Hi David,
Thanks for reporting. I am checking into this. Clearing the chat button sounds like a neat idea. I’ll add it in the next update when I roll out the fix.
Hi David,
You had diagnosed it perfectly: the problem was WordPress cron. WP-cron only fires when the site gets a visitor, so on a site where the chat is only enabled during a weekly event, the daily cleanup often never ran — which is exactly why your client’s messages lingered for a week.
v1.2.1 adds a fallback that also prunes old messages when the chat itself loads (throttled to once an hour so it’s not constantly hitting the database). So retention now works even on a quiet, traffic-light site. I tested it against backdated messages to confirm: anything past the cutoff clears, while recent and pinned messages stay put.
And for the manual-clear question — there’s now a 🧹 Clear chat button in the chat header, visible to moderators only. One click arms it, a second click clears every message (pinned ones are kept). That should cover the multi-sessions-in-a-day case you mentioned, where you want a clean slate between sessions without waiting on any timer.
A few other things landed in this release that you or your client might find useful:
- Emoji picker — there’s now a 😊 button next to the message box that opens a panel of emoji to drop into a message. Might be a nice touch for your community.
- Cloudflare Turnstile (optional) — if spam ever becomes an issue, you can enable a free, privacy-friendly bot check under Settings → LobbyChat → Spam protection. You can require it for guests only so logged-in members aren’t bothered. Off by default.
- Smoother moderator controls — the hover actions on each message (Delete / Pin / Report) now float in the corner instead of nudging the message taller, so the chat doesn’t visually jump around when you mouse over it.
Update via Dashboard → Updates. Thanks again for taking the time to write up such clear reports — genuinely helpful, and I’m glad the plugin’s working well for your client.
