Error message and links not working

Have you, at some time in the past, made any changes to user roles or custom capabilities? If so, could you check whether those changes are still in place?

I do not believe so. I checked, and everything looks fine on that end.

OK. In that case, could you give an example of the method (e.g. shortcode, direct hyperlink, etc) you are using to create links to downloadable files?

Yes I use a link via sort-code. This is one of the download links:

a href=”https://www.ccefgroup.com/?s2member_file_download=FDCPA.pdf&s2member_file_download_key=%5Bs2Key file_download=”FDCPA.pdf” /]”

I took away the <> on the edges to show the text.

Could you try this instead:

[s2File download="FDCPA.pdf" download_key="true" /]

I just applied that change and it is still not working. The same error message appears.

Have you just updated to WordPress 4.2.3? If so, did you do this before updating s2Member?

The website randomly updated without prompt (we received an email about this) today and I checked the website out to see if things were running smoothly. When I noticed the none of the download links were working, I updated the s2Member plug-in assuming it would correct the problem.

That confirms what I was thinking. The latest update to WP has caused significant problems where plugins use shortcodes to render html. You can read more about the issue here.

As you can see, it’s not an s2Member issue at all, and is affecting numerous plugins. It seems you have a not-very-appealing choice of sticking with links that don’t work and hoping that the problem is solved soon, or trying to roll back to a previous version of WP that has a vulnerability that has now been well publicized.

Thanks for your analysis. How would I go about restoring the old backup? I weekly back up the site to a local folder but I’ve never actually restored the website from a backup. Is there a way to use it?

That depends entirely on what you used to create the backup. If it was cPanel, then there should be some button in cPanel itself, or your host should be able to help. (If you have managed WP hosting, I’d just ask your host anyway.) If it was a plugin, then you’ll have to follow that plugin’s instructions.

We use the WordPress Backup Technology plug-in. I will look into restoring a backup from it. Thanks for your help.

i just resolved a similar issue where i was using shortcode in paypal button href value

for me, changing double quotes to single quotes in href surrounding shortcode and it all works as before, so try changing some of your quotes from one to the other and see if that helps

change

href="[s2_shortcode output="url"]"

to

href='[s2_shortcode output="url"]'

note that my enclosed shortcode contains values in double quotes which i did not change

wp team is tracking this in core, so there may be an update to resolve this soon

https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/33102

sam

The explanation of how the shortcode usage has changed has now been posted here, and explains why @sam Rohn’s change works.

This seems to be working. Thank you both for your help, I really appreciate it.