Always Offline

[techmgmt]

Hello all. I have the WP Plugin for the Live Chat functionality and up until the latest 3CX update, it was working. Now, it is always showing as offline, even when there are three agents online and logged into the queue. I have deactivated, deleted and re-added the plugin, no go. I have reconfigured the Live chat messaging in 3CX, no go. When the person fills out the offline answers to the questions we have, the offline message pops up right away in 3CX so there is communication happening.

 

[noord]

Yes, same issue here!
I thought it was me

One difference: after fiddling around enough, like you did, now the chat is always online.

It seems to me the plugin isn‘t doing anything at all with the chat time you specify. And I eventually got the switch to go to ‚online‘ and now it‘s stuck on that.
The plugin does report the correct server time and is even online now on days when it’s supposed to be offline the entire day.

I also updated 3CX from 18 to 18 update 1 beta 2, but that makes no difference.

 

[VasilisV_3CX]

Hi @techmgmt & @noord,

Are you still experiencing these issues? If yes,

@techmgmt, you mentioned your offline messages come through while the agents are online. Are you sure that the agents are logged in to the queue on 3CX? The offline chats coming through tells me that the agents are flagged as logged out of the queue.

@noord, where are you switching to online when you're doing it?

 

[noord]

Good morning Vasilis,

Perhaps this is also related: https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/wordpress-live-chat-hours.84715/

I did some more testing and it would seem there is something happening with caching.
When I change the times in the settings of the chat plugin OR the real time changes so that the chat should go online or offline (eg. the chat is online from 9 to 17 hours, it's 8:59 now and the time changes to 9:00 hours OR I manually change the settings so that the chat opens at 8:30), it doesn't do this.
When I reload the page, the chat stays offline or online, whatever it is 'stuck' on.
Even the next day, when one would say the 'cache has expired', the chat is still stuck.

When I open another browser entirely, it does show the correct status until it also gets stuck

The fact that not a lot of people are reporting this, probably means there is something else going on. I don't have a particular caching-plugin installed or something, but perhaps something is going on server-side.
I assumed the check for time opened/closed was done client side in the JS, but I'm now guessing that check is done server side?
I'll dig some more into our own server, thanks for your reply. If I discover anything more, I will report back of course.

 

[techmgmt]

Hi @techmgmt & @noord,

Are you still experiencing these issues? If yes,

@techmgmt, you mentioned your offline messages come through while the agents are online. Are you sure that the agents are logged in to the queue on 3CX? The offline chats coming through tells me that the agents are flagged as logged out of the queue.

@noord, where are you switching to online when you're doing it?

Yup, checked all the queue logins and also changed the routing to a single agent. Nothing works.

 

[techmgmt]

Good morning Vasilis,

Perhaps this is also related: https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/wordpress-live-chat-hours.84715/

I did some more testing and it would seem there is something happening with caching.
When I change the times in the settings of the chat plugin OR the real time changes so that the chat should go online or offline (eg. the chat is online from 9 to 17 hours, it's 8:59 now and the time changes to 9:00 hours OR I manually change the settings so that the chat opens at 8:30), it doesn't do this.
When I reload the page, the chat stays offline or online, whatever it is 'stuck' on.
Even the next day, when one would say the 'cache has expired', the chat is still stuck.

When I open another browser entirely, it does show the correct status until it also gets stuck

The fact that not a lot of people are reporting this, probably means there is something else going on. I don't have a particular caching-plugin installed or something, but perhaps something is going on server-side.
I assumed the check for time opened/closed was done client side in the JS, but I'm now guessing that check is done server side?
I'll dig some more into our own server, thanks for your reply. If I discover anything more, I will report back of course.

I have caching, I would think this is standard with nearly every website out there. We use Cloudflare through Kinsta. I've whitelisted CallUs.js to not be cached, doesn't have any effect.

 

[NickD_3CX]

In regards to what @noord said about time checking, the mechanism is quite simple.

If you have "Chat Operating Hours" set in the WP plugin, this is checked against the local WP server time.
If the current time is outside what is set, you can't see the plugin at all.

So, as a first comment, if the plugin appears generally outside the times you have set, it is for sure something local to WP (WP itself or plugin, to be determined...) as in this case the 3CX server is not contacted at all.

Now, if it does appear correctly on the website, but the status is wrong, the WP does not take the 3CX Server times into consideration, it just checks if the extension the link points to is registered, and in the case of Queues, if there are any agents logged in.


Now to start separating the symptoms, does the Live Chat icon appear on the website outside the "Chat Operating Hours" you have set?
If yes, if you disable caching, does this continue to happen?

 

[techmgmt]

@NickD_3CX yes, the live chat appears all the time, just with the offline messages. Once someone submits the offline message, it appears immediately to the agents that are online. I turned off chat hours as well. The chat logs also show up on the server (hosted by 3CX) with the correct time that is also the same time on the web hosting server.

 

[NickD_3CX]

As noted in this thread, as noted by my colleague @Constantinos Constantinou , there may in fact be an issue that occurs in some cases which are being investigated.

We shall update you with any news we have on this, but maybe in the meantime you could send him a PM with your website to investigate further.