Ok,
I posted a thread about a similar (actually the same) problem a while ago but I have found the issue to be a real problem now:
Basically if the computer on which Spark is running loses its network connectivity, when users send messages to that disconnected client there is no notification that the user is offline, and the messages just dissapear into a ‘‘black hole’’.
Maybe not such a problem in desktop machines, but with laptop users moving networks, especially with wireless connections randomly losing connectivity it can cause lots of messages to just not be received!
It seems to me that there should be a mechanism whereby if the server fails to deliver the message, then it is stored for delivery when the client reconnects, and the sending client should be notified of this (as happens when a client properly logs off).
Cheers,
Ben
Hi Ben,
So there are a couple issues being worked on to fix this. The first one is SPARK-288, where users are not informed that the message(s) they are sending to the user will not be received until the user logs back in. Also, we’‘ve added silent reconnecting of the client for the upcoming release of Spark which will aid in having the user online more of the time, especially when their connection just drops. The one I’'m curious about though, is why the users are not receiving offline messages. Do you normally receive offlines messages? This is the area that we will need to take a look at, so any info on your end would be great.
Thanks,
Derek
Hi Derek, thanks for the reply.
OK, yes offline messages normally work fine.
The issue seems to be that if the network connection to a client PC is lost, Wildfire does not know that this has happened, (and looking at the active sessions in the admin console it still things that that Spark client is online.)
I have tested this by disabling the network interface of my remote client PC with Spark still running. Then I send messages to that client, and it looks like they are being sent, but they are never received, or stored as offline messages.
It appears to me that as Wildfire still thinks the client is online (becuase it didn’'t receive a logoff notification or however that happens), it continues to blindly send the messages to that client, even though the client is no longer on the network! I guess really it needs to use some kind of handshaking to detect that the client did NOT sucessfully receive the message, and start storing them offline.
Cheers,
Ben
Actually from my own experiences and tests at the moment (Spark on OS X) it is even worse.
Talking about the client side. When I use Spark und log in, everything seems to work out fine so far; but then I loose connection, e.g., because I loose the WLAN or because I send my Mac to sleep.
When I wake up the Mac again, Spark shows no sign whatsoever, that the connection is lost; even the last contacts are shown as online, allthough they obviously are not, due to lack of network connection.
Additionally you can even send a message to an “online contact”; no error message, that there is no connection. and this message is lost, even if you connect.
then next step: you establich network again: no sign of proper behavior from Spark. It only seems to work again, when I shut Spark down and restart it (btw.: there is also no option to reconnect via menu).
I think this is a very severe bug and problem and actually is endangering our complete IM infrastructure; I really hoped that Spark could be the solution to the Jabber multi-platform client problem, but these problems are unfortunately really bad…
Alex
Hi Aschatt,
We actually went ahead and added a new silenct reconnect within Spark to solve this exact problem. It will be released with Spark 2.0. Sorry for your problems at the moment, but happily this won’'t be a concern soon
Cheers,
Derek
Thank you for the quick reply, thats good news!
However, just to get an idea: when would you expect the 2.0 Version?
best regards
Alex
Hi,
I’‘m glad it’'s not just me thats suffering!
Yes it really needs to ensure that no messages are ever lost - however I can’'t see that the silent reconnect will fix the root of the problem, as for the entire period that the network is down then messages are still falling into the Ether without a trace…
FWIW I use the Linux client, and it seems to be worse at handling disconnections - ie the disconnected client doesn’‘t immediately inform the user that it lost it’'s network connection, which the Windows version does.
Ben
FWIW I use the Linux client, and it seems to be worse
at handling disconnections - ie the disconnected
client doesn’'t immediately inform the user that it
lost it’'s network connection, which the Windows
version does.
Actually the Mac client does not inform the user at all, as I wrote. Even if you try to send messages you do not get a warning. This is pretty bad unfortunately.
Alex