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Install Guide

Tutorial on how to set up Live Helper Chat. You can also use the available snapshot on DigitalOcean.

Requirements​

If you are running a WordPress site, there is a 99.9% chance that Live Helper Chat will work just fine.

# Optional but recommended
php-phpiredis
php-imap
php-pecl-redis4
php-pecl-igbinary
php-geos
php-fpm
php-opcache

# Required
php-json
php-cli
php-gd
php-xml
php-common
php-pdo
php-pecl-zip
php-mysqlnd
php-mbstring
php
php-bcmath

Folders permissions​

  • After granting permission to write to the cache folder, you should see the following window. If you encounter a strange error instead of the installation page, please ensure that:
    • Your browser is pointing to the correct URL: index.php/site_admin/install/install.
    • You have given recursive write permission to the cache folder.

Try changing the owner to the Apache user or the user under which your HTTP server is running.

chown apache:apache -R cache/
chown apache:apache -R var/
chown apache:apache settings/
chmod -R 755 cache/

After that, you should see something like this:

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Now, just grant permission to write to the required folders/files.

chmod 755 settings/
chmod -R 755 var/storage
chmod -R 755 var/userphoto
chmod -R 755 var/storageform
chmod -R 755 var/storageadmintheme
chmod -R 755 var/botphoto
chmod -R 755 var/bottrphoto
chmod -R 755 var/storageinvitation
chmod -R 755 var/storagedocshare
chmod -R 755 var/storagetheme
chmod -R 755 var/tmpfiles

After that, all items should be green.

Database settings​

On the next screen, you should see a similar window. The database has to be precreated.

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Application initial settings​

You can fill up these settings according to your needs.

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Install completed​

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Installing composer dependencies for third party extensions, AWS translations​

From lhc_web folder run.

composer install

Uncomment those two lines by removing dashes lhc_web/index.php and lhc_web/cron.php.

Logging into the application​

After clicking Login here you should be presented with a login window.

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Install url is always index.php/site_admin/user/login

Dashboard page​

This is the main application window.

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Generating embed code​

Now, click on the settings icon ​ on the top menu. You should see this window.

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Navigate to

Embed code -> Widget embed code (new)

You should see a window like this.

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To enable proactive chat, check the option Check for operator invitation messages.

The embed code should look like this. If you copy this code, change install.livehelperchat.com/index.php to your installation path. 

<script>var LHC_API = LHC_API||{};
LHC_API.args = {mode:'widget',lhc_base_url:'//install.livehelperchat.com/index.php/',wheight:450,wwidth:350,pheight:520,pwidth:500,leaveamessage:true,proactive:true};
(function() {
var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true;
var date = new Date();po.src = '//install.livehelperchat.com/design/defaulttheme/js/widgetv2/index.js?'+(""+date.getFullYear() + date.getMonth() + date.getDate());
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();
</script>

For more information and troubleshooting, please see the integration article.

Proactive invitation setup​

Navigate to:

System configuration -> Live help configuration -> Pro active chat invitations

Here is a demo configuration that we have on demo.livehelperchat.com. It includes the following settings:

  • A message is sent to the user after they spend 20 seconds on the page or have more than 2 pageviews.
  • A random profile from online operators is shown.
  • There are also delayed messages available. Delayed messages can be configured in the autoresponder section.
  • Additionally, there is a long auto delayed message set for 40 seconds. If no one accepts the chat during that period, a message is displayed indicating that all operators are busy.

You can see the proactive invitation setup on our demo installation.

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And here is the instant auto-response message.
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Here is the automatic auto-response message.

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Further reading​

Chat does not start?​

If you are running behind CloudFlare or any other proxy that influences the IP seen by Live Helper Chat, please enable it in the settings file.

https://github.com/LiveHelperChat/livehelperchat/blob/a60a3b485ed08650b9e081ed827998e050717e37/lhc_web/settings/settings.ini.default.php#L18

My widget does not load?​

Try adding this to your .htaccess ile in the root folder lhc_web. If this folder does not exist, just place the .htaccess file in the same folder where the index.php file exists. It has to be placed in the Live Helper Chat folder, not the website.

AddType application/wasm .wasm

<Files ~ "\.(gif|jpe?g?|png|bmp|swf|css|js|svg|otf|eot|ttf|woff|woff2|swf|mp3|ogg|wasm|map|wav|pdf|ico|txt)$">
  Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Methods: "GET, POST, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE"
  Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Headers: "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, API-Key, Authorization"
</Files>

If, for some reason, the above solution does not work, try this without the always keyword.

AddType application/wasm .wasm

<Files ~ "\.(gif|jpe?g?|png|bmp|swf|css|js|svg|otf|eot|ttf|woff|woff2|swf|mp3|ogg|wasm|map|wav|pdf|ico|txt)$">
  Header Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  Header Set Access-Control-Allow-Methods: "GET, POST, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE"
  Header Set Access-Control-Allow-Headers: "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, API-Key, Authorization"
</Files>

Other possible reasons:

  • You have changed Chat configuration -> Misc -> Domains where script can be embedded. E.g example.com, google.com, but the embedded script is not listed in the domain.
  • You have enabled System configuration -> GEO Adjustment, but you have provided invalid data.
  • You have blocked yourself via System configuration -> Live help configuration -> Blocking -> Blocked users

Chat was closed by an operator/visitor, but when the visitor starts a new chat, an old chat opens?​

Most likely, you have enabled Chat configuration -> Misc -> Reopen chat functionality enabled

More information

Install from the command line​

It is also possible to install from the command line.

Copy the install-cli.php script to the root folder (lhc_web if you pulled from github)

cp cli/install-cli.php install-cli.php

Copy the default example.settings.ini to settings.ini. Don't forget to modify them.

cp cli/example.settings.ini cli/settings.ini

Install Live Helper Chat

php install-cli.php cli/settings.ini

Installation under a subfolder​

If you are running a WordPress site and have nice URLs, you might need to allow access to the Live Helper Chat subfolder. Your .htacess file could look like this:

RewriteEngine On
# Previous rules
RewriteRule ^lhc_web/.*$ - [L]
# Afterward rules

How to log in?​

To log in, point your browser to the directory where the application is installed. The URL address should look like: http://<your_domain>/index.php/site_admin/