Skip to content
TORNLIFE More

User activity stopped recording

Started by Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor on in Bugs & Issues.

25 replies · 682 views · thread synced · 7 days ago · View on torn.com
About this thread

Posts archived: 26 / 26 posts (100%) · the total is Torn's reply count + the opening post at the last fetch

Counted by TornLife from the archived posts.

Archived posts
26
Discussion span
→
Authority score
62 / 100
Historical score
46 / 100
Story score
54 / 100
Engagement score
72 / 100

People posting, likes and official posts are not counted for this thread yet: on threads longer than one page they come from a periodic pass over the archive, which has not covered it.

Most-liked replies

  • Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor · 12 likes ·
    Not trying to thread jack or stir things, huh? I'm sure Chedburn and Mauk are perfectly capable of resolving this themselves. You are in no place to make accusations like that. I request this thread to be closed and locked, …
  • Chedburn [1] Admin · 5 likes ·
    Mauk, I think you need to remove that stuff ASAP, and restrict your software to ONLY using the API system. And force this update to all people using it as quickly as possible. It appears like your software is effectively …
  • Chedburn [1] Admin · 4 likes ·
    Actually, it's working exactly as intended: [image: i.gyazo.com] Your activity is increased at the end of your session. So if your session lasts 8 days... it's going to update after 8 days. We certainly need to address developers putting in …
Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor · #1

I just checked my user activity and noticed that since July 30th it has stopped recording. One could say "you weren't online" but that would be untrue, as I'm usually active 6 to 10 hours a day, easily checked by when and how many forum posts I make.

Not really sure how this happens, my logins have stopped tracking, although that's possible I was kept logged in for a few days as DoctorN has some functions that do that if I recall correctly and my laptop has been on for quite a while.

[image: image.prntscr.com]
Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor · #3 · edited

That's really weird.. considering how active I've been lately. I did try to log out and back in just now and my time played seemed to have gone up, is there a chance that not logging out could have been the reason?

edit: I think it was below 140 days and now jumped up to 141d
Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor · #4

Looking back at my graph it has also happened from 23d to 26th and from 19th to 22nd of july, with a very big boost in user activity at the end of those periods.
Chedburn [1] Admin Developer · #5

Well it must be something you're doing? Are you perhaps only using mobile mode, or only doing one specific activity?
Harley [258120] Wiki Contributor · #6

I'm on my laptop, as I don't have a phone at the moment. I guess most of my activity consists of reading and replying in the forums. Aside from that I train, do crimes, use my casino tokens, I also fly occasionally, everything seems to get tracked aside from logins & activity.
Mauk [1494436] · #9

Same thing for me. Granted, I haven't done much the last week (been super sick), but I still used up nerve/energy a few times a day.
Chedburn [1] Admin Developer · #10

It looks like you had 6 days of non-stop activity. Not even pausing for 5 minutes - which seems to have confused the system.

Are you using any scripts that might cause this?
Chedburn [1] Admin Developer · #13

Actually, it's working exactly as intended:

[image: i.gyazo.com]

Your activity is increased at the end of your session. So if your session lasts 8 days... it's going to update after 8 days.

We certainly need to address developers putting in mods to 'keep people online' though. My opinion is that scripts should never use anything other than the API. Mauk - can you please explain all bits that are not-api related and grab data or simulate user activity without the API?
Mauk [1494436] · #14 · edited

The feature that keeps people online are the forums notifications. People can choose any update rate (up to a hard limit of 30 seconds), and it works by grabbing the forums sidebar JSON.

All requests are marked with a "X-User-Agent: DoctorN/VERSION" header.

Edit: Also, every 10 minutes there's a city refresh. I just did a full sweep and those are the only non-api bits used.

nb. The city refresh was only created because Clansdancer allowed people to auto refresh the city in a post-- I wanted to link it but I can't find such post now. Was it deleted?

Even though those are not specifically created for keeping people online, it's a nice side-effect. I really don't like logging in every couple of hours.
Chedburn [1] Admin Developer · #15 · edited

Could these be removed with minimal effect on your application? I feel like we're setting a bad precedent if we just let everyone hit Torn's main pages automatically. The API was built for the sole purpose of having everything you need - although it sounds like we do need to add forum feed and other forum stuff.
Mauk [1494436] · #16

The forums feature is very useful and heavily depended upon by Doc's users, so I'd rather wait for equivalent support in the API if you're okay with that.

I personally believe the bad precedent is trying to control access with regulations instead of engineering-- for all you know, people could be using headless browsers to access Torn.

Now, if something is provided by the API, of course I'll use that. But for me to provide value and user engagement, it's irrelevant if a feature is using the API or not. Of course you're coming with a different perspective, but I just want to express that I think it's unfair to ban endpoints for legit users, while blackhat users will obviously not respect those same rules.
Chedburn [1] Admin Developer · #17

Mauk, I think you need to remove that stuff ASAP, and restrict your software to ONLY using the API system. And force this update to all people using it as quickly as possible.

It appears like your software is effectively DDOSing the forums. I spoke to one user who made 8355 hits in under two hours, and 6,326,385 hits in the last 2 months - and that's just one person.

The issue is that some of the panels on the forums have complicated queries that have to check a lot of rows in the database - I expect these are exactly the areas that users are hitting via your extension every second, 24 hours per day.

We will also make changes on our side to strictly limit the amount of page views.
McNeo [864688] · #18 · edited

Supposedly Clansy approved this, so if this specific feature is now under fire from boss-man Ched, I wonder how he feels about other features, such as the casino automation and city finds highlighter...

Not to start a war with mauk, but it seems this is the first Ched has investigated this extension, so I'm curious to get his thoughts.
McNeo [864688] · #19

Also, sorry, I'm not trying to thread jack.

And again, nothing against mauk here, he was merely working under the assumed permission of Clansy. And nothing against her, either. This has been highly debated in the past so I'm curious on ched's position, that's all.