Forum Visibility doesn't work – forums always visible

[bjesus]

Hello,
First, thanks for the much needed plugin! I’d definitely want to make a contribution once I get everything sorted out here.

For some reason, all logged in users can always see my all forums (except if it’s is in a “hidden” mode), and it doesn’t matter if I have the “Click to activate forum visibility” checked or not.

I’m kinda lost about this – not sure what else to check. If I set the forums to hidden then no user can see them if they are not admins. If it set to “private” or “public” – all logged in users can see them.

You can see all the information about my installation here: https://pastebin.com/PcUMdfES

Thanks again for the plugin!
Yo’av

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/bbp-private-groups/

[Robin W]

hmm – can’t see anything obvious in the set-up.

ok, I think you are going to need to perform some tests to see where the issue lies.

If you can’t do this on your main site, then you may need to set up a test site

Theme

As a test switch to a default theme such as twentyfifteen, and see if this fixes.

Plugins

Deactivate all but bbpress and see if this fixes. if it does, re-enable one at a time to see which is causing the error.

then come back

[bjesus]

Hi,
Thanks for the fast reply!

To my surprise, switching to the default “Twenty Fifteen” and deactivating all plugins but bbPress and bbp Private Groups didn’t help. I still see my private forums as a regular user who doesn’t belong to any group.

Maybe I’m missing something else? Is it okay that the forums are configured as “Private” and not as “Public”? Or maybe it should be “Hidden”? Is the fact my regular user is configured as “Participator” a problem? I’m not sure where else to look. Or maybe it’s my relatively old WP version?

Thanks!

Yo’av

[Robin W]

ok, can you give me the settings from

dashboard>settings>forums

Thanks

[bjesus]

attached: https://imgur.com/a/C2AQ0

[Robin W]

ok, again nothing obvious.

can you post a link to a forum which should not be visible please

[bjesus]

Umm, the forum’s content itself isn’t visible, sorry if I wasn’t clear about it. It’s just being displayed in the forums list. But when clicking it I’m being forwarded to my “You’re not allowed at this forum”, so a link to the specific forum wouldn’t work.

I can create a user for you so that you could log in and see how the forum is shown at the forums list. Where should I send the login details?

Thanks.

[Robin W]

ok, so even more confused now !

Can you specify which forums list you are referring to ?

[bjesus]

Sorry, I mean the forums index. The page where you can choose what forum to see.

It shows all of my private forums too, and when clicking one, you get an error if you don’t belong to a group that has access to it (or, obviously, it shows the forum if you do belong to a group that has access to it).

[Robin W]

ok, can you send me a link and login via my website

https://www.rewweb.co.uk

BUT ONLY with participant access

[bjesus]

Thanks, I created the user and e-mailed you the details.

[Robin W]

thanks and rec’d – I am on paid work at the moment – will try and look at later today!

[andynz]

I have what appears to be a similar problem.
Forum xyz defined as PRIVATE and assigned to GROUP 1
User-A defined as PARTICIPANT and under PRIVATE GROUPS, I selected GROUP 2 only
User-B defined as SPECTATOR and under PRIVATE GROUPS, I selected GROUP 2 only

As Users A and B are not in GROUP 1, I would expect that they would not see Forum xyz in the forum index.

If I do not activate forum visibility, then neither User-A nor User-B can see forum xyz in the forum index.

If I do activate forum visibility, then:
User-A (participant) does see forum xyz
User-B (spectator) does not see forum xyz

Regards
Andy

[Robin W]

@andynz Thanks, and thanks for a great problem definition – clear and concise !

Yes I can replicate this issue.

I’ll look to fix.

Just to confirm the fix will allow the spectator to see this forum, which is what I designed it to do.

I hope that that fits in with what you were desiring?

[Robin W]

Just worked it out.

Under bbpress Spectators can’t read ‘private’ forums, so bbpress is blocking their presence.

I’ll need to dig into how bbpress is doing this.

[andynz]

Thanks for investigating it.

In fact, what I had hoped would happen is that a private forum which is assigned to a group would be completely hidden from all users who do not belong to the same private group. So, to my mind, the way in which bbpress treats ‘spectators’ is correct – I would like it to treat ‘participants’ in the same way.

This is what I assumed would happen from the BBP Private Groups HELP screen, but I may have misunderstood the *** section:

Public forums titles (and optionally descriptions) visible to logged on and non-logged on users. Private forums set visible to logged on users

DESCRIPTION : Non-logged in will only see group forums that are public, but not access topics/replies. Logged in users will see and access topics/replies for Private Group forums that are set to public, private forums that have no groups set will be accessible to all logged in users,
*** but private group forums that the user does not belong to will be hidden ***

POSSIBLE USAGE : Show some group forums exists, whilst keeping others visible only for private groups. Allows rich display options for each group, and user.

TO SET : Set visibility to public and set any private forums to private in that forum’s attributes (dashboard>forums).