Some of you have asked for a more detailed explanation of how the new chat works. I’ll try to explain it in more detail without getting too technical.
The first thing the chat application looks for is to see if you are online. We’ll call this “The Updater.” The Updater is constantly making periodic requests from your browser to the server alerting the server that your account is online. These online alerts are sent to the server on any of the pages on which you have your own profiles navigation menu (i.e. the menu with the Edit Profile link in it). So, as long as you have a browser window open that shows your Edit Profile link, the server will see you as being online.
The next event occurs when you click on the Live Chat link on someones page. We’ll call this “The Requester.” When you invoke The Requester by clicking the link, the chat pop-up window will open and in doing so it sends a new alert to the server saying that you requested a chat with that person. As long as that pop-up window remains open, than that chat request remains active on the server.
Now, going back to the first step. The other thing that The Updater does, is it looks for any new chat requests that were created by The Requester. If it finds one for you, it will automatically try to open a new chat window for you and automatically connect your chat to the person that initiated the request. NOTE: Be sure your browser isn’t blocking pop-up windows or you may never see the new chat window.
At this point you should both be in the chat.
If you are following along so far you probably can see a little gotcha scenario, and some of you have already encountered this. If your browser is no longer open to a page that contains The Updater (again, this is any page that has the Edit Profile link), then it can no longer alert the server to the fact that you are online. So what happens next is called a clean-up routine. The system periodically clears out any users from the server that are no longer reported as being online. So, if you are still chatting with a person, and the server thinks you are no longer online, it’s going to warn you (annoyingly so) that they are not online anymore. However they may very well still be online, it’s just that they are no longer sending update requests to the server via The Updater.
I’ve got an idea on how I might fix this which I’m going to put into place after some further testing. So please bear with this annoyance for the time being. In the short term the simple fix is to just keep two browser windows or tabs open. One of your profile home page (or any page with the Edit Profile link), and another of whatever you want. That way The Updater doesn’t get shut down.
Another issue we are also trying to track down is the issue of the chat stating that your time limit has been exceeded, and then booting you from chat. The reasons for this are currently eluding us as the code is supposed to allow chat session of up to 4 hours, however it doesn’t seem to be obeying. Bad code! Stop misbehaving! So we’ll keep pounding on this one to resolve the issue.
Thanks to all of you who are helping test the new chat features. As is often the case, things can work just fine in the lab, but once you release it into the wild it’s an entirely new mutant! Thanks for your patience as we work through these issues.
23 COMMENTS
Leave A CommentYeah, I think my “This user is offline” fix did the trick. It should no longer report this error erroneously. In theory you should even be able to close down all other MFI windows, and just keep the chat window open, it it should still continue working.
Now to tackle the other issue…
chat doesn’t work anymore when u keep one tap open on your main profile. it still locks on the initialization page. so this needs to be fixed before chat will work. every time i get an invite it doesn’t go past this page. i cleared all my cookies and turn comp off and left off for a while and turned back on and still not working.
I think we’ve squashed another issue of chat’s timing out and booting people. If you still experience this issue please send us an email detailing the issue.
The only last remaining issue seems to be those cases where the chat gets stuck on the Initializing screen and doesn’t progress past that phase. We’re working on that one and will post an update as we have more info.
I just wanted to say THANK You for working so hard to fix these problems. Some of us here are impatient and like things to work the first time and sometimes forget that it’s trial and error and there will be bugs with any and everything in life. Anyway Good Job and great changes for the most part. LOVE the sound that chimes when in livechat.
~~niceswty~~
i don’t quite understand, Jason. If i am on my profile (where the Edit Profile link is) i will be shown as online for the ladies.
So if surf around on the lady pages and profiles with no tab or window with my profile, then i will sooner ior later be shown as Offline.
Have i got this right?
I have had over 100 something pop up blockers from chat requests.. I dont see these new features as helping my goal.=(
am i to understand that we now have a four hour chat limit? is that per person, or is that in total, either seems wrong, but especially if its in total, thats 4 one hour chats- then bing – thats yer lot!!!
