@robert Thanks for the suggestions, the results are as follows:
5. Go to Dashboard > Forums > Tools > Debug Tab >Errors & Issues and make sure there is no any errors in your WordPress website.
There was a message in "errors & issues" saying "The default Guest usergroup is not found!"
"Please execute this SQL in your Website Hosting cPanel > phpMyAdmin Database Manager:"
Then it listed all the data for that database entry.See here: https://prnt.sc/3mUScf5558-w
There was a guest usergroup in the database but it had the usergroup id as 7 so I changed it to 4 as it stated in the code. The error disappeared but it still didn't work. So I looked at the usergroup page and the User Role for guest was missing some fields, see here: https://prnt.sc/iUF_NHDA4cn3 kind of like WPForo didn't recognize id 4 at all, but the error is gone so I don't know.
I change it back to id 7 and the field data returns but I again get the error. I can toggle the usergroup id back and forth in the database and get the same results every time. I did this throughout all my testing, because I didn't know for sure which was the better of the two options.
1. If you have any kind of caches, please purge them and remove the forum page from your cache plugins:
2. Make sure you don't have a server side cache, if there is one, just purge that cache as well.
I'm not using any cache plugins and all cache is disabled on my server.
3. Then try to disable other plugins and check it. This could also be a plugin conflict.
I've disabled all plugins except wpforo and had the same results, I left all plugins disabled throughout my testing just to be sure.
4. Go to Dashboard > Forums > Tools > Debug Tab > Tables sub-tab and make sure there is no any issues with database.
No Problems Found in Database
6. Deactivate wpForo (do not use the Uninstall button) and activate it.
Did this throughout troubleshooting as well, nothing changed.
So that's where it stands now. I don't know which usergroup id is correct, is there a way to set that id? Or is it set by doing what I did by changing it in the database? Somehow, somewhere I believe some data got corrupted. Maybe something else is still corrupted. I think when I first built the forums the group id started out to be 7 because if you look at the database https://prnt.sc/j_4uRcd6lpaG every group id would be an odd number and it makes sense. But now some part of WPForo thinks it should be 4 because that is what it is saying to set it to in that error message.
If I delete and re-install WPForo do you think this will be set right? I know with most plugins you delete the plugin but the data remains intact.
Or maybe you know of this issue? I'm open for anything at this point.
you have "2" community (forum) sides, one aligned left one aligned right
Yes, I know about the 2 community pages, I don't know what you mean by aligned left and right however. I tried deleting one of them but it errors out when I try to trash it. So I just set it to draft.
you use additionally
BuddyPress + Youzify
maybe you have a setting that requires a login to be able to read the forum as a guest
I've disabled all the plugins during testing. Thanks for the suggestions.
There was a message in "errors & issues" saying "The default Guest usergroup is not found!"
"Please execute this SQL in your Website Hosting cPanel > phpMyAdmin Database Manager:"
Then it listed all the data for that database entry.See here: https://prnt.sc/3mUScf5558-w
There was a guest usergroup in the database but it had the usergroup id as 7 so I changed it to 4 as it stated in the code. The error disappeared but it still didn't work. So I looked at the usergroup page and the User Role for guest was missing some fields, see here: https://prnt.sc/iUF_NHDA4cn3 kind of like WPForo didn't recognize id 4 at all, but the error is gone so I don't know.
What???
Why the usergroup 4 was deleted???
wpForo doesn't allow deleting the Guest usergroup with ID: 4, how and why have you deleted it?
Now your forum doesn't have any chance to work correctly.
Ok, now you should execute the SQL again. There MUST be usergroup with 4 ID for guest. Delete the current ID 7 guest. Delete and remove it from all places. Just remove it asap!!!
The guest usergroup MUST have ID: 4. Once it's created, go to Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard and delete all caches, delete user caches.
THEN, edit each forum one by one and set Read Only forum access to the new guest usergroup.
Go to Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard and delete all caches, delete user caches.
You should NEVER change the ID or delete the Guest Usergroup.
Why the usergroup 4 was deleted???
wpForo doesn't allow deleting the Guest usergroup with ID: 4, how and why have you deleted it?
At no point did I say I deleted usergroup 4. Like you said wpForo does not allow it. There is no delete option available for it. I merely changed the group id in the database to 4 as per the error code it was giving. Then since that didn't work either I changed it back to 7. I sent screenshots of everything I did.
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Ok, now you should execute the SQL again. There MUST be usergroup with 4 ID for guest. Delete the current ID 7 guest. Delete and remove it from all places. Just remove it asap!!!
The usergroup 7 did have an option to delete and I have deleted it. The database table is as such: https://prnt.sc/XI4c7MsqsM7s , as I mentioned in my last the error message has cleared: https://prnt.sc/LUmvScpq9Yyi , however the User role, members and default fields are blank as I mentioned before: https://prnt.sc/CigbWSozVgXod
The guest usergroup MUST have ID: 4. Once it's created, go to Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard and delete all caches, delete user caches.
I have deleted the 'all cache' and 'user cache'. No change.
You should NEVER change the ID or delete the Guest Usergroup.
I don't think it's possible to change the ID's or to delete the Guest Username. There's some other explanation as to how this got to be the way it is.
I think it may be from installing Minerva Knowledge Base. After that was installed I noticed it created 3 new User Roles 'Minerva Support User', 'Minerva Support Agent' and 'Minerva Support Manager' and it assigned itself to guest and moderator. I don't know why or how they got added to wpForo.
I don't have anything important in this forum and I can re-create what I have pretty quickly so I can delete and start over but I don't know what all I have to delete.
The database table is as such: https://prnt.sc/XI4c7MsqsM7s
This is wrong. The Guest Usergroup should look like this:
Then go to Dashboard > Forums > Usergroups, edit the new Guest usergroup and set all permissions like this:
Correct the role and visibility fields in the table, then delete wpForo caches in Dashboard > Forums > Dashboard admin page:
- Delete Users Cache
- Delete All Caches
Then edit each category and forum one by one, make sure the guest usergroup have read only access and save it. The guest is a new guest, so it should be saved for each forum again.
Just do all these and the all issues should be fixed.
Hi, and thanks for the suggestions.
I have edited the database table as suggested so it now looks like so: https://prnt.sc/ZIzgjM9-8pLP and verified all categories and forums have guest as read-only, I have verified permissions are as such: https://prnt.sc/Z8Fku4j1olPA. I deleted all and user cache.
But the usergroups still look like this: https://prnt.sc/kpOSVb0vSY2T and user role is still not indicating subscriber as guest as seen here: https://prnt.sc/GoIyVVPYuVdk
But guess what, I can now see the forum on the front end as a guest. https://dot.photos/community-2/
So it's still messed up a bit on the backend but much better.
All is correct now. The guest usergroup is not a regular usergroup, it's for not loggedin visitors, it cannot be connected to subscriber user role.
