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When do chats time out?

Claire Miller
  • Edited
Zendesk Customer Advocate

Question

What is the expected behavior for chat sessions to time out?

Answer

The visitor is in control of the chat session, and can end the chat session in one of three ways:

  • Going to the options menu and hitting end chat. 
  • In the event the visitor closes the browser (no windows with the chat widget are open) the session times out within a timeframe of 20 seconds to 2 minutes.
  • In the event the visitor using a browser on a mobile device minimizes, tabs away from or closes the browser containing the chat, the session times out within a timeframe of 20 seconds to 2 minutes. 
  • In the event that the visitor idles* on a site with the widget, their session stays open for 20 minutes before the session is automatically ended.
    *Idle status is defined as no mouse or keyboard input on the site for 10 minutes. The user does not need to interact with the widget itself, but must be actively working on the page the widget is loaded on. Additionally, there can be a variance of up to 5 minutes depending on their connection to Chat.

The chat session is still considered active unless it's ended by one of these reasons. An agent can leave a chat session, but it stays open from the visitor side until one of the above conditions is met.

If the end user chats in again after an agent leaves, it pops back into the queue. In these cases, the history of their previous chat is present because it’s still considered the same chat session. Any subsequent messages are added to the chat session, and once ended are added to the history as a single entry.

For the Chat Mobile SDK versions, the chat session terminates after any of the following conditions:

  • There was no activity on the chat for 1 hour.
  • The visitor was disconnected for an hour.
  • The agent ends the chat, at which point the session disconnect timeout is reset to 5 minutes.
  • The visitor ends the chat at which time the session immediately terminates.
  • If push notifications are disabled, the session will timeout 5 minutes after the user backgrounds the app.

If you don't want your customers to chat once you are offline, see the article: Why can my customers still chat after all agents have gone offline?.

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15 Comments

  • Steven Cung

    I hate when the chat vanishes 

    0
  • Pavel Kolpakov

    What about customers using mobile apps? When mobile chat will be timed out? It looks like it fires after 3 minutes of no messages from both sides. If I will setup chat rescuer that will send message after certain inactivity time - the session will be timed out anyway 3 minutes after last message from customer or agent.

    Please, consider that most of the customers in our day use mobile apps. 

    3
  • Pedro Rodrigues

    20 seconds to 2 minutes is a big difference... What elements define this? Can we control it?

    It would be excellent if we could have a way to customize it (as mentioned in this feature request).

    1
  • CXCorps sp z o.o. (EMEA RESELLER)

    Does the 20 minutes of the idle time also concerns in-app chats (not on website, but inside mobile app with Zendesk Chat embeddable)?

     

    0
  • Choice Crosby

    We've had users go idle, but come back throughout the day and repeatedly ask multiple questions that roll up onto one ticket. Is there any way, programmatically, that we can define or specify a time out?

    1
  • Brett Bowser
    • Edited
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi Choice,

    As of right now this is not customizable so apologies there. I would recommend upvoting and cross-posting your use case in the following Chat Community Post: Feature Request: Adjust Chat Timeout Period to help provide visibility to our Chat Product Managers.

    Thanks!

    1
  • Kris Mendoza

    Brett - the link you posted does not go to the intended post.  Can you update please?

    Kris

    0
  • Brett Bowser
    • Edited
    Zendesk Community Team

    Updated the link.

    Thanks for the heads up Kris!

    0
  • David Spector
    • Edited

    These timeouts listed here at https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000084427-When-do-chats-time-out- are way too long in the case where in Online mode a visitor asks a question but the only agent is away and cannot reply. In such a case I would want to tell the visitor X seconds after their first message that they can leave their email address, send their existing message text (what they have written so far) by email, and end their chat, all by clicking a button. I'm getting good questions, but the visitor leaves unsatisfied before I am able to answer!

    0
  • Carlos

    Please improve chat triggers.I've been reading this request from 2016. Now we are in 2019. How could be almost 4 years after we still requesting this?

     

    Thank you!

    0
  • Mark Moran

    What happens in the scenario where the visitor idles the chat just as the team are looking to close for the day (end of shift).

    Then after opening hours but within the 2 minutes of idle the visitor then decides to continue the chat

    If all agents have logged off, will a visitor be able to reconnect to chat after opening hours and/or potentially could stay Queuing all night?

    Thanks 

    1
  • Mark Moran

    any response on this?

     

    0
  • Jess Hartley

    I second the question above.

    Then after opening hours but within the 2 minutes of idle the visitor then decides to continue the chat

    If all agents have logged off, will a visitor be able to reconnect to chat after opening hours and/or potentially could stay Queuing all night?

    0
  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator

    Hi Jess, Hi Mark,

    I am sorry I haven't had a chance to test this out - that scenario isn't as common for my teams. If the customer disconnects at all, they should go back through the department selection, if you've enabled it and it should work as it normally does.

    What's interesting is if they just don't say anything for a while, it goes one of these 2 ways:

    1. The user continues to be "active" which is categorized as moving their mouse, typing, etc -- even if it's not in the chat window.

    2. The user goes idle -- which is defined by ~20 minutes after NO moving of the mouse, typing, etc.

    If the user continues to be "active" I believe you would see that the chat would reactivate, and the system would hunt for the next available agent. If you don't have triggers (in chat) set up to handle this, yes, potentially the customer could stay Queuing until they go idle for the 20 mins. At that point, it would then create a missed Chat ticket.

    I know this may not be the best news, and it's possible it works slightly different than that but as I stated, I've been unable to test your particular scenario. I wonder if you have done any tests since you wrote last? I'd be interested!

     

    0
  • Xiaofan
    • Edited

    hi all:

    We need this feature when we use js-sdk in our Apps

    As we know ,Hybrid Apps gots some benefits than native ,such as individual release

    Now,when our customers go back last page, check sth,try to come back and keep chat with the agent.Guess what? the customer has losed the connection already!just because he/she close the webview(browser with chat js-sdk)


    Would zendesk please make the timeout adjustable,we what to set it to 3-5 min,when we use your js-sdk
    Thanks

    0

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