Here are the steps I did in order to get this thing to work.
This is the first bridge that I have actually gotten to work and it is by far easier than any of the other “bridges” out there.
1.) First off, You need to ensure a few things:
Your forums are a subfolder of your wordpress file structure or vice versa, there have been different reports of people who have created their wordpress as a subfolder within their phpbb folder and opposite, I don’t think it matters either way, but the way I did it was I put my phpbb forums as a subfolder of my wordpress site.
2.) I set up my phpbb and wordpress in the same SQL server, other reports have said they set them up in seperate SQL servers without issue, I’ve tried both and only could get it to work when they were in the same SQL database. I also used MySQL 5.0 – not sure if it matters.
3.) I used the same login name, password, and e-mail for both WordPress and PHPBB admin accounts. Not sure how others did it, however, the creator of this plugin recommends using the same for both.
4.) Once you have your wordpress and phpbb forums set up, download and install the WP phpBB Birdge, then activate the plugin.
Note: There is a difference between activating the plugin and activating the bridge. You will activate the plugin, in order to see the added WP phpbb widgets.
5.) Once you’ve activated the plugin, go to widgets and add the phpbb username widget. (I went ahead and added all the phpbb widgets, just to be sure everything I needed was there) This was the step that people said you HAVE TO DO before activating the plugin under the Bridge options.
Note: To be clear, you must NOW place the widget, do NOT ACTIVATE the bridge in the Bridge Settings Tab without the widget in place.
6.) Go to the WP phpBB Bridge tab and set the paths for config.php and ucp.php
typically it should be similar to this depending on your file structure:
Path to config.php:
/home/content/html/wordpress folder/forum folder/config.php
URL to ucp.php:
https://YOUR-WEBSITE.com/forum/ucp.php
7.) Assuming you set it up the exact same way I did, set up the admin accounts to be the exact same, installed the plugin, activated it, installed the widget, set the paths, you should now be ready to activate the bridge and login under the widget you just placed and able to login to your wordpress admin panel without a problem.
Note: upon logging in, it will authenticate through your PHPBB forums. Meaning, you sign in through your widget, it sends you to the forums to authenticate and then transfers you back to your main wordpress page. This is normal, this is how the bridge works. It authenticates through your phpbb forums, not your wordpress site.
If you’ve completely botched this up, there are a few things you can do:
1.) The easiest method is to go to your website FTP, locate your wp-content folder > plugins and completely delete your PHPBB bridge plugin
and/or
2.) Use Mike’s method:
If you need immediate access to wp-admin then all you need to do is FTP into your WordPress plugins directory and rename the wp-phpbb-bridge plugin folder to something else. You’ll be able to access wp-admin once again. The problem however is that the bridge function of the plugin is still enabled in MySQL… Here’s the fix for that…
Login into phpMyAdmin from your CPanel and open your WordPress database. Search for wpb_active and select all the DB tables before clicking Go. You’ll now see the row wpb_active, click on edit. Change both “yes” values to no. You now have your wp-admin back!
hope this helps and isn’t too confusing. Good luck!
