Summary of user activity

[tobias-tobin 9]

Sorry if this is already covered.  I did some searching and I did not see what I am looking for.

 

Let's say I have users A,B, and C all accessing my MB3 server remotely using Roku, Android, Web, etc.  Is there a way for me to see who is doing what, and when?  Other than trying to piece it together looking through the logs, something more simple?

 

Just curious.

 

Thanks,

tobias.

[Lee 212]

The dashboard tells you who is logged in by which device. Unsure if it tells you what they're watching..

 

Sent by my HTC8X using Tapatalk

[psykix 97]

It shows user, device, what they are watching and even playback progress :-)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bigjohn 753]

The dashboard tells you who is currently logged in and what they are currently watching (including position in the file), but there is no user history available there or anywhere else other than the log files (that I am aware of). 

 

I'd be interested in knowing some of those details about which users viewed how much from which clients, bandwidth consumed, ip address, etc. without digging through the logs.

[Lee 212]

See screenshot

 

 

 

Sent by my HTC8X using Tapatalk

[Koleckai Silvestri 1154]

See screenshot Sent by my HTC8X using Tapatalk

 

That gives a snapshot of the current moment.

 

A summary would show the user, how much time they were connected for a time period (day, week, month, year) and a brief overview of what they watched in that time period. Should be shown on the user's page, If the information is in the logs, then this could be done with a log viewer plugin for those who don't want to maintain the information. Currently wouldn't know where to start doing that myself though. 

Edited January 21, 2014 by Wayne Luke

[tobias-tobin 9]

Hi all,

I appreciate all of the responses.  I did know about the active connections data. Seeing who is currently on, and what is happening is definitely helpful.  I wondered if it would be possible to collect maybe some additional data and store it for analysis.  Much like bigjohn322 said.  It is not about spying, it is about getting an idea if and when peak times are, if people are watching movies all the way through, maybe what bandwidth they are using (or what bitrate).  I could see how this data coupled with a perfmon log might help us know if our servers are handling capacity ok, or where the bottlenecks might be.

 

Maybe if I dug a little I could figure out how to do this myself, although I am still waiting to see if one of the devs pops on here and says 'just enable this' type thing.

 

Thank you again for your responses.

tobias.

[gcw07 347]

There isn't anything built in to give you a history of user activity. Not at the moment. Maybe one day if there is enough support for adding a feature like that. Your best bet at the moment would be to look through the server logs.

[tobias-tobin 9]

ok.  thank you.

[ebr 16169]

This is actually a long-standing feature request we plan to get to at some point.

[tobias-tobin 9]

Thanks all, and ebr.  I think it could be a handy feature for choosing server hardware and also troubleshooting.  Glad to hear it is on the table.  Thanks, tobias.

[tobias-tobin 9]

ebr,

Just curious.  Would this be implemented by parsing the logs or would you take a different approach?  I just got VS 2013 and was going to play around with it this weekend.  I was going to see what I could do by parsing the log files.  Since you say this is on the todo list I don't know how much time I will put into it.  I'll either see if getting info from the logs works well or not.  But...that leads me to the question I asked.  Would this be implemented using new code or would it be done using the logs?  I know you are busy, no hurry on response or ok if no response at all.

 

Ideally I would like to know who watched what and when.  On top of that, since many of my watchers are external and transcoding is happening, I'd like to see corresponding data on hardware utilization and network bandwidth.  I know that is a lot to ask for and I don't mean for you guys to include that but I think it would be interesting to see what is going on with the CPU, I/O, and bandwidth with one person, or multiple people on simultaneously.  I think it might be tricky, or hard even, to tie all of that together.  And I don't want to introduce more load on the system just to collect this information.  But it would be cool.

[w84no1 27]

See screenshot Sent by my HTC8X using Tapatalk

 

Is there a way to get this info from the API in JSON?  I would like to integrate MB3 into my Premise Home automation system.  I could have a status screen on my Home controller screen.

[Koleckai Silvestri 1154]

The server shows currently connected and active clients on the dashboard. You can look at that code to work out how to replicate who is using the server at any time. However the server doesn't keep a record of what user has watched in the last 30 days though.

[bigjohn 753]

Is there a way to get this info from the API in JSON?  I would like to integrate MB3 into my Premise Home automation system.  I could have a status screen on my Home controller screen.

Yes, you can use a link like this:

http://localhost:8096/mediabrowser/dashboard/dashboardinfo?format=json

http://localhost:8096/mediabrowser/dashboard/dashboardinfo?format=json

Edited February 7, 2014 by bigjohn

[jcain 7]

I usually just talk to my family when I need information from them. just a thought.

[ebr 16169]

Tobias - this feature will be integrated into the system so it will track events as they happen as opposed to trying to parse logs after the fact.

[w84no1 27]

 

Yes, you can use a link like this:

http://localhost:8096/mediabrowser/dashboard/dashboardinfo?format=json

http://localhost:8096/mediabrowser/dashboard/dashboardinfo?format=json
 

Awesome! Now I will have to look at the remote API and figure how to control mb3 with Premise.