Online, Typing and "Read" are crazy unreliable with at least one (essential) contact.

[U-Go-7]

Hi, I have an issue which as far as I know is not common. It already caused LOT of misunderstandings.

The issue is, the online status, the "message read" status, and the typing status of at least one person (the only one I contact constantly and longly enough to notice) is almost never displayed correctly. This person has no Smartphone anymore since a couple of months and therefore uses only Telegram Desktop.

Typically, I write something, this person comes online, I see the online status correctly, I see my messages becoming read, and then shortly after the person appears offline, although actually is right there with the chat open still reading my messages. Eventually this person starts typing, this is displayed for a while, then no more. So I see the person as offline and not typing for very long time, and wonder wtf is going on for this person to disappear in the mid of an important urgent conversation. And I write again, and my message appears not read. Then suddenly, often almost immediately, this person appears again online or typing, and says to have been there reading or typing all the time.

To be clear, this also happens when I use Telegram for Android. And this only happens on one side. I mean, this person can see me online all the time, and typing too.

Few days ago something even more creepy happened. We were writing, then this person had to go to talk with the flatmates, and just closed telegram's window but not the program. I wrote something while this person was appearing offline. My message appeared as not read. Then suddenly this person appeared online, and my message read. Than again offline. I wrote again, and again my message appeared as not read. HOURS later this person comes and says to have been gone the whole time. Meaning, when this person appeared online and my message appeared as read, actually this person was NOT online at all.

So, WTF is happening there? What kind of setting in this person's Windows 10 or Notebook (Lenovo) or Telegram can ever possibly make this happen??? Or is the problem on my side?

Please help. Thanks

[saibakobito]

Hey @U-Go-7

I was searching the web for the exactly same problem u described.
In my case, my mate and i use both telegram for Android. Often when i wrote him some messages, he received the text, appeared online, read it, then suddenly came up with the "is typing" status and the out of nowhere he disappears and then nothing.. I was very wondering about that and asked him, he answered: " I was only reading it, but never typing".. and i was noticing this a few times!

Very spooky ..

[RememberTheAir]

I have no idea what's causing @saibakobito's issue, but I can give some insights to @U-Go-7's issue. The behavior you're observing is most likely related to your chat partner's privacy settings. From the FAQs:

The last seen rules apply to your online status as well. People can only see you online if you're sharing your last seen status with them.

There are some exceptions because sometimes it is obvious that you are online. Regardless of the last seen settings, people will see you online for a brief period (~30 seconds) if you do the following:

• Send them a message in a one-on-one chat or in a group where you both are members.
• Read a message they sent you in a one-on-one chat.
• Broadcast a “typing…” status to their chat with you or to a group where you both are members.

If you're not sharing your last seen timestamp with someone and don't do anything of the above, they'll never see you online. Another way of achieving this is to block that person.

Your chat partner is not sharing their last seen time with you: that means you see them online only after they perform some action that explicitly gives it away - such as marking one of your messages as read (which is something that cannot be hidden). So your chat partner going "offline" after briefly appearing as online when they mark as read one of your messages is expected. What's not expected, thought, is you not seeing the other person as "typing..." while they're actually typing. There are some restrictions to this too by the way. As far as I remember:

• if your chat partner keeps the chat open, but doesn't type anything for some time, and then starts typing, the "typing..." status will not be broadcasted to you (
• if you don't have the chat open in front of you, you will not see the "typing..." status from the chats list (I don't remember if it's still the case, there are some issues about this behavior in this repository)

I hope this explains most of the behavior that looks weird or suspicious.

I also would like to add that human-to-human debugging of this kind of issues is often fallacious. I had similar problems reported by my friends to me, saying they were never online or didn't open a chat, and yet they appeared online - only to find out that they were marking my messages as read from the notification bar of from Android 11's conversation bubbles (that basically open the chat). Maybe this could explain this part of your issue:

HOURS later this person comes and says to have been gone the whole time. Meaning, when this person appeared online and my message appeared as read, actually this person was NOT online at all.

It sounds indeed creepy. But human error is often a factor in this kind of issues, I wouldn't factor it out (I'm not implying your friend is lying or can't use the app - but it maybe it was just a missclick)

[Aokromes]

so, not a bug?

[RememberTheAir]

There's for sure some misunderstanding of how the online status works. I would waif for an answer

[stale[bot]]

Hey there!

This issue was inactive for a long time and will be automatically closed in 30 days if there isn't any further activity. We therefore assume that the user has lost interest or resolved the problem on their own.

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Thanks!