✅ #incident resolved at 05:04 UTC

HAL is back up and running, and responding to commands. We may need to reboot a few more times while we make some adjustments.

Additionally, CAS is currently unreachable, and HAL is silently ignoring this. The fact that it is down is likely what caused this downtime. Their domain cannot be reached at all, and this was producing a very large amount of errors. To circumvent, HAL is silently ignoring the issue until such time as it comes back online.

We’ll continue to monitor and keep you posted.

Update 05:53 UTC: CAS is aware of the issue on their end and will resolve in due course. No ETA announced. Some spam may seep through while their system is inaccessible. The rest of HAL’s antispam system is working normally.

Update 17:07 UTC: Unfortunately CAS is still down. HAL is catching a large amount of spam, nonetheless. We’re not sure when CAS will become available again, but hopefully it’ll be in the next 24 hours.

Update 05:39 UTC, 17 Nov: CAS is back online.

#feature #updates #announcement

HAL has just been updated with a new feature and some other relevant changes and updates.

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Chat Locks

Telegram provides the ability to toggle certain features in group chats, such as stickers, GIFs, and media. However, it’s very broad, and doesn't cover the specific needs of each group.

HAL now has the ability for group admins to add a level of precision and lock a wide range of things that may not be desired in their group. This includes things like private invite links, public chat links, @mentions, #hashtags, $CASHTAGS, and many more. You can see the entire list of and toggle chat locks by sending /chatlocks in DM with @thisishalbot. For more details on what each chat lock is for, send /chatlocktypes.

When a chat lock is turned on and a member sends something covered by that lock, then HAL will respond with a self-destructing message, informing the member that their message was deleted and why.

Deprecation Notice: The /deleteprivateinvitelinks command will continue to work, however it has been marked as deprecated and will be removed in a future release. We highly recommend turning off the deletion of private invite links (/deleteprivateinvitelinks off) and using the applicable chat lock instead.

PS: If you’re using Rose alongside HAL, and you've got locks enabled in Rose, please don't enable them in HAL as well. No point in having two bots deleting the same message…

——
Announcing our Paid Tier: HAL+

This is slated to be HAL’s paid tier that will offer more functionality to groups when HAL exits beta.

Primarily, HAL is an antispam bot. However, like with all bots that intend to eventually run at scale, HAL costs money and time to maintain. At the moment, this cost is low, but it will most certainly rise as and when HAL needs to scale up to meet the demand of more groups over time.

To manage this, some of the big bots run on donations, whilst others are paid-only or run on freemium model. HAL will be taking the freemium approach, where its antispam system will be free for everyone, always, and specialised chat management features will form part of HAL+ when we reach General Availability (GA) and exit the private beta.

For now, while we’re in private beta, all features will remain free.

Our /help menu has been updated to show a [+] symbol on some menu buttons, indicating that the underlying feature will form part of HAL+ when it launches. At the time of writing this, our Comment Moderation and Chat Locks features fall under HAL+.

How much will it cost? We don’t know yet – we’ll figure it out once all features have been developed and running in the groups that currently use HAL.

When will it launch? When we're ready to exit beta and be generally-available to everyone.

If you have any preliminary questions about HAL+, please feel free to ask them in @halsupport, or by replying to this post.

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Other Changes and Updates

– Our /help menu is now context-aware, and you can jump into any section of the help menu by sending “/help keyword” in DM with HAL. For example, sending “/help antispam” will take you straight to the Antispam help menu. Also, sending any /help command in a group chat will provide you with a button you can use to view the menu in private, so as to not clutter up your group chat.

– We’ve added limits to the Dedupe feature. By default, the dedupe window is 1 hour, and this could previously be set to any amount of time greater than 1 minute. With this release, the smallest window is 5 minutes, and the largest is 48 hours. We don’t imagine any more than that will be needed by any group.

– HAL now has basic support for Topics. When sending a command to HAL in a topic, HAL will now respond to you in that topic, as you’d expect it to.

——
As always, if you need help using HAL, feel free to drop us a note in @halsupport, but please check the /help menu first! 😉

#update

HAL has been updated to function only in groups where it has the required permissions it needs to do its job.

Going forward, if a group has disabled either the “Delete Messages” or “Ban Members” permissions, then the bot will not perform its functions in that group.

HAL went down for a bit. It’s been rebooted and is playing catchup. It might be unresponsive while it does this.

Updates (latest first)

2 Feb
05:30: The underlying issue has been identified, and is largely out of our control. Pending some testing, we’re going to be moving HAL to a new server in the coming days. This will result in some downtime, which will be communicated ahead of time.

30 Jan
15:34: Commands should be responsive now, but may fail from time to time. Getting there.
14:30: Some commands may be unresponsive. We're still investigating. Spam detection continues to work.

29 Jan
13:52: HAL is currently running, but may encounter issues from time to time. When this happens, it will try and self-recover and catch up on its own.
12:05: Service may be intermittent. We’re working on it.
11:56: Back up and running.

