Yeah I'm wierd but I spot stuff like this, which is probably why I'm doing the job I do...

All these images are taken from the various places on the site which list who is online. All are taken within a minute or so of each other.

I'm guessing each list is using different logic to estimate who is online but compared with each other, it does seem a bit random

Yeah I've always noticed that the online now seems to list more, I thought it had a greater time lag (e.g. everyone whose been on in the last 15 minutes) or something.
Maybe the forum one doesn't count folks PMing or in a certain subforum? i know some stuff doesn't because of the forum layout (e.g. if you have the smilies page open but are not here.. are you here?)

No, I'm not here.

killmaimburn wrote:Maybe the forum one doesn't count folks PMing or in a certain subforum? i know some stuff doesn't because of the forum layout

i was under the impression that the list on the home page counted the whole site (galleries, front page and forums), while the list for the forum only counted those in the forum itself.

maybe Dan can clarify?

cheers

~ Tim

The list on the home page at the right is, as Tim surmised, for the entire site. The counts in the forum are for the forum only.

So "Who's online in the forums" is a better description?

mattjgilbert wrote:So "Who's online in the forums" is a better description?

But that's what it does say - go look

Ah yes. User error on my part

I'm impressed with your image editing abilities though, very clever trying to fool me like that.

I'll get you next time

Not if I get you first

*shakes fist*

umm guys... how come it just said there were 2 Guests in the Members Lounge, and it now says that 2 Guests are Posting Messages?

~ Tim

I bet when you next look...it wont

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:umm guys... how come it just said there were 2 Guests in the Members Lounge, and it now says that 2 Guests are Posting Messages?

~ Tim

Cos the code that tracks the users isn't very good. I'll see if I can improve it again - I've already tinkered a few times to improve, it's better than it used to be

As to the Guests posting and "seeing" forums they aren't supposed to, the data is wrong - the "Who's Online" stats are updated before the authorisation code kicks in, so what you're seeing are requests for pages prior to the browser being redirect to the login page (eg. most of those are "spiders" and are just incrementing the forum id to try to index content rather than following links). As stats are only updated once per minute, the guest isn't shown as being on the login page as it will have been put there < 1 min after the stats show it in the wrong place. I'll look at maybe moving the session stats update to after the authorisation code checks if a user is allowed to be in the area being "viewed".