JumpInChat Update — Feedback and DDoSing

by vivaldi

Over the last month or so, there has been a significant surge in traffic. With this has been a fair amount of feedback being received and issues being uncovered. Ultimately, this has lead to a fair amount of site improvements ranging from broadcast connection optimisation, cam quality fixes, fatal errors being patched and infrastructure being upgraded and improved.

Some examples of individual issues being fixed include:

Fixes

  • Push-to-talk fixed on mobile
  • Fixed push-to-talk cutting out when cursor moves away from button
  • Fixed a server crash when a user with a nick that includes specific characters is mentioned
  • Fixed a crash when the /pm or /msg commands are used without entering a username/nick
  • Crash when audio is sent as a broadcast is removed/added
  • Audio cutting out when a broadcast is added/removed
  • Video sending at half the intended quality
  • Server restarts causing users to subscribe to messages multiple times
  • YouTube videos can cause broadcasts to disappear off screen on small screen sizes
  • YouTube videos can cause broadcasts to overflow off the screen sometimes

Features/improvements

  • Ability to change your account email on the account settings page
  • Ability to opt out of email updates on the user settings page
  • YouTube video volume can be changed more than just on or off
  • Media servers upgraded and an improved method of distributing load implemented
  • Broadcast connection speeds massively increased when server is under load
  • Gateway server upgraded to better perform under load
  • Video codec changed to H.264 to allow apple devices to broadcast and receive video. (reverted due to interoperability issues)

Coming next

Currently in progress is a major refactor in the room client. This should fix a number of small issues, as well as promote easier upgrades in the future. It’s a long task that will be on going, which will be worked on as I have time to do so

YouTube videos are a major focus, as they’re one of the main concerns coming from user feedback. Video controls are going to be added, such as play/pause, video length and current duration, and the ability for moderators to close a video for everyone in the room. I will also be looking into being able to play videos in progress to users connecting to a room. This will allow users to refresh without worrying about videos disappearing, and act as a means to synchronise videos better between users.

Feedback will continue to be collected and acted upon, and I hope it will produce more fixes and improvements.

As always, go to https://jumpin.chat and make a chat room, invite people and have fun and stuff.

The only way I can make this thing better is having you break it! Or even better getting even more people using it who then also break it!