XF 1.3 Idling on forum while Alerts do not show up.

[surfsup]

I have to move to another page in order to view the alerts balloon popping up, we did just switch over using SSL and not sure if this has anything to do with it?

 

[Amaury]

Alerts only appear when an AJAX request is made, such as clicking on a member card or hovering over the Inbox dropdown, but alerts can also appear without having to leave the current page:

XenForo uses ajax to refresh your csrf token after you're inactive for a long period of time. If you keep your tab open for at least 50 minutes without focusing on it, next time you make it the active tab, it'll use ajax to refresh the token which also checks for unread messages and new alerts.
If you really are curious you can look at this area in xenforo.js:
XenForo.CsrfRefresh

 

[Walter]

Maybe you'll find this addon useful: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/live-update.274/