Pusher Account over quota - pusher

Question

We use Puhser in our application in order to have real-time updates.
Something very stange happens - while google analytics says that we have around 200 simultaneous connections, Pusher says that we have 1500.
I would like to monitor Pusher connections in real-time but could not find any method to do so. Somebody can help??

Answer 1

Currently there's no way to get realtime stats on the number of connections you currently have open for your app. However, it is something that we're investigating currently.
In terms of why the numbers vary between Pusher and Google Analytics, it's usually down to the fact that Google Analytics uses different methods of tracking whether or not a user is on the site. We're confident that our connection counting is correct, however, that's not to say that there isn't a potentially unexpected reason for your count to be high.
A connection is counted as a WebSocket connection to Pusher. When using the Pusher JavaScript library a new WebSocket connection is created when you create a new Pusher instance.
var pusher = new Pusher('APP_KEY');
Channel subscriptions are created over the existing WebSocket connection (known as multiplexing), and do not count towards your connection quota (there is no limit on the number allowed per connection).
var channel1 = pusher.subscribe('ch1');
var channel2 = pusher.subscribe('ch2');
// All done over as single connection
// more subscriptions
// ...
var channel 100 = pusher.subscribe('ch100');
// Still just a 1 connection
Common reasons why connections are higher than expected
Users open multiple tabs
If a user has multiple tabs open to the same application, multiple instances of Pusher will be created and therefore multiple connections will be used e.g. 2 tabs open will mean 2 connections are established.
Incorrectly coded applications
As mentioned above, a new connection is created every time a new Pusher object is instantiated. It is therefore possible to create many connections in the same page.
Using an older version of one our libraries
Our connection strategies have improved over time, and we recommend that you keep up to date with the latest versions.
Specifically, in newer versions of our JS library, we carry out ping-pong requests between server and client to verify that the client is still around.
Other remedies
While our efforts are always to keep a connection going indefinitely to an application, it is possible to disconnect manually if you feel this works in your scenario. It can be achieved by making a call to Pusher.disconnect(). Below is some example code:
var pusher = new Pusher("APP_KEY");
var timeoutId = null;
function startInactivityCheck() {
timeoutId = window.setTimeout(function(){
pusher.disconnect();
}, 5 * 60 * 1000); // called after 5 minutes
};
// called by something that detects user activity
function userActivityDetected(){
if(timeoutId !== null) {
window.clearTimeout(timeoutId);
}
startInactivityCheck();
};
How this disconnection is transmitted to the user is up to you but you may consider prompting them to let them know that they will not receive any further real-time updates due to a long period of inactivity. If they wish to start receiving real-time updates again they should click a button.