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[Closed] Forums do not show for regular members, but do show for admins and logged out users

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Posts: 98
Topic starter
(@vanessa)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Forums load fine for Admin and moderator roles, and also show for logged out users.

However they do not show for logged in members.

Please let me know how I can fix this issue.

 

I've configured multiple categories, each with a forums underneath them.

I've setup usergroups for various different user levels who will access the forum, and have other WordPress roles assigned to the default user group.

I've sync'd the user DB, (and tried refreshing caches and resyncing a few times)

I've also confirmed that the usergroup has standard access to at least one forum

 

If I try navigate directly to a forum as a member I get the message 'Your user level does not have appropriate permission to view the content'

 

But as far as I can tell they should have access to the forums

9 Replies
Posts: 98
Topic starter
(@vanessa)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Here is the standard access settings

2 Replies
RealAct
(@realact)
Joined: 7 years ago

Reputable Member
Posts: 238

@vanessa I believe you need to go to Dashboard>> Forums>> Then click on the “Edit” icon for each Category/Subforum. Once on the new page to the right side of the page, look at the “Forum Permissions” panel and make sure each area has the appropriate access viewing permission level.

(@vanessa)
Joined: 1 year ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 98

@realact Thanks, but unfortunately that's not the issue. The categories and forums all show that the users have standard permissions, and I confirmed that standard permissions have the appropriate view access.

Posts: 98
Topic starter
(@vanessa)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 year ago

Doing more research, it appears as though some users are not sync'd correctly to usergroups.

Despite trying to clear cache and resync them, this does not resolve the issue.

A way to diagnose the issue is to go to the Members list in WP Foro, sort by group, and some of the users will have 'default' set as their group in the member list, even though they should be assigned to a group.

If I manually unset the WordPress role, then reset the WordPress role the users seem to now have correct access to the forums, and their usergroup is correct in the members list.

I suspect this is a bug in the sync code. On install it started syncing right away, before I'd set the roles up. I setup roles when only a few hundred had been sync'd (roughly the amount who have the 'default' usergroup set).

 

Please let me know if you have any other way to fix this, as it's not really practical to manually edit hundreds of users.

Three recommendations for the team:

1. Don't automatically start syncing the users on plugin activation. Make this a step an admin can do AFTER setting up user groups

2. Provide a way to force a resync of a user in their profile (I thought this is what the resync users did, but it appears not)

3. Make resync all users work as expected.

Posts: 98
Topic starter
(@vanessa)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 year ago

@martin as fyi. I really think syncing should be an explicit action before it starts, rather than happen automatically on plugin activate.

I resolved the issue by manually changing user roles (for almost a thousand users 😢), but think a small tweak on when syncing starts could avoid others the same pain for someone else.

I also suspect that something is not working right re: roles and user groups on re-sync's, as I would have expected this to fix it.

If you could pass along to the team I'd appreciate it 🙏

4 Replies
Robert
Admin
(@robert)
Joined: 9 years ago

Support Team
Posts: 10590

Hi @vanessa,

This is a permission issue, for sure, please do the following steps:

1. Please edit a standard user (who doesn't see forums) in Dashboard > Users admin page, check the user role, then scroll down and check the wpForo Usergroups. Take a screenshot and leave it here.

2. Then edit the parent category and a forum under that category and take a screenshot of both permission settings (Usergroup <> Forum Access list)

3. Go to wpFro > Usergroups and take a screenshot of Usergroups and the synchronized table with user roles under the usergroups list, then leave them here.

(@vanessa)
Joined: 1 year ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 98

Hi @robert 

Arg, I wrote up a whole long reply to this and then the forums banned me for some reason and it got lost.

I don't have the stamina to repeat it all, so a tl;dr is:

  1. I resolved the issue manually, so I'm all good
  2. It was an issue with newly created usergroups intended to sync with WordPress roles. 
  3. Any users synced before those usergroups were created has their usergroup set to Default.
  4. Users with a default usergroup were the ones who couldn't access the forums
  5. Syncing user profiles from the overview didn't resolve the issue
  6. If I manually edit each user in wordpress, change their role and change it back, then it would sync correctly and their usergroup would switch to the one associated with their user role.

So for other folks in the future to avoid this I think two things would help:

  1. Don't automatically start syncing, let the admin manually start it so they can do it after they've setup usergroups
  2. Sync user profiles on the overview should correctly sync roles and usergroups

 

Robert
Admin
(@robert)
Joined: 9 years ago

Support Team
Posts: 10590

@vanessa,

It works automatically. The problem in the User Roles you currently have. You should have one User Role for each wpForo Usergroup. Each wpForo usergroups should be synchronized with one WordPress User Role. You can see the synchronization status in the table under the usergroup list in wpForo > Usergroups admin page.

(@vanessa)
Joined: 1 year ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 98

@robert hmm... that's how I have it setup. All the roles show that they were synchronized in the status table.

Anyway, don't mean to take more time from you on this as I found a workaround.