Admin Auto-Logout

Brian Mucha

Michael :

What web browser are you using?

Chrome last time, Firefox this time. I'm sure it worked in Firefox previously.

Michael

Brian Mucha:

Chrome last time, Firefox this time. I'm sure it worked in Firefox previously.

There was a bug in the earlier version that I just fixed today that caused it to sometimes disabled itself.  It's fixed now, so I have to wait 30 minutes to see if it actually works without touching Convio -- hard in the middle of a workday

Brian Mucha

Michael :

There was a bug in the earlier version that I just fixed today that caused it to sometimes disabled itself.  It's fixed now, so I have to wait 30 minutes to see if it actually works without touching Convio -- hard in the middle of a workday

I saw that, but haven't updated my script. I'll give that a try and post on Monday.

Cheers

Mindy Hiteshue

ajones :

Brian, et al,

Do y'all get a timeout warning message, or do you get time out without a warning?  The warning is a dialog very similar to the timed-out dialog, but with button choices as "Continue Working" (which resets the timer) or "Log Out".

Yes, my coworker has just been getting taken back to the log in screen. And it is definitely under 10 minutes of inactivity.

Mindy Hiteshue

Michael :

Anyone using the script described in this page is using a hack I developed to workaround a common problem in Convio that Convio has never been interested in addressing -- let me repeat:  it's a hack.  Convio support probably would have a hard time figuring out what's going on since this script is intentionally designed to interfere with default Convio admin interface functionality (broken functionality that hurts, rather than helps Convio Clients... but default functionality nonetheless).

I have a case open, though I just realized Support arbitrarily closed it........  It's case number 00210511

I love the hack!

Michael

Mindy Hiteshue:

Yes, my coworker has just been getting taken back to the log in screen. And it is definitely under 10 minutes of inactivity.

Ok, so that's a little odd in and of itself because at the very least, even if the "pings" which are really just GET requests to another Convio page in the background, don't work at all, you should still get the standard 30 minutes that the Convio server imposes before your session is killed on the server-side... this script doesn't change that...  makes me think there is something else going on outside the scope of this script, or even Convio for that matter.

I do know that some browsers have hard time keeping logged into Convio -- IE8 used to be that way, but it was a browser bug that was subsequently fixed.  Could be there are some combinations of plugins for FF or Chrome that might cause the same behavior (particularly adblockers and such).  I'd guess that anything that limits the ability for cookies to be set by Convio could result in session timeouts as you move from page to page as well....

If you're getting timed out in 10 minutes... the first thing I would do is totally disable this keepalive script and see if that is still happening.  Then (making sure you're using the latest version, as of right now, that 1.3.9) re-enable it and test it again on other browsers.  If the problem is spanning browsers and platforms and only when this script is enabled, then.. clearly it's my fault    But, if it happens when the script isn't being used, or if it only happens on a particular browser on a particular computer (but not that browser on someone else machine, for example) then...  it might be an environmental factor rather than a systemic one (as they say.....)

Mindy Hiteshue

Michael :

Ok, so that's a little odd in and of itself because at the very least, even if the "pings" which are really just GET requests to another Convio page in the background, don't work at all, you should still get the standard 30 minutes that the Convio server imposes before your session is killed on the server-side... this script doesn't change that...  makes me think there is something else going on outside the scope of this script, or even Convio for that matter.

I do know that some browsers have hard time keeping logged into Convio -- IE8 used to be that way, but it was a browser bug that was subsequently fixed.  Could be there are some combinations of plugins for FF or Chrome that might cause the same behavior (particularly adblockers and such).  I'd guess that anything that limits the ability for cookies to be set by Convio could result in session timeouts as you move from page to page as well....

If you're getting timed out in 10 minutes... the first thing I would do is totally disable this keepalive script and see if that is still happening.  Then (making sure you're using the latest version, as of right now, that 1.3.9) re-enable it and test it again on other browsers.  If the problem is spanning browsers and platforms and only when this script is enabled, then.. clearly it's my fault    But, if it happens when the script isn't being used, or if it only happens on a particular browser on a particular computer (but not that browser on someone else machine, for example) then...  it might be an environmental factor rather than a systemic one (as they say.....)

Thanks so much Michael. Your point is exactly right--even without the keep alive script working, we should still have the standard Convio time out, which my coworker wasn't getting. I just updated the keep alive script to the newest version, so we'll see how it goes. My coworker who was having the problem was using Firefox, but with an add-on that uses IE tabs. I instructed him this morning to remove the add-on and see if he's still having the same problem. So your guess about plug-ins may be the issue. I have given up on using IE with Convio, and none of our staff do either but it might be worth me testing it out to see what happens on that platform.

And it could very well be an "environmental" factor, but I will note that I've had similar problems (intermittent) with getting logged out, and I don't have the same Firefox add-on that my other coworker does. I guess it remains to be seen. Thanks again for all of your hard work.

