Turn on WP_DEBUG in yout wp-config.php (http://codex.wordpress.org/WP_DEBUG)

Change to TwentyTen/TwentlyEleven to eliminate any issues that are with your theme.

I don't have a post or page with "users" as the slug. Just to be sure I went into the forum settings and changed the 'User base' to something else ("userxyzwq" - definitely nothing else on the site called that!) and it still threw a 404. Changed it back, the same. Switched off the 'Forum Prefix' as someone suggested, and still the same.

Very frustrating as I spent a good while getting everything else working. And, as I say, even though the 404 status is being returned in the header, the page still appears in most browsers... which is confusing the hell out of me.

And sadly it's not something I can just live with, as "most browsers" isn't good enough for this project.

1. Disable ALL plugins except bbPress.
2. Go to Settings > Permalinks so a permalink flush is triggered.
3. Try going to a user profile.

You don't have a post or page with the slug users by chance, do you?

Anyone?

I do not have any other membership plugins installed. It happens for members created without spaces in their usernames (which was one suggestion), and it happens even if I switch off the "prefix forum area with forum base slug" and recreate the forum, as suggested here.

Does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: one other point, and it's an odd one, even though the page shows a 404 error in the headers, it displays fine in Chrome and Opera. However, it does not initially display in Internet Explorer 9 and shows a browser 404 page, but it does show up after two refreshes (though not 1). Go figure.

not sure why this would matter, but made a huge difference

Notice: wp_register_style was called incorrectly. Scripts and styles should not be registered or enqueued until the wp_enqueue_scripts, admin_enqueue_scripts, or init hooks. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 3.3.) in /home/optccpco/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3587

WishList Member Bug. Please file a report at WishList Products Support
Run-time warning
Error: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/optccpco/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php:3587)
Location: /home/optccpco/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wishlist-member/wpm.php(35) : eval()'d code(3) : eval()'d code line number 148

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/optccpco/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php:3587) in /home/optccpco/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wishlist-member/wpm.php(35) : eval()'d code(3) : eval()'d code on line 148

You can also try out the "Members" plugn by Justin Tadlock. I believe it comes with a UI that allows you to map capabilities to each role. Unsure how well it plays with other permissions plugins like Wishlist though.

I manually set one of my "subscriber" level users to "forum participent" and still no luck

is there a way to see the listing of all "capabilities" on the back-end for a user role level?

i've seen them listed in drop downs, but can't recall where to access them and get granular with it.

I setup bbpress and can access both the forum/topic and within topic level as admin
As a subscriber, I can only access the topic listing but can't click into any topics - get 404

All content protection within wishlist member is off for the forums..but I'm still seeing the issue.

I sense it's something to do with permalinks/htaccess...but not quite sure.

Any suggestions?

I really glad that I dont need to worry anymore about those extra sub slugs.

Thanks for clarifying.

Did Matt tell you this directly?

Yes, It does have an effect to be one category deeper (at least according to Matt Cutts from Google).

So, yes please, I want to generate the URL's without any additional sub-category... and Yes, I would not mind if i had something like ../forums/general generated.

Would be great if you could tell me how to take this extra subdirectory layer off in bbpress ?

If you have a "General" forum, i.e. at /forums/general , wouldn't you rather avoid the confusion if a user starts a thread called "general"? I actually don't know what would happen in this scenario...

http://mywebsite.com/forums/topic/this-is-the-name-of-the-forum-post

For SEO purposes I would like to shorten the URL to this:

http://mywebsite.com/forums/this-is-the-name-of-the-forum-post

I tried to the content of the field "Topic slug" , but it keeps on returning, whenever I save the settings.

How can I shorten the URL structure of all posts?

"We would like to inform you that the only command that is supported with the .htaccess file here in Streamline.Net is basic 'mod_rewrite' and the rest is already configured on the server which there is no option to reconfigure it for security purposes."

I dont even understand this!

Or try to edit and entry line by line until you find the problem maker.

I checked my host error log and the error is .'htaccess: Options not allowed here.'

I don't know a lot about .htaccess but is it something to do with the multiviews? I've done a lot of googling but only confusing similar posts seems to come up - hope someone can help?

Url is: http://www.neverenoughnotes.co.uk/forum, .htaccess is t chmod 755

'# BEGIN bbPress

Options -MultiViews
AllowOverride All

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /forum/

RewriteRule ^page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/index.php?page=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/forum.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/forum.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/?$ /forum/ [R=302,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^topic/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/topic.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^topic/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/topic.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^topic/?$ /forum/ [R=302,L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/tags.php?tag=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/tags.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/?$ /forum/tags.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/profile.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2&page=$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/profile.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/?$ /forum/profile.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ /forum/view.php?view=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/view.php?view=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/?$ /forum/rss.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/topics/?$ /forum/rss.php?topics=1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/forum/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/rss.php?forum=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/forum/([^/]+)/topics/?$ /forum/rss.php?forum=$1&topics=1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/topic/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/rss.php?topic=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/tags/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/rss.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/tags/([^/]+)/topics/?$ /forum/rss.php?tag=$1&topics=1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/profile/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/rss.php?profile=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/view/([^/]+)/?$ /forum/rss.php?view=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^.*$ /forum/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END bbPress'

Then go to Settings -> Reading in the Admin panel. Change the "Front Page Displays" option to page and select "Forum" or whatever you named the page.

on *apache-config-dir*/sites-available/default (*apache-config-dir*\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf on windows) (or somewhere else)

Paul