Alerts Help

[aceone]

There you go. Hooks-only mod to achieve the same thing.

Thank you.

[Steve]

Can someone please summarize what exactly the problem is here. Every time I read through this topic I get more confused.

And is Arantor's mod something we should all install or is it because of the OP's particular setup?

[Shades.]

Can someone please summarize what exactly the problem is here. Every time I read through this topic I get more confused.

And is Arantor's mod something we should all install or is it because of the OP's particular setup?

I had to look in the mod to figure it out because I was wondering the same thing lol! In the mod says "* Disables the behaviours for marking alerts read when visiting topics."

[FrizzleFried]

There you go. Hooks-only mod to achieve the same thing.

Awesome... I can now throw those notes away.

[FrizzleFried]

Can someone please summarize what exactly the problem is here. Every time I read through this topic I get more confused.

And is Arantor's mod something we should all install or is it because of the OP's particular setup?

Lets say you rack up 3 alerts on one single-page topic.  One for a quote... and lets say 2 for mentions.  One on the OP and one on the 9th response.

Stock behavior:

You visit the site and see you have 3 alerts.  You click say the first "mention" alert... it takes you to the mention in the OP... but it then resets your alerts to ZERO as the other two alerts are also on that same page.  The stock "assumption" is that you will see those alerts since you are already on the same page.

Updated behavior:

You visit the site and see you have 3 alerts.  You click say the first "mention" alert... it takes you to the mention in the OP... and it DOES NOT reset your alerts to zero.  You still have 2 alerts showing in the drop down at top.  You have to actively go in to those alerts and click on them... or you can click MARK READ... or they will eventually time out based on your settings.

@Arantor  ...do I pretty much have this right?  ALSO... can you please tell me,  is the TIMEOUT setting in minutes or number of alerts (does 10 mean 10 minutes or 10 alerts for example)? [answered below based on my search]

[FrizzleFried]

NOTE: I just read after a search that the TIMEOUT setting is a polling interval?!?  Strange name to give a polling interval?  Evidently it's in seconds.  10 = 10 seconds.  So evidently my assumption there was an actual "timeout" setting for alerts was incorrect.  They'll stack up I assume until you either click on them or "mark read".  Is that correct Arantor?

[Max22]

The "Timeout for Alert desktop notifications" setting specifies the number of seconds to display the alert before closing it.

The alert notifications will appear at the top left in the box marked "Alerts", while the "desktop notification" will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of your browser window.

Mentioned by Oldiesmann in issue #3911

[Arantor]

I don't ever turn on the desktop notifications, personally. That was something I never about in the design but its point is to check every x seconds and update the number of the alerts you have. It doesn't expire alerts or anything like that, it's just about keeping that number fresh without you having to explicitly reload the page.

That said if you already opened the alerts panel that page load you won't see the updated alerts list because it doesn't refresh *that* AFAIK.

[FrizzleFried]

So the timeout option at the alerts dropdown has to do with the windows notification that pops up at the bottom right hand corner of my monitor?  It's the number of seconds to display that notification at the bottom right hand corner?

Is that correct?

[Arantor]

I don't actually know. I thought it was the frequency of checking in for updates.

As I say I have never turned it on (and it was added after I worked on the base of the alerts system). It's possible it doesn't work properly because I'm not actually sure what it is supposed to do.

(My browsing is between desktop and mobile and there is no situation where I'd want a notification like that.)

[FrizzleFried]

Desktop notifications are an entirely different. This is a feature supported by many web browsers (Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox for sure; not sure what other browsers support it) that shows a notification within the browser for something even if you're not viewing the site that the notification is associated with at the time. The "Timeout for Alert desktop notifications" setting specifies the number of seconds to display the alert before closing it.

That seems to suggest just that.  The labeling is about as clear as mud.

EDIT: Though re-examining... "Timeout for Alert desktop notifications" ... maybe a slight tweak "Time Desktop Notification Pop up Remains on screen at bottom right (in second)"... aim for the lowest common denominator (I'll lump myself in that!)..

[Arantor]

Honestly, if that's what the feature is actually meant to do, I wouldn't have made it an option in the first place, I'd have left it up for 10 or so seconds, whatever felt good and it wouldn't be configurable.

[voom]

It seems I have a problem that it does NOT work then it is supposed to. I just received 28 alerts accumulation since yesterday. All for citations, answers etc. Since then I had been checking for new posts myself many times and there were no unread items in the whole (still very small) forum for me at the time, when the alerts arrived. It seems to me that that was better when I first installed the forum.

I see no point in having alerts for things I have already seen, thus I want it the way it is meant to be, as opposed to the threadstarter.

At the moment, smf_background_tasks is empty.

[Arantor]

That implies you had no visitors to the site in the meantime... things get put into a queue and something has to run the queue.

[voom]

That implies you had no visitors to the site in the meantime... things get put into a queue and something has to run the queue.

I had visitors, few but very active. Anyway, I now set up a cron to run every minute. The cron runs "with 0 errors" as it notifies. I watch if that works better...

[Arantor]

That's how I run my sites

[voom]

It makes sense, but it does not work for me as expected. Looking at the database, the entries come and go. The alerts come sometimes, alsmost much too late. The stuff that suddenly is alerted, I have read already. It is even more confusing by the time of the alert shown being the time it was issued, not the time the event happened. So I see the current time, think it is new - and it is something I have read and replied to hours ago.

What also confuses me, is that with the cron set and the js-function deactivated, nothing seems to happen at all. Sometimes, when I exec. the cronjob manually, a bunch of old alerts came at once. Another time: nothing. Then, turning the js-function back on: a bunch of old alerts.

Just in case someone has experienced sth. like that with one of the mods active in our SMF 2.1.2:

[Arantor]

Of course the entries come and go in the background tasks table, that's literally the point.

Making a post adds a task to the background queue to process alerts. Cron running removes items from the queue and processes them. Thus the table gets items and empties out again.

As for your symptoms this indicates cron is not clearing things, what exactly did you set up as the cron task?

[voom]

Of course the entries come and go in the background tasks table, that's literally the point.

I know; I meant to state that that looks fine... Opposed to what I and other users experience on the forums....

As for your symptoms this indicates cron is not clearing things, what exactly did you set up as the cron task?

/path/to/smf-www-root/cron.php * * * * * (executing as root, as a PHP task in Plesk)

[Arantor]

cron.php is not executable on its own, you need to have your cron task be the php executable (which will vary host to host, especially for hosts that have different versions of PHP available), and pass path/to/cron.php as a parameter.

E.g. on one of my sites, the command is /usr/local/bin/ea-php74 /path/to/cron.php