For the past day or so, every time I go into my forums it shows zero online members on the homepage but I can see many people browsing it through Google Analytics and people are indeed posting new topics and all.

The support section inside the admin shows no errors/issues at all. What should I look for to fix this, please?

Are you using the "Recently Browsing" block? If so, this only tracks the current page the block is placed on.

If you want to see who is online the whole site, you'd want to use the "Who's Online" block. However, keep in mind 2 things:

1. The block itself is cached per your settings in ACP -> System -> Advanced Configuration.

2. If you're using any page caching, like through a CDN, as those visitors won't hit your server, they will not appear in "Who's online."

3 minutes ago, Jim M said:

Are you using the "Recently Browsing" block? If so, this only tracks the current page the block is placed on.

If you want to see who is online the whole site, you'd want to use the "Who's Online" block. However, keep in mind 2 things:

1. The block itself is cached per your settings in ACP -> System -> Advanced Configuration.

2. If you're using any page caching, like through a CDN, as those visitors won't hit your server, they will not appear in "Who's online."

Thanks for getting back to me, Jim.

Nope, I'm using the "Who's Online" block — as I have been for many years. Didn't change anything on the forums or ACP related to this. And I'm browsing the site without a CDN caching.

The only thing that comes to my mind and it's related to the ACP area you've mentioned (Advanced Configuration) is Redis, which we updated from version 6.0.2 to version 6.2.18 a few days ago. Could it have any relation to this issue?

12 minutes ago, Rafael Fischmann said:

The only thing that comes to my mind and it's related to the ACP area you've mentioned (Advanced Configuration) is Redis, which we updated from version 6.0.2 to version 6.2.18 a few days ago. Could it have any relation to this issue?

The setting you'd want to pay attention to is: Cache sidebar, header and footer blocks.

This would control how long that data is cached for and when it would try again.

7 minutes ago, Jim M said:

The setting you'd want to pay attention to is: Cache sidebar, header and footer blocks.

This would control how long that data is cached for and when it would try again.

I don't see any options to control those. I just use Redis for storage and caching inside the "Storage" (or it might be something like "Data store", I'm using ACP in Portuguese) tab, and also have — and always had — the "Use Redis to reduce MySQL overhead" option turned on.

We would need to look further into this for you, however the access details on file appear to be incorrect or missing. Could you please update these details by visiting your client area, selecting the relevant purchase, then clicking "Review/Update Access Information" under the "Stored Access Information" section. 

We look forward to further assisting you. 

7 minutes ago, Jim M said:

We would need to look further into this for you, however the access details on file appear to be incorrect or missing. Could you please update these details by visiting your client area, selecting the relevant purchase, then clicking "Review/Update Access Information" under the "Stored Access Information" section. 

We look forward to further assisting you. 

I really appreciate it, Jim. Just updated the details over there.

Unfortunately, it looks like a display name is being used for the ACP credentials when you require email on your community.

4 minutes ago, Jim M said:

Unfortunately, it looks like a display name is being used for the ACP credentials when you require email on your community.

Sorry, Jim, forgot about that change. Updated it again.

Your block cache is set for 15 minutes so that means each time someone views that block, it would cache for 15 min. Rinse repeat.

1 minute ago, Jim M said:

Your block cache is set for 15 minutes so that means every 15 minutes that block would update.

It's always been like that, Jim, and that's fine. That's not the issue — it's been showing close to 0 members online almost all the time for the past couple of days, where we usually have dozens.

You will want to check your server's caching as when logged in, I am seeing the UI as a guest.

Also worth noting that you're running PHP 8.2 and only PHP 8.1 is supported for version 4.

21 minutes ago, Jim M said:

You will want to check your server's caching as when logged in, I am seeing the UI as a guest.

Also worth noting that you're running PHP 8.2 and only PHP 8.1 is supported for version 4.

The only external caching we have set up is for non-logged in users via Cloudflare, which I've temporarily disabled 20 minutes ago just to make sure. Nothing changed, of course, as this has been in place for months without any issues.

We've been also running on PHP 8.2 for at least a couple of years now without any issues related to this, Jim.

3 minutes ago, Rafael Fischmann said:

We've been also running on PHP 8.2 for at least a couple of years now without any issues related to this, Jim.

While I can respect that, PHP 8.1 is only support for version 4 so we would need you to downgrade for us to further investigate.

On both sites here (one is v4 and one is v5), this condition has been present for months, if not longer. It will show 0 users online, but by clicking (See full list), one sees that there are many members online. The next time you visit the page, it will show the accurate listing of members online. Kind of maddening.

