.

I was bugged by this eons ago as I believe this is a statistic that should be tracked regardless of whether the widget is on a page or not so I added a task in my Spacious ACP application to track this - runs every 15 minutes with traffic.

[motomac]

That's sucks... If many users simultaneously open a page different from the main page (with this widget) it will never collect correct max number.

[All Astronauts]

Well.. maybe. Remember that this stat isn't generated based on the precise members/users online at that instant alone. It is grabbing the sessions that exist throughout the suite active within the last 30 minutes. Doesn't matter where they are in the suite.

Suppose you have a max online stat of 90.

100 people are on your site and for some reason none of them go to the front page where this widget is.

Now 20 of them leave.

Unless they have specifically logged out intentionally, their sessions are still "active" and kept in the database (sessions being member/guest trackers while they are using your site).

Eventually, after x-amount of time (30 minutes?) an IPS task will go through that sessions table, check any sessions for inactivity, and then delete them. Naturally, people who intentionally log out I'm pretty sure their sessions are closed and removed then (might be wrong, would have to look).

So, what now. Let's have one of the 80 remaining go to the front page and trigger that widget. When the widget is built out for viewing, it does the members online check on the sessions table. Counts how many of members, anon members, guests, bots, etc. Gets a total, compares to the saved max_online stat. If bigger, saves it, if less, uses the saved stat.

If 1 out of the 80 remaining goes to the front page 29 minutes after all the others just left the site, their sessions will still be in the table. The count will be 100. Larger than 90, saved, and correct.

If that person goes at 30 minutes or later, its a question of if that cleanup task has run or not. If it hasn't, you still get 100. If it has, those old sessions are gone from the table and you get 80.

This is all predicated on ANY of your maximum traffic members/guests never hitting the front page for 30+ minutes. Doubtful that's gonna happen.

My beef with the stat is that it *REQUIRES* the widget to be on a page. When the widget isn't up, the stat is not kept. Full stop. Which I do not get. So, for Spacious ACP I dumped it into a task that runs every 15 minutes. Done and dusted and as long as Spacious is installed that stat is accurate. Period.

If by chance someone sticks the widget on some out-of-the-way sub section of their site and no where else the stat will likely be wrong. To be mostly accurate I imagine it needs to be on the front index page or maybe topic view. You have Spacious? If you don't...