4.2.15

Released 2026-10-02. Upgrade from 4.2.14, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• "Point at it" picks a video, an ad or an embed. In Bug Report and in the TARS panel's report view, a tap on a YouTube embed, an ad or any other frame now selects it. Before, the tap went to the frame: the video played, an ad counted a click, and nothing was picked.

What changed

• While "Point at it" is on, the dimmed mask over the page takes the pointer, so no tap reaches the page under it. The widget finds what sits under the tap with document.elementsFromPoint and skips its own mask. A frame comes back as the frame element.
• The bar with Cancel works as before, and a drag still scrolls the page and picks nothing.

What the upgrade does to your database

One template changes: Advally_Feedback_Widget. No table, option or phrase changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.15 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.14

Released 2026-10-02. Upgrade from 4.2.13, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• A report TARS sends reaches you by email. When you tell TARS about a problem or an idea and say yes, advally.com emails you a copy of the ticket at the address on your XenForo account. Reply to that email to add anything; your reply goes on the ticket, and the team answers you there.

What changed

• A report TARS takes in the panel goes through Bug Report with a copy_to_reporter flag. Bug Report then adds the member's own account email, read on the server, never from the browser. A report typed straight into Bug Report sends no email and works as before.
• Each question to TARS, in the panel or on the WebOps hub, sends the asker's account email with their user id and name, so TARS can tell them a copy is coming.

What the upgrade does to your database

One template changes: Advally_Feedback_Widget. No table, option or phrase changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.14 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.13

Released 2026-10-01. Upgrade from 4.2.12, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• One TARS button, not two. Staff who had both Ask TARS and Bug Report saw two buttons in the corner of the forum. There is one now. TARS opens a panel with two choices: tell TARS about a problem or an idea, or send a quick bug report.
• TARS takes reports, and says so. TARS is in beta and does one job for now. He helps you report a problem or suggest a feature for your site. You describe it, he asks a few questions, and he sends it to Advally with a screenshot of the page, your browser's console log, the requests that failed and your browser details. He no longer answers questions about ads or revenue.
• The chat is easier to read. Replies show bold text, lists and links. A reload keeps the conversation. The chat opens on its latest message.

Staff who have Bug Report and not TARS see no change. The TARS button opens the report form, as before.

What you will see

The panel sits above the TARS button on a desktop and slides up from the bottom of the screen on a phone. It uses your forum's colours. It has three tabs: Home, Chat and Report. A BETA mark sits beside TARS's name.

On the WebOps page in the admin panel, the TARS card takes reports the same way. There is no forum page to capture there, so a report from that page carries the conversation and no screenshot.

Each site can send TARS 200 messages a day.

What the upgrade does to your database

Adds 30 phrases and changes the text of 3. No table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.13 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before. The panel needs Chrome or Edge 111, Safari 16.2, or Firefox 121, or newer.

4.2.12

Released 2026-10-01. Upgrade from 4.2.11, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• The site assistant is now TARS. The chat on the WebOps page and the front-end button read "Ask TARS", its answers are labelled TARS, and the header carries the TARS badge Bug Report already uses. TARS still cites where each answer came from and still files a ticket for the Advally team when it cannot settle something.

What changed

Twelve advally_site_agent_* phrases (the title, the button, the status lines, the locked and error messages, and the option's label and explanation) now name TARS. The front-end button shows the TARS badge in place of the speech bubble. Who sees the front-end button is unchanged: the option is still empty by default, so it shows to nobody until an admin picks a group.

What the upgrade does to your database

Rewrites those twelve phrases and two templates (Advally_SiteAgent_Chat, advally_webops_dashboard). No table or option value changes. A board that customised one of those phrases keeps its own text.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.12 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.11

Released 2026-10-01. Upgrade from 4.2.10, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• A slow answer no longer costs a question twice. When the site assistant took longer than 60 seconds, the panel said it could not reach Advally, while advally.com went on answering, counting the question and sometimes filing a ticket. Asking again counted it again and could file a second ticket. Now the panel says the question may still have counted and puts it back in the box. Asking it again returns the answer advally.com already gave, with no second count and no second ticket.
• The panel shows how many questions are left today, under the status line.
• A board admin asking from the WebOps hub keeps the full assistant: revenue, settings and every other tool. advally.com now gives a member of an allowed group, asking from the front-end entry, a smaller set of tools, and it tells the two entries apart only from 4.2.11 on. On 4.2.10 and earlier, a hub question is treated as a member's question.

What changed

• Each question carries an id (message_id). Asking the same text again after a failure re-sends the same id. Starting a new conversation, or asking something else, starts a new one.
• A request the plugin stops waiting for is reported as a timeout, not as "could not reach".
• The chat request names the entry it came from (reporter.via: admin_hub or public).
• The panel reads the usage block advally.com sends with every answer: questions today against the daily cap, and when it resets.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. No phrase, table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.11 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before. The retry and the usage line need advally.com's side of IT 2502. Until it is deployed, the plugin works as 4.2.10 did, apart from the timeout sentence.

4.2.9

Released 2026-10-01. Upgrade from 4.2.8, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• Bug reports sent from Chrome and Edge arrive with their screenshot again. On 4.2.7 and 4.2.8 a report sent by a signed-in member from a Chromium browser was filed with "No screenshot". If your forum is on either version, upgrade.