3 minutes ago, My Sharona said:

On both sites here (one is v4 and one is v5), this condition has been present for months, if not longer. It will show 0 users online, but by clicking (See full list), one sees that there are many members online. The next time you visit the page, it will show the accurate listing of members online. Kind of maddening.

Keep in mind there is caching more in depth on your end due to Cloud. You will see not only cache from the block but if you’re not logged in, you will encounter guest cache from our CDN as well.

If your experience is different, I can certainly take a look. However, on my test installs I run for both version 4 and 5, in both environments, I am unable to reproduce this.

51 minutes ago, Jim M said:

While I can respect that, PHP 8.1 is only support for version 4 so we would need you to downgrade for us to further investigate.

Done, Jim. Downgraded to PHP 8.1 a while ago, issue persists.

25 minutes ago, Jim M said:

Keep in mind there is caching more in depth on your end due to Cloud. You will see not only cache from the block but if you’re not logged in, you will encounter guest cache from our CDN as well.

If your experience is different, I can certainly take a look. However, on my test installs I run for both version 4 and 5, in both environments, I am unable to reproduce this.

Guests are not able to view the "Who's Online" block so it would not be that. Also, I have the cache set for 1 minute.

Whatever the reason, just my opinion but, it shouldn't ever display "0" users online, when there are indeed users online.

2 minutes ago, My Sharona said:

Whatever the reason, just my opinion but, it shouldn't ever display "0" users online, when there are indeed users online.

If there are zero people online when it caches, it will show zero till the cache clears and it checks again. However, we will investigate this for you.

Please disable any third party applications, plugins or themes.

21 minutes ago, Jim M said:

If there are zero people online when it caches, it will show zero till the cache clears and it checks again. However, we will investigate this for you.

Please disable any third party applications, plugins or themes.

Yeah, no. There are definitely people on line when it caches. Disabling plugins on the v4 is not something I am willing to do at this point. However, the site on v5 doesn't have any plugins or apps.

To be clear here, I have lived with this for what seems an awful long time. I never reported it because, well... just because. My main intent here was to back up the OP. That said, it would be nice to see it resolved and fixed.

Edited May 27May 27 by My Sharona

1 hour ago, Rafael Fischmann said:

Done, Jim. Downgraded to PHP 8.1 a while ago, issue persists.

Please switch to an unmodified theme, when I do so, I am seeing people online in the block as expected. It could be that your advertisements Javascript may be causing issues here.

1 hour ago, My Sharona said:

However, the site on v5 doesn't have any plugins or apps.

Unfortunately, I just went to your v5 site and without issue I was able to see people online. 8 registered users and a guest.

2 hours ago, Jim M said:

Please switch to an unmodified theme, when I do so, I am seeing people online in the block as expected. It could be that your advertisements Javascript may be causing issues here.

I've just tried that and not only the issue persists, but I now have a bigger problem.

The only template I had customized was "globalTemplate". I reverted it back to original, checked that the issue persisted, and tried re-pasting my custom code. Now it won't accept it, it won't save because of an error. Don't know what to do and I need urgent help here.

Edit: it seems other templates are still editable, but something broke specifically to "globalTemplate". When I try to edit it and save it, it says something like "The requested page doesn't exist."

I also went ahead and even switched from Redis to MySQL, still no good. Issue with online users persists.

Edited May 27May 27 by Rafael Fischmann
More info on "globalTemplate" issue.

1 hour ago, Jim M said:

Unfortunately, I just went to your v5 site and without issue I was able to see people online. 8 registered users and a guest.

Right. It is my bad because I didn't express that it is a random thing. However, I don't imagine it, it does happen and it does happen regularly. Some stretches of time, more than others.

I understand that if you can't recreate it, it makes it hard for you to diagnose. And this is probably why I haven't reported/mentioned it prior.

6 minutes ago, Rafael Fischmann said:

I've just tried that and not only the issue persists, but I now have a bigger problem.

The only template I had customized was "globalTemplate". I reverted it back to original, checked that the issue persisted, and tried re-pasting my custom code. Now it won't accept it, it won't save because of an error. Don't know what to do and I need urgent help here.

I also went ahead and even switched from Redis to MySQL, still no good. Issue with online users persists.

Your advertisements were not disabled so the issue with the Who's Online box remains, I'm afraid. Once I disable those, I am not having any issues viewing the block with accurate details:

7 minutes ago, Rafael Fischmann said:

The only template I had customized was "globalTemplate". I reverted it back to original, checked that the issue persisted, and tried re-pasting my custom code. Now it won't accept it, it won't save because of an error. Don't know what to do and I need urgent help here.

You will need to check why your server is rendering a 404 error for saving. Often this is due to issues from CloudFlare or other security modules.