Message delays

[keith]

Hi

How does the messaging system work, are messages sent via a queue like 5 mins
alot of messages dont show up striaght away

Keith

[Mervyn]

hey Keith,

Check in your site options, you can configure if you want the messages to be delivered immediately or if you want them queued. If they are queued, it will be delivered every 5 minutes.

Either select or unselect the following option: "Use the message queue (recommended) or send the messages directly?"

[keith]

Hi,

Never noticed it there, may need glasses , thanks

Keith

[keith]

Hi

Ive set them to send instantly but they still take a while 5 mins

any pointers


Keith

[Mervyn]

that's weird...
I've got my option ticked and the message goes through instantly... I am not aware of any other option that needs to be updated.

[keith]

I think ticked uses the queue, un ticked instant

Can anyone confirm this



Keith

[admin2]

That parameter is obsolete and used only in one place. It will probably be removed. It is referring to emails sent from admin panel to members.
Member to member messages must be sent to the queue and then processed and delivered offline by a cron job because they need to be sorted according to spam and filter rules (of the receiving member).
The current cron job cannot run more often than 5 minute - it would be a resource waste.
If you consider an up to 5 minutes delay too slow then a second cron job must be created and run once per minute only for message sending.
However, there is a possible issue with this: a cron job might not finish before the next one starts and with the current code I think you will get duplicate messages in this situation.

[Mervyn]

thanks for that feedback Dan

I take it that admin messages go through instantly?

[admin2]

Yes.

[keith]

Hi

Is there a way we can by-pass this 5 minute delay, so it behaves simular to dsb function, eliminate the spam function....

at the moment im seeing a large decrease in people using the send a message function, they end up moving either to my chatroom or msn messenger

Keith

[admin2]

It's not just about spam. It's about user folders too. So we would have to eliminate this functionality too. At the expense of increasing the page loading time when a message is sent.
Why don't you simply create another cron job which runs once per minute with the message queue script as described above?

[maverick]

What about creating a mod that streamlines the functions, like an email lite version, that eliminates functions such as spam boxes, ability to create custom folders, and filtering, etc. I'm finding nobody is using these functions, so it seems like a waste having all that functionality which creates delays of up to 5 minutes for messages to be sent. All I need are the basic functions that allow users to send and reply to messages, and send messages to the trash.

I've already gotten people asking why it takes so long to get messages and have compared me to other sites where it's sent straight away, so for me being able to send messages almost instantly would be well worth the trade off in lue of the extra functions, and is almost a must if I want to be competitive and keep members.

I don't mean to be difficult and I can appreciate the effort in creating such a cool robust mail center because I'm sure certain sites will find it useful, but my users just want to be able to send and reply to messages as easily and quickly as possible.

[keith]

all my peeps have vanished now, they rely on msn messenger/yahoo

Yes I agree no one is using the spam box, they just post their email as its quicker then 5 mins turn around

[strawberries90]

yes, the long time lag in the internal messaging system has always been a major cause of concern for me.

I do love etano's internal mail system.  It is possibly the best that I have seen, and I belong to a lot of dating/social network sites.  But on those other websites, despite their more ordinary looking message centers, private message delivery is almost instant.  And that surely has to be at the core of our thinking.   

Web users, particularly in recent times, are extremely impatient.  They just won't hang around for 5 or 10 minutes in the hope that they get a reply to their message.  And thus if they surf away from our websites, or quickly decide to not use our messaging system, then our websites are not gonna be successful.

A fast efficient decent messaging system should be at the core of etano.  I don't know if it is possible, but it would be wonderful if we could have a plugin that would facilitate (as Maverick calls it) a *lite* version for the etano mail system. 

[admin2]

Ok, I'll see what we can do about it.