Measured on the Culture Coma home page at 1280x900, signed in as staff, the report as it reaches Advally:

| | 4.2.8 | 4.2.9 |
|---|---|---|
| Chromium (Chrome, Edge) | no screenshot, every time | screenshot attached, a 77 KB picture |
| WebKit (Safari) | screenshot attached | screenshot attached |

What went wrong

The screenshot library measures default styles in a hidden helper frame. It created that frame and loaded its page in the background. Since 4.2.7 the screenshot pauses every 12 milliseconds so the page stays responsive while you type, and one of those pauses landed while the helper frame's page was still empty. The library stopped with an error and the report went out without its picture.

4.2.9 writes the helper frame's page directly, so it is ready before the first pause. That is a third small edit to modern-screenshot 4.7.0, listed with the other two at the top of js/advally/modern-screenshot.min.js.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. No phrase, table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.9 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.8

Released 2026-09-30. Upgrade from 4.2.7, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• Bug reports sent from Safari now arrive with their screenshot. Before 4.2.8 the screenshot took longer than its 15-second limit in WebKit, the engine Safari uses, so those reports were filed with "No screenshot". It now takes about 2 seconds.
• Safari no longer logs an error for each ad on the page while the screenshot is taken.

Measured on the Culture Coma home page at 1280x900, time to prepare the screenshot:

| Browser engine | 4.2.7 | 4.2.8 |
|---|---|---|
| WebKit (Safari) | 17.4 to 17.6 seconds, screenshot dropped | 2.0 seconds, attached |
| Chromium (Chrome, Edge) | 1.1 to 1.5 seconds | 1.2 seconds, the same picture byte for byte |

What changed

The screenshot library, modern-screenshot 4.7.0, carries two small edits, listed at the top of js/advally/modern-screenshot.min.js. It copies each element's style in one write instead of one write per property, and it skips reading inside ad frames from other sites, which it could never read anyway.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. No phrase, table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.8 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.7

Released 2026-09-30. Upgrade from 4.2.6, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• The Bug Report form answers the moment it opens. Before 4.2.7 the page froze for one to two seconds after TARS was clicked, while the screenshot was taken, so the first words typed into the form appeared late. The screenshot is now taken in small pieces between keystrokes, and the slowest step waits until you press Send.
• The screenshot still shows the page as it was when you opened the form. Scrolling behind the form while it opens does not change the picture.

Measured in Chrome at 1280x900, the longest freeze after opening the form:

| Board | 4.2.5 | 4.2.7 |
|---|---|---|
| Culture Coma home | 1.3 to 1.8 seconds | under 0.1 seconds |
| Newschoolers home | 1.5 to 2.2 seconds | under 0.1 seconds |

Pressing Send now takes about a second longer, behind the "Sending" message.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. No phrase, table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing an earlier release over 4.2.7 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.6

Released 2026-09-30. Upgrade from 4.2.5, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• The crawler grid tells training from citing. ClaudeBot now reads as Anthropic's training crawler, like GPTBot. The grid adds the bots that actually cite you: Claude-SearchBot, plus the agents that open a thread when someone asks about it (ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User).
• A new health check. If robots.txt fully blocks OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, the WebOps score shows a warning, because ChatGPT search, Claude or Perplexity cannot cite the forum. Blocking training bots does not count against you.
• A truer AI referral count. Ordinary DuckDuckGo searches no longer count as AI traffic; its assistant, duck.ai, does. Visits from ChatGPT links tagged utm_source=openai or chatgpt.com now count even when the browser sent no referrer.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. Five phrases are added. No table or option changes.

Rollback

Install the 4.2.4 archive over 4.2.6 the same way.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.

4.2.5

Released 2026-09-30. Upgrade from 4.2.4, or any earlier version, through the update notice on the Advally pages or the archive at https://advally.com/plugin/xenforo/release.

Why upgrade

• The label beside TARS looks current. The box with a border and the board's own font is gone. Report a bug here is a small rounded chip that sits against him, and the control that hides him is a small badge on his far shoulder instead of an arrow standing between the two.
• TARS puts his arm down when you close the form. In 4.2.4, after you opened the form with a mouse and closed it, the tooltip stayed on the page and the arm stayed raised until you clicked somewhere else. Chrome, Edge and Firefox did this. He salutes for the pointer and for keyboard focus, and for nothing else.
• The label belongs to TARS. Pointing at the hide badge no longer shows Report a bug here beside it.
• The redrawn badge reaches every board. 4.2.4 redrew the badge at the same address, so a board's CDN kept serving the old drawing on the edge tab and the form title. The address changes whenever the file does.
• A hidden button stays out of the keyboard's way. With the launcher tucked into the edge tab, the Tab key no longer stops on the button nobody can see.

What the upgrade does to your database

Nothing. No phrase, table or option changes.

Rollback

XenForo's archive install refuses an older version, so installing 4.2.4 over 4.2.5 does not work. Restore the add-on directory and js/advally/ from the snapshot you took before upgrading, then run php cmd.php xf-addon:upgrade Advally/Advertising.

Compatibility

XenForo 2.3 and later, PHP 8.1 and later, as before.