Disabling Error Log Counter in Admin Button?

[br360]

I just upgraded to the newest available 2.1 (as of last night's upgrade), and I'm noticing a new feature now that every error on the board is shown as a counter in the admin button. I was trying to find a way to disable this in the admin panel, but wasn't able to.

Admins should definitely be checking their error logs regularly of course; but on busier forums, there could be a couple hundred errors a day just on people typing in the wrong password when logging in- and it could get a little annoying refreshing a page and then seeing 10 new errors in the admin button. Is there a way to be able to disable this like can be done with other alerts and notifications?

Here are a couple of images-

[Illori]

as far as i know there is no way to turn it off. IMO it should not be turned off as some admin would never check the error log otherwise.

[Justyne]

That might be a nice idea for a mod though to scale it down to only the critical errors. I didn't realise it also tracked the mistaken user logins as my community has very few of those. I can certainly see these as being annoying if they constantly pop up as a notification.

[br360]

as far as i know there is no way to turn it off. IMO it should not be turned off as some admin would never check the error log otherwise.

I think it's fine to have it on by default, but on some forums that may get something like a few hundred password incorrect errors a day, it could tend to get a little overkill logging in and seeing that kind of number in the admin button- and imo, there should be some way to turn that off somewhere in the notification settings. If every other notification can be turned off, not sure why there wouldn't be a way to do it here.

I would think most admins check their logs on a at least semi-regular basis; and I agree that having the error notification counter as default would be nice in helping remedy the situation for those that don't- however once they see the error section exists, it would be nice to be able to not have to get the counter notice each time a simple error occurs- otherwise some admins may go the other route; find it annoying, and just turn off the error logs entirely in the admin panel.

[br360]

That might be a nice idea for a mod though to scale it down to only the critical errors.

That would be livable at least, and actually a cool feature to be able to be notified if there was a critical or even database error. Seeing the number "300"  and finding out that 298 were password incorrect errors, not so much. lol.

[Illori]

you can also enable automatic pruning of the error log.

[Bob Perry of Web Presence Consulting]

I'm glad this post got bumped, I need to go back and re-do the hack job I did on the menu, didn't realize at the time that the new version did this and manually added a really old mod that does the same thing... sheesh, but that's ok, needed to go back over that anyway as I have some minor aesthetic issues with the menu icons too, as @Arantor says, communication is a good thing, but I can't stand jumping back and forth between here and github, just saying...

[br360]

you can also enable automatic pruning of the error log.

Sure, but even if someone set the pruning to once every day, it wouldn't stop the huge amount of meaningless errors some bigger forums would still get daily in the count. Plus, I wouldn't really want the error logs to be pruned on a daily or even weekly basis- as that would just delete the errors before I may get a chance to see them. I don't want to not see the errors- just would prefer (for lack of a better term)to not have them shoved directly in my face constantly.

[Illori]

I have some minor aesthetic issues with the menu icons too, as @Arantor says, communication is a good thing, but I can't stand jumping back and forth between here and github, just saying...

then start a thread on it? or is it related to https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/issues/2628 ?

[Antechinus]

as far as i know there is no way to turn it off.

Easy. Hack Sources.

IMO it should not be turned off as some admin would never check the error log otherwise.

Will such admins give a bugger anyway? They may not even have error logging turned on. They are very likely to turn it off if it gets annoying.

[Kindred]

Actually, that brings up a point...

should bad password attempts (not admin account attempts, just general user) actually be *IN* the ERRROR log to begin with?
Personally, it always confused me a little. I think, if we are tracking bad passwords for USERS, it should be in a separate log, entirely...   it's not actually an error, after all...    Maybe a "security log" instead?

[Justyne]

I like that thought. Or maybe we could imbue it with some intelligence.

Say, effing up one login is marked "grey" and messing up 3 or 4 in a row is a concern?

At least this is the only thing I ever check user logs for... to see if anyone has been bruteforced. Is there anything else useful one can get out of it?

