What are some common pitfalls when using PHP for tracking user activity and online status?

One common pitfall when tracking user activity and online status in PHP is not properly handling session management. To ensure accurate tracking, sessions should be properly started and managed to keep track of user activity. Additionally, using AJAX requests to periodically update user statuses can help keep the information current. 

// Start session
session_start();

// Update user activity timestamp
$_SESSION['last_activity'] = time();

// Check if user is online based on last activity timestamp
function isUserOnline($timeout = 60) {
    if(isset($_SESSION['last_activity']) && (time() - $_SESSION['last_activity'] <= $timeout)) {
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

Keywords

MySQL session management AJAX security vulnerabilities tracking algorithms

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