[Jakeman]

Originally posted by lordofgun
thanks

what i meant was this...

we have our timeout set at 1200. it doesn't show as many users online as i'd like at 1200. but if i raise it, there's too much load on the server. Would this be useful in showing more users online, without having to increase the server load by raising the timeout?

am i making sense? lol

hmm, do you have persistant connections enabled? if so, turn them off. (it's a setting in your forum/admin/config.php)

nafae, i know exactly what you are talking about. that problem is caused by a limitation of browser cookies and there is nothing you can do about that under the current system. one way vB could fix that is to directly query the database for post markers instead of using cookies, but this increases the server load. maybe vB has something in the works for version 3.

anyways, this hack simply gives the appearance of more traffic by displaying users from the last hour (or whatever you choose). many people will set their cookie timeout really high to give the appearance of more users, but setting the cookie really high means you are also increasing the login time which jacks with unread post markers... example, a user logs into your forum and then is inactive for 2 hours. since your login cookie is set to 1 hour (for example) then any new posts made within the first hour of inactivity will *not* be marked as unread the next time they login. do you see what i'm saying? this hack allows you to increase the time for the whois online list without touching your login cookie time.

*head explodes*