[Arantor]

Nope, the only use for that particular thing is to see about user account bruteforcing. That's all it has ever been for but that does not diminish its usefulness.

For the record I'm *all for this* showing it in the menu as a thing. I am pleased to see this notification being included, especially after it was tweaked previously to turn off ban logging into the error log (thus making the number more accurate on normal communities).

The question of whether they should be in the error log or somewhere else is an interesting one. I know in that-fork-of-which-we-do-not-speak I had a security log because I'd added a homebrew version of Bad Behaviour and needed the log data from that, I could certainly see the same thing here and I know I've mused doing a security system addon for SMF, I'd certainly be inclined to move the user logging into such a security log rather than the main error log.

There's also the question of the whole 'failing to log into the admin panel correctly' which also currently goes into the error log, and probably should also go into this hypothetical security log.

[stmaxx]

Me like the error inductor or alerts and if the ban attempts are filter out that's areal plus, but admins should always be aware of any error that comes up. takes a second or so to get out and clear, I can see the need for most of the alerts. you may day go in and thousands of errors to go through, due to users trying to get in something they have no permission to or guest, maybe a bad habit tracker as well as real errors!

If you turn off the errors completely and install, or change something, you maybe stock piling some useful information that could prevent a crash!

regards,
Maxx

[Bob Perry of Web Presence Consulting]

Me like the error inductor or alerts and if the ban attempts are filter out that's areal plus, but admins should always be aware of any error that comes up. takes a second or so to get out and clear, I can see the need for most of the alerts. you may day go in and thousands of errors to go through, due to users trying to get in something they have no permission to or guest, maybe a bad habit tracker as well as real errors!

If you turn off the errors completely and install, or change something, you maybe stock piling some useful information that could prevent a crash!

regards,
Maxx

Definitely... My site is tiny, but I learned a long time ago that as long as the site still functions half-assed, it hurts absolutely nothing to go in and clear the whole thing when there's a ton of em, the truly concerning issues will definitely return rather quickly if it is indeed an issue, the rest are not important enough to worry about when a problem is indicated and catches the attention of admin... as you say, it only takes a few minutes to clear, then monitor a little more closely for a while...

any kind of useful admin tools are welcome in my book...

in fact, here's an idea for yuns, there is another really useful old, no longer supported (i think?) module that displays a neat link/stat about how many users vs guest are actively viewing any given board on the board index page, it works error free in my own 2.1 install and would be a piece of cake to put into the core source if so inclined, useful quick reference for both members and admins alike...

hmm, how about the "view agreement" button I have next to my "Mark all as read" button located right before the fancy keyword tags carousel in the board info center at bottom of index, hmm, i think i'll change the language so it reads "Review Registration Agreement", i like that better...

[Arantor]

would be a piece of cake to put into the core source if so inclined, useful quick reference for both members and admins alike

Aside from the performance hit attached.

hmm, how about the "view agreement" button

Isn't that what the Terms and Rules button in the footer is for? That's certainly what I intended when I added that.

[Bob Perry of Web Presence Consulting]

Aside from the performance hit attached.

Like I mentioned before, my site is tiny compared to some, but I get no inkling of a performance hit with it, and I know one site where I installed that mod with 60k+ members and heavy traffic patterns where the same is true, very negligible performance issues...

Isn't that what the Terms and Rules button in the footer is for? That's certainly what I intended when I added that.

Quite right, point taken, forgot about that...

[Arantor]

It's not about the number of members, it's more about the number of boards, and the number of people online watching the board index or message indexes (for child boards) at once. This stuff does not scale especially well, unfortunately.

[Oldiesmann]

As far as disabling that count goes - I could see adding a setting for it, but it would still be enabled by default.

[br360]

As far as disabling that count goes - I could see adding a setting for it, but it would still be enabled by default.

That would be awesome if that could be done.

I personally don't think people would object to having it on by default; as long as they could turn the count off if they desired. If I'm not mistaken, there is also a count in the admin button for new members awaiting approval? I would personally like to still have that option; so if being able to turn the error count off, would the count still occur if a new member was waiting sign up approval?