How to detect when a user leaves the site?

Question

I was reading this question: Trying to detect browser close event

But it's not comprehensive enough, or at least I'm not sure it is, I need to detect when the user leaves the website, this could be:

internet died
PC shuts down (power outage for example)
user close the browser
user close the browser tab in which the website was running

I'm sure there are more cases.

This probably needs to be managed by the server, and not some javascript event that is not going to be fired in extreme cases.

Any ideas what could be used in this case?.

Could you not use php sessions? – jennas Nov 13 '14 at 05:32 — jennas, Nov 13 '14 at 05:32

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:31

8

You could use socket.io and listen for when the socket is lost, or you could have your site send a heartbeat to the server and if X milliseconds goes by without a pulse, you can assume the user left for any of the reasons you listed.

answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:31

AlienWebguy

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Hi, @AlienWebguy, your answer looks promising. I want to know the socket.io and heartbeat thing. If possible, can you please share some links for it? Thanks in advance. – Pupil Nov 13 '14 at 05:51
2

Sure, socket.io sends heartbeats by default, every 25 seconds, and the client has 60 seconds to respond to each pulse. You can configure it (https://github.com/Automattic/socket.io/wiki/Configuring-Socket.IO) or you can reproduce the same logic without sockets and just have the client send the machine time every minute or so to a script on the server with a token, and every couple minutes your server can check the server time against the posted machine time - if they're not staying close, you assume the user is gone. – AlienWebguy Nov 13 '14 at 06:18

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '20 at 03:47

I am using Java Script to detect the event of leaving and sending an ajax request to my server so I can store that the user left the page. The second part is to detect the time the user is in my page, every 3 seconds I also send a ajax request to my database to save the time of the user in the page.

<script>



window.onbeforeunload = function(){//If user left the page
    user_left_page();
};
function user_left_page(){//USER LEFT THE PAGE send data to php to store into my database
    var action = "left_page";
    $.ajax({
        url:"includes/track-page-time.inc.php",
        method:"POST",
        data:{ action: action},
        success: function(data){
        },
    });
}
//This one below is to store the time the user is spending in your page. I am using both
// in my code, basically I keep storing the data every 3 seconds to know the time
setInterval(function () {
    update_user_activity();
}, 3000);//Interval time to send the info to the database

function update_user_activity(){//IS USER IN THE PAGE?
    var action = "update_time";
    $.ajax({
        url:"includes/track-page-time.inc.php",
        method:"POST",
        data:{ action: action},
        success: function(data){
        },
    });
}



</script>

yes but the last scenario is by far the more common. if the pc is shut done or crash i suppose the user don t want to stay anymore ? — slucas, Dec 12 '20 at 19:25
but apparently there is a preferred syntax https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowEventHandlers/onbeforeunload — slucas, Dec 12 '20 at 19:27
Yes, the second one would be better as you said. I use the second one to store the time the user spends in my page. If the computer crash or explode or something, the time will stop adding. But the status would still be ON. — Hygison Brandao, Dec 14 '20 at 00:36

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:37

Another simple method you can track the IP/Session Id and save in the Database, you may update the time in the db using the ajax call in an interval i.e every 5 or 10 minutes.

if user not taken any activity and the time will not be updated, if time in db is less than the time() - $intervals , then you can assume that the user has left, lost connectivity etc.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

0

You could use the window.onbeforeunload for the last two cases i.e. detecting the browser close or tab close event. For the first two events that is power failure or connectivity problems, only continuously ping or like AlienWebguy said the heartbeat mechanism can be implemented.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

Community

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answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:35

Obscure Geek

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score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:32

-1

 window.onbeforeunload = confirmExit;
  function confirmExit()
  {
    return "You have attempted to leave this page.  If you have made any changes to the fields without clicking the Save button, your changes will be lost.  Are you sure you want to exit this page?";
  }

Ref site

answered Nov 13 '14 at 05:32

Vaibs_Cool

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5
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1

This is not what the OP wants. I imagine his request is for tracking purposes. – AlienWebguy Nov 13 '14 at 05:32
This will only cover the last 2 scenarios described by the OP. The `onbeforeunload` event would naturally *not* fire during a sudden connection or power failure. – Boaz Nov 13 '14 at 06:38

How to detect when a user leaves the site?

5 Answers5