Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

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sven_duiker
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Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by sven_duiker »

Support Request Template
What version of phpBB are you using? phpBB 3.1.6
What is your board's URL? http://www.tarac.nl/simsforum
Who do you host your board with? http://www.one.com
How did you install your board? I used the download package from phpBB.com
What is the most recent action performed on your board? Update from a previous version of phpBB3
Is registration required to reproduce this issue? No
Do you have any MODs installed? No
Do you have any extensions installed? Yes, Pages and Welcome Message
What version of phpBB3 did you update from? phpBB 3.1.5
What styles do you currently have installed? Prosilver
What language(s) is your board currently using? Dutch
Which database type/version are you using? MySQL 5
What is your level of experience? Comfortable with PHP and phpBB
What actions did you take (updating your board; installing a MOD, style or extension; etc.) prior to this problem becoming noticeable? I did update it to 3.1.6, dut this was a while ago. I didn't do anything with the board after that.
Please describe your problem. Someone told me that she saw that she was listed as online, even though she wasn't logged in, and hadn't logged in for hours.
Also, on the same time this occured, suddenly there were 53 people online, which is an impossible amount for this forum (which is not really large).
I don't know if there were any bots or crawlers, but this amount is unrealistic.
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I don't have a list of people who were online, but it happened yesterday evening, 23:30/11:30pm. Thanks in advance!
Last edited by sven_duiker on Fri Oct 16, 2015 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Nikola
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Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by Nikola »

ACP > Load Settings > View online time span

You can also check the latest visitors in your control panel provided to you by your host.

This is what I see;

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You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done."

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KevC
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Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by KevC »

Most likely just a bot blip.

If you click 'Wie is er online' at the bottom of the index, you can see who is online right now.
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sven_duiker
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Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by sven_duiker »

Det. Lawliet wrote:ACP > Load Settings > View online time span

You can also check the latest visitors in your control panel provided to you by your host.

This is what I see;
I'll check the stats of the host, hope that has some information about yesterday evening. Thanks for the help!
KevC wrote:Most likely just a bot blip.

If you click 'Wie is er online' at the bottom of the index, you can see who is online right now.
I think it was, but that doesn't explain why one of the members was listed online even though she was extremely sure she wasn't logged in on anything - not her computer, neither her phone or tablet.

I know about the fact that you can press on "wie is er online", I'll ask the other staff members if they can keep an eye out and if this happens again, they can make some screenshots so I can see the IPs and browsers, and see if there's something "suspicious". Thanks for the help!
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KevC
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Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by KevC »

Could easily have been looking at a cached version of the page from when they last visited.
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sven_duiker
Registered User
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by sven_duiker »

I just checked the stats, but there is nothing strange; everything seems absolutely normal and I don't see any signs of more visits, which is strange because there had to be 53 members online around the same time - and that is a very high amount, much higher than normal.

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So, is it really possible those people were bots?
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RMcGirr83
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Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by RMcGirr83 »

Bots, if in the users list, are shown as members.
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sven_duiker
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Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Re: Offline member is listed online, impossible amount of members online

Post by sven_duiker »

RMcGirr83 wrote:Bots, if in the users list, are shown as members.
Not if they aren't registered, sometimes you see that there is a bot which isn't added in the bot group and appears as a guest, but I see them rarely.
But, even if it were bots, there are only 4 registered bots that visited the board.
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