[Bbradley62]

Having completed a tournament a while ago, I am reviewing my results, including clicking on each board and looking at other scores, etc. At some point, I have clicked on the name of my partner, to get his profile so I can type notes. As I am typing these notes, I get a message that BBO thinks I'm away from my computer. Why is that, when I'm clicking around a lot. What do I have to be doing for BBO to be aware that I am there?

[Lurpoa]

I think those messges come sometimes a little quick. What is the exaxt timing ?

I think it could be usefull to set up a utility for short leaves, with the possibility to leave a message "will be back at XX.XX", so partner know you will be back before your tournament starts, and are not sitting death in front of your computer.

[Bbradley62]

No, no... it's not a matter of being away from the computer for a short time... I'm actually at the computer and doing things on BBO... looking at hand records, etc. I get a message saying BBO thinks I'm away when it should be clear that I'm not.

[Bbradley62]

I'm still puzzled by this. Does anyone know what activities allow BBO to know that I'm at the keyboard, as opposed to which activities BBO doesn't seem to recognize? Thanks for any feedback.

[Zelandakh]

If you open a teaching table and sit at all 4 seats you can do anything you like and BBO will never log you off for being AFK.

[Bbradley62]

Time for my periodic re-asking of this question... It's not a matter of actually getting logged off, since I'm sitting right here and can click the "I'm here" button when I get the annoying pop-up. Still hoping to get an explanation of why the pop-up occurs, and/or what I could be doing to avoid it. Thanks.

[Bbradley62]

Still wondering whether a BBO staff member will ever answer this question, since this keeps happening. I don't see it asked and answered in another thread.

[Antrax]

Also, useful Lurpoa post!

[psyck]

I wonder if one can write a shell script to keep BBO always on; in any case it would be nice if BBO lets us know the criteria it uses to determine inactivity.

[Bbradley62]

Maybe fifth time's the charm...

[uday]

If BBO thinks you are AFK ( and it usually but not always gets this right ) then it asks you if you are still around. You can dismiss/acknowledge this Q with a click, and it will understand that you are at the keyboard.


When does it ask?

- you're in the lobby / home screen ( 45 mins )
- you're playing ( 4 hours )
- anywhere else ( 3 hrs )

We can disable the idle check for any particular user. I assume bbradley62 wants this enabled


How does it decide you are AFK or not? The short answer is "if you do something that involves the brain, the central portion of BBO"

It can't detect activity that involve the web pages ( or web based programs that return data ) like

- list played tourneys
- browse hands from those tourneys

It can detect activity like

- join a table
- send a chat message
- play a card
- look up a profile


This isn't perfect, as you can tell, but it usually works. It is much easier for us to grant exceptions than detect all real activity, sad to say.

U

[Bbradley62]

Cool. Thanks for the explanation. As you've said, the message appears when I'm browsing hands, which I tend to do for extended periods. I wouldn't want/need any special enabling/disabling of such things; I can easily click on "I'm here". It was just more puzzling than anything else...

[cloa513]

uday, on 2012-October-10, 09:30, said:

If BBO thinks you are AFK ( and it usually but not always gets this right ) then it asks you if you are still around. You can dismiss/acknowledge this Q with a click, and it will understand that you are at the keyboard.


When does it ask?

- you're in the lobby / home screen ( 45 mins )
- you're playing ( 4 hours )
- anywhere else ( 3 hrs )

We can disable the idle check for any particular user. I assume bbradley62 wants this enabled


How does it decide you are AFK or not? The short answer is "if you do something that involves the brain, the central portion of BBO"

It can't detect activity that involve the web pages ( or web based programs that return data ) like

- list played tourneys
- browse hands from those tourneys

It can detect activity like

- join a table
- send a chat message
- play a card
- look up a profile


This isn't perfect, as you can tell, but it usually works. It is much easier for us to grant exceptions than detect all real activity, sad to say.

U

So it requires active involvement e.g. you click on a profile- it detects that but doesn't detect you still have the profile open and haven't closed it? Do all sorts of internet messaging errors possibly kill it too?

[barmar]

cloa513, on 2012-October-10, 21:42, said:

So it requires active involvement e.g. you click on a profile- it detects that but doesn't detect you still have the profile open and haven't closed it? Do all sorts of internet messaging errors possibly kill it too?

You have to do something that requires sending data to the BBO server.

Even when you're idle, the client sends periodic "I'm still here" messages to the server; these are how the system displays users whose Internet connection is failing in red, and if you go too long without them the server drops your connection. But these don't affect the idle timer, which is intended to detect that the PERSON is there, not just the computer.