Hello timothly,
It certainly works with both Buddypress and Askimet, we have many sites with both of those plugins. I’ve also now tried with bbPress and those two and that also works for me.
What version of WordPress are you running?
I have a feeling it may be server related or configuration elated potentially.
The best way to work it out would be if you could enable debugging, and see what error (if any) appears when you hit save settings, instructions on that are at this link: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Debugging_in_WordPress
It may also help to try updating to our latest version of the plugin, we made changes to how settings work in that.
Let me know and I’ll do my best to hunt this down and solve it!
Thanks
Kevin