We're updated chat again with one bug fix and one new feature:

Chat leeks (bug fix)

There's been a problem for a while with user's private messages appearing in the General chat room. We think this was caused by the user's connection being temporarily broken. When this happens the underlying software automatically reconnects the user, however the chat application then reset the user's active room back to the default General chat room, as if they were entering chat for the first time. The user wouldn't necessarily notice until they sent a message, only to find it's been posted in the wrong room. This should now have been fixed, the application should remember the room you were in before the connection was lost, and return you to the same room on reconnection.

Online status indicators (new feature)

When you go into a chat room you should now see a little round 'online status' indicator on each user's avatar in the user list. When the indicator is green it means the user is 'present', if it turns amber it means they've not sent a message for over 5 minutes and are deemed to be 'away'. If the 'away' user then types a message, their indicator should immediately turn back to green.

Note: The 'View profile' link is now available again, if you open the drop down next to a user's name, you should see the link at the bottom of their user information.

Thanks for your feedback. I totally understand that you want the fundamental chat features fixed, and as you can see from this thread we are working on this. There are some niggling issues that are proving difficult to replicate and fix, such as the chat leaks, but hopefully we'll get there. We're also working on new chat features and have already had some positive feedback about the 'why are you in chat' options.

I'm finding it hard to fix this issue, since the code a least seems to work properly. If a user leaves chat and they are in your friend list (listed in grey at the top of the user ta, then their status is shown as 'offline' (the little round coloured icon turns grey). If a user leaves chat and they are in the online list (listed in white, below any grey listings in the user ta, then the listing is removed.

Could it be that users are leaving the browser open with the chat application running, but then going off for a few days?

I'd like to hear from regular chat users, whether from their experience they think this could be a likely scenario.

The chat has been tested on this setup, so you're almost certainly experiencing a caching issue. Go into your browser settings and clear the cached web data to resolve the problem.

For any iPhone users still having problems try the following:

For Safari (built-in browser):

Open Settings
Scroll down and tap Safari
Scroll down and tap Advanced
Tap Website Data
Tap Remove All Website Data
Confirm by tapping Remove Now

For other browsers:

Chrome:

Open the Chrome app
Tap the three dots (⋯) in the bottom right
Tap Settings
Tap Privacy and Security
Tap Clear Browsing Data
Select what you want to clear and tap Clear Browsing Data

Firefox:

Open Firefox
Tap the menu button (three lines)
Tap Settings
Tap Data Management
Select what to clear and tap Clear Private Data

Note: Clearing cache will log you out of websites and remove stored preferences, but it can help fix loading issues and free up storage space.

You need to 'hard refresh' the chat page. On Windows, open the page in a browser and type Ctrl + F5.

The video issue should now be fixed. Thanks for pointing out this bug. If you come across any videos that are still not playing properly please let me know below in this thread.

I can only see errors for the two videos linked above. If you can seeing errors for all videos, please could you state your device type (e.g. iPhone 12) and browser below (e.g. Chrome), and I'll look into this.

If girlcrisis doesn't have a copy then unfortunately it seems that the story may be lost. It's not reasonably practical for us to recover it, even if it still exists in backups.

It seems like a good time to recommend that users keep their own backup of any content they do not wish to lose (albeit, it's a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted).

Sorry but it's not that simple to bring back individual stories, since they're linked to accounts, thumbnails, comments, views, likes etc. We hold backups for emergency use, but these aren't held in a format that can be easily searched.