Online Now Problem
 

I created 8 accounts for ministers that will be participating in my forum... I'm noticing the forum is showing all the minister's account as being "online" (green indicator light next to their username):

http://www.true2ourselves.com/forum/...ing-meyer.html

The problem is that none of them are online (I created these accounts and only I have access to them)... does anyone know why the forum is reading them as online?

Also, next to the forum category there is an indicator that displays how many people are viewing a specific section... that indicators is suggesting that all the ministers are currently viewing that section.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

It will likely be because of the setting that displays how long a user remains as being active on the board. I can't remember what the default time is, but i have mine set to 30 mins. Did you create these accounts by registering or through the admincp?

If you registered the accounts, they will appear offline once their session has expired. You can edit how long the session is in the admincp. Go to admincp>vBulletin Options>Cookies and HTTP Header Options and change the session timeout to something smaller.

Anyway, i'm going to assume they're already showing as logged out since your post was 45 mins ago.

I created their accounts early yesterday... through the typical registration process. However, my programmers have blended three other modules into the registration process so I'm not entirely certain how it works.

Ok, I think I found a problem... it has to do with the "session time out" being set to 90000000 (I have it that way so people never get automatically logged out of vbulletin - since my site uses two other modules that are not session based)....

However, I still don't know why vbulletin is showing everyone as being "online now" if they are not physically logged into their accounts?

I mean if a person logs out of their account, the green light should always go off, right?

Thanks for any help!

If the person ticks the "remember me" box when logging in, they wont get auto logged out anyways, seeing as you have a ridiculous timeout for the cookie, that is why they always appear logged in.

I assume you are referring to inactivity... I understand if a member is inactive they won't be "automatically" logged out because the long duration setting.

However, I'm talking about when someone physically logs out of the site... I clicked the log out button and it's obvious that I am not logged into vbulletin - why then is the green light on>?

You are assuming wrong.

You might want to read what i posted again, they WONT be logged out regardless of what your cookie is set to.

I appreciate your help, but I still see an error in your logic.... Here are the steps:

1. I created an account.

2. I logged into the account.

3. I physically logged out of the account i.e. I hit the "log out" button. I verified that I was logged out by noting obvious characteristics on the vbulletin template ("register now" for example).

4. I navigate to the above mention forum and next to each member is a "green" light saying they are "online now".

If the member is NOT logged into their account i.e. they are "not" online now ... then why is the green light still on..?

If I am missing something, please explain?

the cookie timeout is incorrect, set it to 900 and leave it alone.

if you want to learn how the cookie works in vbulletin, you should read up on cookie sessions with a database.

I set it that way to try to prevent a problem.... when you log in to my website, you are automatically logging into three modules (B-Z, C-S, and vbulletin).

If a member was inactive for a given period of time (say 900 seconds), vbulletin would automatically log them out. However, they would NOT be logged out of my other two modules - thus the problem.

I set the cookie timeout to 90000 to prevent this issue... if that's not correct, can someone PLEASE suggest another approach that will solve my problem?

The help is very much appreciated!

vbulletin will NOT automatically log anyone out as long as they ticked the remember me box, thats what its there for.

if your users are getting logged out, then thats a issue your b-z & c-s are causing.

I really appreciate the help... this is useful information that I will pass on to my programmers.

B-Z and C-S don't automatically log me out - only vbulletin... that issue stopped when I set the timeout to 90000. I set it back to 900 as you suggested because you seem to know what you are talking about.

Unfortunately, I expect vbulletin will start automatically logging me out again... for some unknown reason. Thanks for your help and hopefully ill be able to figure this out soon.

I would discuss it with them, if your ticking the remmeber me box and still getting logged out, then the custom scripts are causing your issue.