Mindy

ajones

Michael :

Anyone using the script described in this page is using a hack I developed to workaround a common problem in Convio that Convio has never been interested in addressing -- let me repeat:  it's a hack.  Convio support probably would have a hard time figuring out what's going on since this script is intentionally designed to interfere with default Convio admin interface functionality (broken functionality that hurts, rather than helps Convio Clients... but default functionality nonetheless).

I have a case open, though I just realized Support arbitrarily closed it........  It's case number 00210511

To clarify:

The time-out functionality as designed by Convio uses a modal pop-up after 25 minutes of inactivity that warns the admin user that their session will expire in five minutes. This dialogue remains on the screen until dismissed or until five minutes have passed, at which point the session expires.  A bug was recently fixed involving the warning not displaying.

Of course this didn't have anything to do with Michael's script specifically, and I can't speak to that functionality.   That said, if Michael's script is disabled and the session is timed out without a 5 minute warning, then Convio still has a bug.

  Hope that sheds some light on things.

Michael

I've been futzing around in and out of Convio all morning and so far haven't been actually logged out once.  The popup appeared, but I closed it and my session was unaffected.  The click and keypress monitors seem to be active, and the self-disabling feature seems to be functioning as expected and I'm not seeing any JS errors.  I'm using Chrome 4 -- please let me know if you are continuing to have problems with this.

Brian Mucha

Michael :

I've been futzing around in and out of Convio all morning and so far haven't been actually logged out once.  The popup appeared, but I closed it and my session was unaffected.  The click and keypress monitors seem to be active, and the self-disabling feature seems to be functioning as expected and I'm not seeing any JS errors.  I'm using Chrome 4 -- please let me know if you are continuing to have problems with this.

The new script seems to have done the trick for me.

Regards, BPM

Michael

FYI -- I followed up with Convio about fixing their flawed JavaScript so that my keep alive script could fully take over.  Here's what they said:

The change that was implemented however you have not saved the SDP for your site admin logo.  Once you do so the script is going to be removed as it has been determined this method of injecting the script should not be permitted by the product.  Since the script will be removed on the sdp's next save it was determined that the change you originally requested would not be done.

Normally I would avoid posting this sort of internal response to the community, but since CARE isn't the only client making use of this script and there is a long thread about it, I though it necessary.

Bottom line:  rather than recognizing a user experience flaw and fixing it (or at least, letting us know that they have and will anyway), and fixing an ultra-simple bug in their own JavaScript code so that, at least for the time being, the UX flaw can be worked around, Convio has chosen to side-step the issue by engineering their system to make the script not work (by stripping script elements from that SDP apparently).

I would urge everyone to -- right now -- post a support case demanding Convio revisit their session timeout functions.  I don't care whether my script is usable going forward, that's not it at all.  I was attempting to work around a significant usability issue and now that Convio has (intentionally) rendered my workaround useless, they should now commit to implementing a fix on their own -- BUT THEY NEED TO HEAR FROM US, AS CLIENTS, THAT IT'S IMPORTANT.

A suggestion for a Feature Request ticket, feel free to elaborate, change, etc.   If you're give a Feature Request number or whatever, post it here so others can reference.

Feature Request:

Within the Convio Administrator interface, please revise the current session timeout system such that users who are typing and/or clicking actively within the Convio Administrator interface, but who do not transition from one page to another, are not summarily logged out of Convio.

Mindy Hiteshue

Michael :

FYI -- I followed up with Convio about fixing their flawed JavaScript so that my keep alive script could fully take over.  Here's what they said:

The change that was implemented however you have not saved the SDP for your site admin logo.  Once you do so the script is going to be removed as it has been determined this method of injecting the script should not be permitted by the product.  Since the script will be removed on the sdp's next save it was determined that the change you originally requested would not be done.

Normally I would avoid posting this sort of internal response to the community, but since CARE isn't the only client making use of this script and there is a long thread about it, I though it necessary.

Bottom line:  rather than recognizing a user experience flaw and fixing it (or at least, letting us know that they have and will anyway), and fixing an ultra-simple bug in their own JavaScript code so that, at least for the time being, the UX flaw can be worked around, Convio has chosen to side-step the issue by engineering their system to make the script not work (by stripping script elements from that SDP apparently).

I would urge everyone to -- right now -- post a support case demanding Convio revisit their session timeout functions.  I don't care whether my script is usable going forward, that's not it at all.  I was attempting to work around a significant usability issue and now that Convio has (intentionally) rendered my workaround useless, they should now commit to implementing a fix on their own -- BUT THEY NEED TO HEAR FROM US, AS CLIENTS, THAT IT'S IMPORTANT.

A suggestion for a Feature Request ticket, feel free to elaborate, change, etc.   If you're give a Feature Request number or whatever, post it here so others can reference.

Feature Request:

Within the Convio Administrator interface, please revise the current session timeout system such that users who are typing and/or clicking actively within the Convio Administrator interface, but who do not transition from one page to another, are not summarily logged out of Convio.

I just logged a Feature Request, ticket #00271103. >

Michael

All:

The Convio Feature Request number for this is:  FR-12517

Note, the request isn't simply that they fix the code so my script will work -- rather, it's that they implement *something* within the product itself that works in a similar fashion to my script.