CHAT

Chris, Philip, et al,

I know I have had several bug reports lodged with you guys about this particular problem, however, we don't seem to be any closer to fixing it despite some of the patches you've aimed at the problem.

I'd like to take this opportunity to ask other users if they are having the same problem.  Perhaps 'chat' isn't high on their list of priorities, but if they decide to help by testing the function, and if the problem gets replicated by others, at least there will be a lowest common denominator for you guys to start working on it.

The invitation, or challenge, is thrown open to all. Does your Chat system work without breaking?  Please don't type in few words and say it works - give it a beasting, then report back.

Thanks.

 

Well I have had a problem where I can not even make a chat room, been that way for a while.
So I am not sure how to test this.
Well one of the members on ocpower created a chat room and said it worked but I will see if I can test that one.

Well I just testing it to the best of my abilities.
Basically what I did was hit random letters with one had as fast as I could and then hit enter with the other as fast as I could. Each message had any where from 4 to 5 letters in it and there are many of them.
How ever private chat does not seem to work, then again no one else is on.


EDIT: umm now with all the message that I made it will no longer even run.
It opens and then crashes.

EDIt again: I just made over 500 messages doing that and it works only 50% of the times now.
And I have noticed a great slow down with the more messages you have.

EDIT: I got out of it and then back in it and this time firefox crashed and I had to restart the computer.


Hope thats enough data, I may still do some more testing but its close to bed time here.

I had to disable chat after over 1000 messages I start to get a cpu over ussage by my host.

Thank you Ami.

I hope the staff are reading this. There is an apparent connection, in which the servers do not like the 'overusage' of server resources. My hosts are obviously less tolerant than Ami's as they 'break' the connection much earlier than hers.

Perhaps it is because the page is redrawn each time an entry is made, but that's only a wild guess on my part since I don't know how the feature is scripted.

Chris & Philip - explanation, fix or rewrite, please?

 

Your welcome I hope it does get fixed.

I'll find some time to look into this and see if I can do any optimisation, but in all honesty, the chat system was not designed to deal with numbers in the order of thousands of messages. Still, it shouldn't be breaking here, and I'll see what I can do.

500 is when it started having trouble for me.
Is there a way to clear them with out going though and deleting them manually.

Yes. You can delete all the messages in a chatroom from the content management zone (just click on the name of the chatroom in the chat module of the content management zone, and click "Delete all messages" at the bottom).

Ok thanks I should be able to re enable it after doing that but will keep an eye on it when it get 500 messages.
Maybe it should be more like dean's shout box an count as posts hehe.  

Philip,

Regrettably, you can't put up a feature like 'Chat' and then explain, after the event, that it isn't meant to be used in the manner that my users wish to use it.

I still contend that the server having to 're-draw' the page each time a user enters a post is probably what is causing it (the server) to lie on its back and kick its heels in the air shouting, "not fair"!!

Perhaps you can put a limitation on how many bytes the chat system can retain in memory before it dumps the excess.  That way, I would expect that the servers will not see any 'extended' usage of their facilities and will continue to hold up. Of course I would like to see the history retained in the logs in case of any 'dispute'.

Is that too fanciful a request?

 

I agree with fletch.

Looks like my CHAT problem is on the back-burner.  It continues to break down. If the room stays up long enough without anybody using it, it sort of survives for a few days. However, as soon as somebody posts in the Chatroom - BANG - down it goes!! This isn't acceptable for either myself, or my users.

So I've splashed out on "FlashChat" in the belief that it is just possible that it can be integrated into this CMS, like they've managed to do for other CMS and BB progs.  Integration uses the CMS login information and makes use of the module quite seamless. Except I don't know how, as FlashChat have not built an integration module for OCP.

It can be used as a 'stand-alone' (linked from the menu on my start page), but I would rather it blended in with my current site.  Anybody out there that is knowledgeable enough to point me in the right direction?

 

I haven't yet had a chance to look into possible chat problems with thousands of messages, but I still think it's a server problem that is giving you so much anguish over our chat system.

If you ask on FlashChat's forums, I presume they'll be of more help than us. Make sure to tell them that we'll answer any questions they have about the ocPortal API if they want to do integration with ocPortal.

I wish flash chat was free. I know its only 5 dollors but for me thats a lot.

I've installed FlashChat to work as a 'stand-alone', which means my users will open it in a new window and it won't interact with anything on the core site. Users will need to login again if they wish to use the Chat, but that's a small problem, until I can find somebody that is willing to try to integrate FlashChat into OCP. That is an inconvenience, but not a HUGE problem - not yet!

I want to be able to administer the FlashChat from the menus in my left panel and to that end I have built clearly labelled links to both 'Chat' features, and my users can choose what they want to use. However, I've also added a link to the FlashChat Admin area under the 'Staff' menu (that I've relabelled 'Site Info'), and I want that link suppressed (or made invisible to other users except Staff).  I've tried looking through all the 'Tree', 'Permissions' and other menus that restrict things, but can't seem to see a simple solution, because the link is to a URL off-site.

Help or explanation, anybody?

 

P.S. @Amy
5 bucks at todays inflated prices is ALMOST free, but why spend it if it isn't necessary, huh?

Yes I use a shout box as a chat system and it works good, counts as posts too.  

What's the point of using flash chat when there is a nice chat system here at ocportal.

Not everything is going to work perfect for everyone all the time, especially with all the different browsers, computers, and oems.

Chat has worked for me, but it isnt something that I use a lot because it is slower then others, I just don't have the time for it.

Fletch, you could create a Comcode page that features an HTML iframe, that frames the chat admin. Then you deny permission to the page, and make sure your menu item is set to check permissions.

I've had a play around with a room containing almost 3000 messages, spaced out over a month, posted by four different members (one of which was invalid), and the only thing that broke was Firefox.

I've made a fix so that a maximum of 100 messages will be downloaded when somebody opens a chatroom, to save their browser from crashing:
ocPortal - Entry: Browsers crash when retrieving chat rooms with thousands of messages