Install Guide
Tutorial how to setup Live Helper Chat. You can also use available snapshot on DigitalOcean
Requirements
If you are running wordpress site it's 99.9% chance Live Helper Chat will work just fine.
- Download zip, tgz
- Minimum PHP 7.4
- Mysql 5.7 >= OR MariaDB 10.2.3 >= with
json_
functions support. - Apache/Nginx
- For Laravel version please go to https://github.com/LiveHelperChat/livehelperchat_laravel
# 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 you gave permission to write to cache folder. You should see the following window. If you see strange error instead of install make sure that
- Your browser is pointing to index.php/site_admin/install/install URL
- You gave recursive write permission to cache folder.
Try to change owner to apache user or the user under which you are running http server.
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 his
Now just give permission to write to 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 next screen you should see similar window. Database has to be precreated.
Application initial settings
These settings you can fill up according to your needs.
Install completed
Logging to application
After clicking Login here
you should be presented with login window.
Install url is always index.php/site_admin/user/login
Dashboard page
This is the main application window.
Generating embed code
Now click on Settings icon on top menu. You should see this window.
Navigate to
Embed code -> Widget embed code (new)
You should see window like this
To have proactive enabled check Check for operator invitation messages
Embed code should be similar to this. If you copy this code change install.livehelperchat.com/index.php
to your install 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 trouble shooting see integration article.
Proactive invitation setup
Navigate to
System configuration -> Live help configuration -> Pro active chat invitations
Here is demo configuration which we have on demo.livehelperchat.com. Some things it does:
- Message to user is send after he spends 20 seconds on page or have more than 2 pageviews.
- We show random profile from online operators
- Also we have to delayed messages there. Delayed messages can be also configured in autor responder sections.
- Also we have there long auto delayed message 40 seconds. If during that period no one accepts a chat message is shown that all operators are busy.
You can see proactive invitation setup on our demo installation.
And here is instant auto response message.
Here goes automatic auto response message.
Further reading
- How to remove index.php from URL?
- Wondering how to setup automatic online/work hours?
- Need automatically change operator status to offline/online?
- Want to rebrand it according to your site style?
- Don't know how to use screen sharing?
- Try windows app or chrome extension
- My users loose chat session then they navigate through the site, duplicate online users records
Chat does not start?
If you are running behind CloudFare or any other proxy. Which influences what IP is seen by Live Helper Chat. Please enable in that case in settings file
My widget does not load?
Try to add this in your .htaccess
file in root folder lhc_web
. If this folder does not exists just place .htaccess
in the same folder where index.php
file exists. It has to be placed in Live Helper Chat folder not a 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)$">
Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Methods: "GET, POST, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE"
Header always Set Access-Control-Allow-Headers: "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, API-Key, Authorization"
</Files>
Other possible reasons
- You have changed
Chat configuration -> Misc -> Domains where script can be embedded. E.g example.com, google.com
but embedded script in not listed domain. - You have enabled
System configuration -> GEO Adjustment
but provided invalid data. - You have blocked yourself via
System configuration -> Live help configuration -> Blocking -> Blocked users
Chat was closed by an operator/visitor, but visitor starting chat again opens an old chat?
Most likely you have enabled Chat configuration -> Misc -> Reopen chat functionality enabled
Install from command line
It's also possible to install from command line.
Copy install-cli.php
script to root folder (lhc_web
if you pulled from github)
cp cli/install-cli.php install-cli.php
Copy default example.settings.ini
to settings.ini
. Don't forget to modify them.
cp cli/example.settings.ini cli/settings.ini
Install Live Helper Chat
php install-cli.php cli/settings.ini
Installation under sub-folder
If you are running wordpress site and have nice URL, you might need to allow access to Live Helper Chat subfolder. .htacess
could look like.
RewriteEngine On
# Previous rules
RewriteRule ^lhc_web/.*$ - [L]
# Afterward rules
How to login?
In order to login point your browser to directory where application is installed. URL address should look like http://<your_domain>/index.php/site_admin/