Shout Box.

[phreadom]

I've noticed a problem with the Shout Box today and it seems that at least some other users are having it as well.

When you post a shout, it replaces the top message instead of adding it... so the previous top message disappears until you refresh the page. If you post multiple shouts in a row they will just keep replacing the top one and the list won't move down.. and the colors of that top post will alternate dark/light etc. Refreshing will then show any other posts between the second from the top before you started and the most recent top post you did.

Something is just broken with the shout box refresh. I wonder if this happened as part of the forum shout box work and only a couple people noticed it up until now.

(I saw a shout earlier today where someone posted twice and asked if you had to refresh to see the post. That was about this same issue I think.)

Rediscovr:
30 Mar: 20:17
Does this update automatically? Or do I have to refresh? x]

I had removed the duplicate shout earlier without noticing what it might be referring to.

[sei]

This happens with the site's shoutbox too. At least for me.

It's the same problem that happened before. I believe the solution was the refresh time. It always substitutes the top post (it actually can replace more depending how big the post you make is and how big are the ones on the top), but then it should refresh soon and be back to normal.

Hope this helps at all.

[clayb]

Yeah, this is a bug with the module. In the Drupal admin section for the shoutbox module, there is a option to turn on Ajax auto refresh. You can set it to refresh every x seconds. The problem is that too has some bug. I can't remember quite what it does now, but Axlen (a member with that same name) has worked on it.

If you want to put this on your list to look at, please PM Axlen to find out exactly what the problems are. I can also give you his email address. He is very knowledgeable and helpful.

[phreadom]

I figure it doesn't hurt to have a look at it. I planned on having a look through the Shoutbox code anyway in order to see if I couldn't get it working properly for the forum sidebar.

I'll drop him a PM.

[Axlen]

I posted some fixes for the shoutbox on the Drupal site. I have not found a fix for the update issue though. What I have found on my test site is that the Ajax Refresh should be between 5 and 10 seconds and the number of visible shouts should be kept to a minimum. 10 to 15 or so. The client will poll the server every Ajax refresh period and update the div elements in the shoutbox.

You can poll the shoutbox manually
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/shoutbox/js/view
to check how long it takes to transfer the shouts. Just now it took about 5 seconds for the server to respond. My DL speed may have something to do with that. Perhaps you could try the shoutbox with a 10 second refresh and 10 shout display.

I have noticed that on IE7 that sometimes that the javascript does not get loaded and the shoutbox reverts to it fallback operation of requiring a page refresh to update it. It's possible some other module(s) is interfering with the shoutbox. It uses JSQuery which is distributed with Drupal so there should not be an Ajax toolkit conflict.

Unfortunately the shoutbox maintainers don't seem to be very active at the moment and for all practical purposes have abandoned the module. We are left on our own to fix it.