Hello

I have been using Freichat 3.5.0 and COmmunity Builder on Joomla 1.5.22 for about 6 months now and after my previous host suspended us for using too much bandwidth in March this year even though we never had more than 4 or 5 users logged on, we moved to another host who promised "unlimited bandwidth"

Yesterday we were asked to remove Freichat from our website by our host as it was responsible for over 85% of their server load in busy periods.

After investigation it seems that Freichat was making thousands of database connections in parallel constantly causing huge server loads even if no one was on the site chatting. Something to do with the way you make the connection which keeps each connection open and opens a new one every time.

My question is whether the latest version of Freichat does things differently, for example using Ajax? Or will I have the same problem.

Looking forward to some pointers here, please.

Cheers

Cliff

I installed the latest version, and our host says the good news is that it is not polling every second any more as the old version did, but the bad news is that it is polling every 5 seconds still - this does mean less server load, but it does still open up a new connection everytime so load will still be an issue (but at least 5 times less).

Any ideas please would be welcome.

Cliff

There is no other way than to poll the server. The only way one can retrieve new messages and user list is by polling the server(we use AJAX).
The latest version v.5.2.1 is much better compared to earlier versions when it comes to resource usage.
If the user is idle, the requests interval goes up to 60 seconds, and after 500 seconds the user goes offline automatically which means there are no more requests until the user willingly goes online.

I guess your host has trouble when a lot of people are requesting the server.


Something to do with the way you make the connection which keeps each connection open and opens a new one every time.
This can happen if the server is too slow!
Can you tell me what exactly your host said, please provide as much information as possible. this will give us a better idea of what is happening and will help us to help you better.


version 6.0 is going to be released soon,
There are some major improvements such as we have removed some database related bottlenecks that were present in the earlier versions.
there will be long polling, so the request will be once in 60 seconds or more(depending upon max_execution_time that is set in the server) for a average user.

we are also working on a technique which is quite similar to PUSH, which will completely remove the dependency from your server(although required during initial authorization), so no more polling.

Please keep checking for newer versions, as they are released in every 15-30 days.
every new release equals less resource usage, more speed and security.

Mostly I had telephone conversations with our our host which resulted in my having to go an purchase AjaxChat for Joomla at $50 to install until we can sort out the Freichat issues. Here was their first email:

"Hi Cliff,

The plugin freichat is putting increasing load on the server, often taking 80% CPU during busy times.

Can you please disable this module?

There are free chat solutions that run on dedicated platforms (off the server) "

I will send them your comments and ask them to tell me exactly what the problem is so that it can help you if possible.

Cheers

Cliff

It has come to a point where I get "cannot connect to mysql" This component is a godsend in capability, but its crippling my website.

Hi,

Try running FreiChat on your localhost and you will see the resources used are negligible. Do check the CPU and Memory usage by Switching the chat on and off.

@leopold
The site is slowing down because your host server is already running thousands of other websites and your host won't allow you to hold on to resources for a longer time and chat softwares need continuous resources as they need to send and receive data in real time. since the same resource will have to be used by thousands of other websites that are hosted on the same server you are seeing a slowdown.