@CCR: Yes. Well actually that WAS true. But this is not even an issue anymore since the fix I put in.
Regarding the chat time limit, we are still looking into this one, but for the time being that issue should be resolved as we’ve opened up the floodgates and allowed for unlimited usage.
@Italianita: Please email in to the help section on this issue. There may be something else going on here. I don’t even see 100 requests sent to you, so I’m not sure why you would be seeing 100 popup requests.
Please keep the feedback coming people!
These seem great changes in theory! But 90% of my time on mfi is chatting on my iPhone. And now since the chat system appears to be flash based it’s been rendered useless to me! So, if I can’t chat, I can’t get to know anyone or catch up with friends so I won’t be able to come onsite as often of at all sadly!
As much as I enjoy the new features if and when they work, this is something that should have been phased in as an option, not dumped on us as the only option.
I pay a monthly fee to be able to use the site and chat. As it stands right now the chat functions are a total cock up and completely unusable.
See the offline message is still on too. Can get very annoying
I usually keep a copy of my chats so I can read them off-line mostly becaus eI have a very bad memory. The chat help section says the following:
“On the top of the message area there are 2 buttons: Chat Rooms and History. If you click Chat Rooms button, a rooms list window where you select the
room you wish to join will appear. Clicking History button will allow to view chat history that you can copy to the clipboard.”
Am I right in assuming the history feature has not been implimented since the chat room funtion would be an unecessary feature?
Will the ability to save a chat (not a webcam chat) be available in the future?
I’ve only used the new chat once, but I couldn’t find the Chat Room and History buttons. Do the girls even have that or is it only for the benefactors?
Last night, I lost the connection in the midst of chatting, which wasn’t unexpected….I know there are always bugs to work out with things like this. But, when we tried to hook back up, my friend said that he kept getting a message that it would only work if I activated my webcam…however, we weren’t using that feature….just regular chat. So, I’m not sure what that was about…
@Walter: Yeah that help copy obviously needs fixing. Thanks for pointing it out. There is no chat room. We are logging text chats, so maybe in a future update we’ll allow people to recall them through the site.
I just wanted to say thanks Jason and Jay for working so diligently to fix the issues!
Reading the comments I feel saddened that, as always, there are those who are not pleased… even though everyone has yelled “NEW CHAT ENGINE” the entire time I have been on the site. I think it’s wonderful that you are trying so hard to make your members happy!
You both ROCK!
@ classy, being an old curmudgeon, i have never yelled new chat engine, and am one of those people who hates change LOL
but i like the new thing a lot
finally if we are in stealth mode, we can choose who we speak to, there is no more “oh lets try to catch up in chat sometime” as if “yeah maybe we’ll chat but send the pennies anyway”
now its far different, the dynamics have changed for the better
I see someone has problem I also use my iPhone most of the time to access this now that it requires flash I can no longer do chat unless I’m by a computer which is hard to get t most of the time. You should have 2 forms of chat the old way and flash
“The Updater” as explained above has now been migrated to just about every page on the site (that requires you to be logged in to see), so it’s no longer limited to those pages that say Edit Profile on them. It even works on the blog pages even though technically you don’t have to be logged in to see them
it would be nice if we knew what men can see us on chat or not as it stands my turns on and.. then i am do you see this and they cant .. lol but i have now way of knowing until i ask .
and that constant offline thing for the guys is getting soo anoying
Firefox (and Opera, my preferred browser) offer the option of adding exceptions to the “Block Pop-ups.” Just add ‘myfreeimplants.com’ to the exceptions. Annoying pop-up advertisements stay blocked but chat windows from MFI come right up.
Tools -> Options -> Block Pop-up Windows ->
|-Exceptions-|
Issues .. yes i Have some the controls on the chat windows don’t work separately for each chat.
example I talk to 2 men lets say
.. One I allow to see my cam .. the
other even if i allow the Av settings and X out the cam it effects both windows instead of just the chat i block from the cam
This really needs to be fixed ..
‘
Thanks
=)