Incident - 29 Jan

11:18: HAL is down again. Spam will need to be deleted manually until the issue is resolved.

(times in UTC)

🕔 Scheduled Downtime — Server Upgrade

HAL will be inaccessible for a short while tomorrow, 5 Feb, from approx. 05:00 06:30 UTC, while it gets moved to a new server. The process should take around 30 minutes, though if something goes wrong, it could be a little longer.

When HAL goes live on the new server, it will attempt to catch up on everything it missed during the migration.

Downtime has been re-scheduled for 06:30 UTC (in ~30 minutes).

Server migration has begun.

Server migration is complete, and HAL is now running smoothly in its new home. We’ll keep an eye on things, and please let us know in @halsupport if you encounter any problems.

HAL is currently offline due to an issue with a recent update. Working on getting this resolved.

The issue has been resolved, and HAL is now operating normally.

However, the database needed to be rolled back to the most recent backup, which was created ~18 hours ago. The missing data will be restored in due course.

Due to the nature of the issue, HAL was not able to fully catch-up on missed spam, which will need to be removed by group admins using the /hban command.

HAL now has a Rose Federation

We’ve created a Rose Federation for HAL, primarily to serve as a backup for those nasty times when HAL is down (which we we do our level-best to prevent).

Whilst anyone can join or subscribe to this Federation without installing HAL, it should be noted that this will only prevent known spammers from joining. Groups that do this will not benefit from HAL’s active spam-fighting capabilities. As such, we recommend that groups only use this federation as a backup.

Chat owners that make use of @MissRose_bot in their groups are welcome to join the HAL Federation using the following command:

/joinfed 43fb2bbc-e29b-4093-be43-b7a0afd84557

If you are already part of a Federation, then you can subscribe instead, using the /subfed command with the same Federation ID (federation owners only).

We also recommend enabling quiet mode, so as to not bloat your chat with ban messages. To do this, send /quietfed yes to your group.

Please note that we do not provide support for groups that only make use of the Federation. Support is only for those that use @thisishalbot.

⧉ Learn more about Rose Federations

HAL is going offline shortly for a minor server upgrade. Downtime won’t be long, and it’ll catch up on anything it missed when it comes back online.

Upgrades are complete.

You can now check if you are banned directly with HAL

If you’d like to find out if you are banned by HAL, you can now open a private chat with @thisishalbot, and send the /check command. If you are, HAL will let you know the reason and the effective date, and will show you the message that got you banned. If your ban was issued in error, or you would otherwise like to appeal, you can do so in @halsupport.

You can also tap here to see if you are banned.

Command Removed: /deleteprivateinvitelinks

This command is no longer needed, as Chat Locks has an option to delete private invite links, and many other types of messages.

If you are currently using the feature, please use the “Private Invite Link” chat lock instead.

⧉ Learn how to use Chat Locks

Some Updates:

1. When a global ban is lifted, HAL will now lift the ban in each group where it applied it. There is no longer a need for group admins to take unbanned members off their removed users lists.

2. The antispam system can no longer be disabled. This was previously available as HAL has other features, but it is primarily an antispam system and those other features will become premium-only (HAL+) at some stage, so turning off its core feature does not make sense.

3. The /me command has been renamed back to /info.

4. Group admins can now opt out of the troll ban-list. See the Antispam section in /help for more info.

HAL will be going offline shortly for server maintenance. Downtime should only be a few minutes.

Maintenance is complete.

An attempt to fix channel banning has been deployed. Messages that are automatically forwarded from a channel to its linked discussion group should no longer be subject to filtering. If this does occur again, please let us know in @halsupport.

Additionally, the filtering mechanisms that triggered channel-bans have been adjusted – they were a little too broad, and produced a few false-positives (including the channels that should not have been checked in the first place) which have since been reversed.

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A reminder about our beta testing period:

Most online services, big and small, will go through a beta testing period before becoming generally available to the public. In the case of HAL, we are currently in a private/closed beta. Unlike a public/open beta, this means that groups need to request an invite in order to be considered and, in doing so, must be able to commit to testing the bot and providing input in the form of bug-reports and general feedback. This input is important, as the objective is to build a bot that everyone can use.

At the moment, we’re keeping this testing period private/closed so as to not inundate the process – this is a side project at the end of the day, and public testing would likely be a bit overwhelming to manage at this stage.

The current objective is to do some housekeeping and introduce some more features, such as HAL+ (premium tier, the details of which are not yet finalised), a web-based interface for managing group settings, viewing event logs, etc, before we enter a public/open beta, at which point anyone will be able to use HAL and provide feedback whilst it’s still in testing.

Then, once everything is stable in the public beta, we will plan for a General Availability (GA) release, at which point the bot will be considered stable and ready for all groups to use.

In the meantime, if you’re testing HAL in the private beta, please remember to report any issues you may find and feel free to provide feedback about your experience using it.