Real-time Logout
The Real-time Logout add-on detects when a session has ended on the server — because the user logged out elsewhere, was force-logged-out by an admin, or hit the concurrent-session limit — and immediately reloads any open tab so the user is bounced back to wp-login.
Without this add-on, an "already logged-out" browser tab keeps rendering as if it were still authenticated until the user clicks something that triggers a new request. With this add-on, that window typically shrinks to whatever polling interval you've configured (60 seconds by default).
When active, this add-on adds a Real-time Logout panel to the Settings tab directly under General Settings.
Not literally "real-time"
Despite the name, this is not a WebSocket or push-based system. The add-on ships a small front-end script that polls a single AJAX endpoint at a fixed interval. We chose polling because it works on every WordPress host — no Node sidecar, no third-party realtime service, no firewall changes — and at the recommended 60 s interval the load is negligible.
Refresh interval (seconds)
Setting key: loggedin_realtime_logout_refresh_interval · Default: 60
How often each open tab pings the server to ask whether the session is still active. Stored as an integer in its own site option; minimum value is 1 (values below that are clamped at save and on read).
Every authenticated page (front-end and admin) ships the polling script. The script runs setInterval(check, intervalMs) and posts to admin-ajax.php?action=loggedin_refresh_check. The endpoint replies { active: true } for logged-in users and { active: false } for everyone else; on false, the script triggers window.location.reload(true) to force a hard refresh past the browser cache, which causes WordPress to redirect the now-unauthenticated visitor to wp-login.
Pick the interval carefully
Each open tab makes one HTTP request per interval. A site with hundreds of concurrent users and a 5-second interval is firing tens of thousands of requests per minute at admin-ajax.php. Keep the interval at 60 seconds or higher unless you're operating on a single-user / small-team install where the load is irrelevant. Use a CDN or page-cache exclusion for admin-ajax.php (most caches already exempt it).
Where the polling script runs
The polling script is enqueued on:
- The front-end (
wp_enqueue_scripts) - The WordPress admin (
admin_enqueue_scripts)
…but only when there is a logged-in user. Anonymous visitors get nothing — there's nothing to poll for, and we don't ship a no-op bundle to anonymous traffic.
Save flow
The setting lives on the parent plugin's Settings tab. Edits do not persist until you click Save Changes at the bottom of the page, which flushes every pending change on the tab in a single REST call.
Related
loggedin_destroy_all_sessions— the parent's action that fires when admins use Force Logout. Real-time Logout is what makes that logout visible to the user without them having to refresh.- Force Logout — the admin-facing Force Logout panel.