How to set 'members online' to more than 60 minutes

[adamgreenough]

By default, XenForo has a pretty tight limit on what they consider online. With this tip, you can help give your smaller forum a bit of a boost with a more generous activity threshold. I've personally chosen 90 minutes which I do not think is too unreasonable.

Fortunately for us, XenForo only uses the standard HTML form validation on this field, which means it can be easily bypassed using developer tools. PS. XenForo staff, please don't fix this (or let us decide on our own what we consider recently active!).

Follow at your own risk! Not sure if this has any unintended side effects but seems to work fine on my installation.

Using Google Chrome (or other browsers will be very similar), Navigate to Setup -> Options -> User Options



Attempting to save the form with an online status timeout of over 60 minutes will give the following error:



To get around this, right click the input and click 'Inspect'...



In the code view that pops up, you will see an input tag with a 'max' value as illustrated below. Double click the 60 and you will be able to edit it to whatever number you like. Once edited, you will be able to save the form using a value up to your new max amount.



All changes made using the browser developer tools will be lost on refresh and this does not alter your XenForo code.

Hope this is ok to post mods, happy to remove if not but think we should have the freedom to decide!

 

[Masetrix]

Have a look...

XF 2.0 - Increase Online status timeout

Hi guys, first post so go gentle, I've ported over from VB and am just having a little trouble increasing this option above the limited 60 minutes. I found online how you do it on older version but not on ZF2? Any help appreciated. Matt

xenforo.com

 

[adamgreenough]

That seems much more complicated. This way works a treat!

 

[Max Taxable]

can be easily bypassed using developer tools

Done as you described and I must say it is quite simple and elegant. No altering of code, no addon to install. Thank you.

 

[alternadiv]

This is pretty cool and I'm surprised it works, but it does!

 

[trapped_soul]

Hard coded etc here, but for the sake of satisfying my own curiosity - I tried it earlier and works.
Kudos for the find & share!

 

[Max Taxable]

Not sure if this has any unintended side effects

I have found no side effects so far, but there is one interesting thing about it.

If you set the number to something ridiculous, like 2880 minutes (2 days) it doesn't seem to work. You only seem to get 2 hours no matter how high you set the number above 120.

EDIT: 120 minutes appears to be the max you can actually get with this method, as I forgot I set one of my sites for 130 minutes, and after 120, visitors still drop off the board. Sat here and watched it happen, minutes ago. So really it's not "appears to be" it actually IS.

But still, elegant and simple little workaround.

 

[adamgreenough]

I have found no side effects so far, but there is one interesting thing about it.

If you set the number to something ridiculous, like 2880 minutes (2 days) it doesn't seem to work. You only seem to get 2 hours no matter how high you set the number above 120.

EDIT: 120 minutes appears to be the max you can actually get with this method, as I forgot I set one of my sites for 130 minutes, and after 120, visitors still drop off the board. Sat here and watched it happen, minutes ago. So really it's not "appears to be" it actually IS.

But still, elegant and simple little workaround.

Thanks for the extra info @Manster54! Sorry that this method does not work for longer than that. I had only tried up to 2 hours myself so nice spot.

For any others stumbling on this thread, the other seemingly accepted method for increasing this more than 2 hours can be found here: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/increase-online-status-timeout.148270/#post-1334726

 

[trapped_soul]

XF 2.0 - Increase Online status timeout

Hi guys, first post so go gentle, I've ported over from VB and am just having a little trouble increasing this option above the limited 60 minutes. I found online how you do it on older version but not on ZF2? Any help appreciated. Matt

xenforo.com

Absolutely. Works here. If you make sure you run daily cleanup once a month you should be good.

 

[C6ckneyGeezer]

Thanks for this! Nice little trick

 

[GodFather07]

Thats really amazing, It works
thanx alot

 

[Taz362]

Has this back door been fixed? I tried boosting to 120 then click "Save" but it still only allows me 60. Am I missing something?

 

[Max Taxable]

Has this back door been fixed? I tried boosting to 120 then click "Save" but it still only allows me 60. Am I missing something?

Still works just fine for me after upgrade. It appears you're changing the wrong one. The one you want is "max."

 

[Taz362]

Still works just fine for me after upgrade. It appears you're changing the wrong one. The one you want is "max."

Duh! Thanks buddy. I was changing the wrong number. I changed the right number to 120 and now it works great. Thanks to you and to the OP.

 

[beerForo]

I don't think this works anymore.

 

[Max Taxable]

I don't think this works anymore.

Still working for me.

 

[beerForo]

My old one works but I can't set it on a new site. Just get the error message.

 

[beerForo]

Still working for me.

got it now thanks

 

[declan1]

I have a different problem but will check this as well.