Any update regarding this?
Other than @Eric joining our group ride and making a few comments I still have not seen any aknowledgement from Zwift staff. Bumping this post for more visibility.
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Hi Chad – I shared this with others but I can confirm that the team is focused on addressing this and are in the process of collating the issues reported including those from this thread. From what I can tell, I think there are at least a couple of issues here that we need to chase down. It’s on the docket for the March release… It’s worth highlighting that from a design perspective, we only share messages of riders around you. In large events, you do not want to see everyone’s messages! The only exception should be the rider leaders / sweepers. We’ll get this sorted and thanks for being patient. It’s on my radar.
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Thank you, @Eric, for chiming in. It is comforting to know that Zwift is aware of the issue and can expect something to be done about it in March.
Speaking for myself, I do not expect to see all the messages from everyone in a large event. You are absolutely right, @Eric, it would be an absolute mayhem! I do love, however, the chat behavior and its range prior to the January 21 update. Not only did they give us the ability to talk to everyone within the beacon blob if the ride has a leader, they also allowed us to communicate with each other at the start of a large leaderless event (e.g., BMTR Fundos) either to find friends or to form pace groups. Lastly, the chat range prior to the January 21 update also extended beyond one’s immediate blob, which meant one can talk to riders in front or behind them to join forces.
In short, thank you for acknowledging the issue and I am advocating for a chat behavior that replicates what it was before the January 21 update.
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Yes, it looks like we made some network changes which is now affecting the chat function. We’re on it.
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Thanks Eric!
It’s very helpful and reassuring to know that this is being adressed. I can’t speak for everyone, but I wasn’t expecting things to be fixed within a day. What I was expecting however, is an acknowledgement that there is an issue and it’s being investigated, so your comments are much appreciated.
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@Eric Just a sweep/lead perspective clarification: it’s important to also see messages from all over, especially those off the back. If we can at least get back to where we were before the Jan update, that would be great (you never saw everybody back then either, afaik, but it was a lot more).
If the changes made are such that that’s gonna be hard (which I’m a bit worried about if network code changes caused this), maybe a stop-gap would be to raise the limits and maybe add a cutoff for really large events (300+) to prevent things getting too spammy.
(Design-wise I’d prefer to approach this with a togglable radius, allowing individual riders to select whether they want to receive messages from e.g. just nearby, within a minute or two each way, or the whole event.)
Thanks for giving some detail on the situation!
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I’m not sure it even makes to limit the display of messages inside an event at all, but I guess it depends on the quantity and quality of the discussion, and certainly the ride leads should always see everything. The performance impact is approximately zero after all. (Plus the individual participant can always turn off the chat.) Oh, and the visual impact of excessive messages is accidentally mitigated by the genius design choice where messages appear on top of instead of next to one another…
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Just an update that after sending requested log files, I received a reply ticket acknowledging the issues with chat and a few other things affecting group rides. They wrote:
"I’ve confirmed that you’ve been experiencing a few different issues that we’ve been working on.
- There is an issue with the sweep beacon not following the correct progression on the sweepers list which can result in some erratic behaviour.
- We’re aware of an issue where you can only hear chat from those close to you, this is making ride leaders and sweepers impossible to hear unless you’re close to them.
- We know that some riders are not effectively displaying their distance in the Riders Nearby list.
The good news is that I’ve checked with our team and they’re working on fixes for all of these."
I hope the March update will address all of these things so I can stop doing so many structured workouts — so good for me, but so mind-numbing.
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Just to confirm also getting this problem on PACK group rides.
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Journal entry 40;
It’s been nearly 45 days since the gods took away our ability to speak. The others on the island express confusion as to why we’ve suddenly been ignored. We continue to make monthly offerings of gold and silver in hopes that one day we will be granted the ability to speak once again…
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Alas, our inability to speak makes it hard for our woes to be heard. Perhaps that was the plan all along.
Writing SOS in the sand did not seem to cut it. Shall try smoke signals next.
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Lololol!!! 
Don’t mind me… Just passing through 
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How long was Tom Hanks on that island before he was rescued??!!
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2 hours 23 minutes, according to IMDB.
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Hahahaha @Michael_Lander_BMTR and @Lee_azy
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Just pinging this thread so hopefully the powers that be remember that we are still waiting for a resoultion to bouncing beacons and half chat.
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Well with tour de watopia coming up with huge groups riding together I don’t have hope that zwift will “fix” this chat as they don’t want everyone in the tour to be inundated with messages (although this never really was a problem)
Lets remember that there are perhaps 100 regular group rides held consistently each week by various teams throughout the year. This chat proximity bug impacts all of them.
I would say that if we were to apply a utilitarian approach, helping the greatest good for the greatest number, priority should be given to the regulars who sustain zwift year round!
Let’s get our chat fixed so we can all hear one another on a group ride, so that if people fall off of the back we can hear them call for help, so that the sweepers in the back can hear the jokes being told at the front and so we can regain a sense of community within these regular rides!!
@Eric Can we please get a rollback update on this soon??
As always, much appreciated!
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Any luck with chat being resolved with today’s update?! 
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From my post in the March 16 update thread:
“Just rode in a group ride on Tick-tock with a buncha Canadians, actually Quebecois, not that it was a bad thing but I couldn’t understand all of the messages from the RL or the few that came across from the other riders. We can safely say the Group Chat function is still broke.”
Apparently this is usually a pretty chatty group ride.
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