I have done some more poking, it does not seem to be a plugin per say.
It seems to be my theme (highend from http://hb-themes.com) When I switch to default theme it works fine.
Anyone out there running highend with this issue/solution?
ok after some poking and prodding and trying with filter, still no joy, but did find more information.
When I am not logged in and the role/link works, the class used is bbp-topic-author
When I am logged in and the link/role does not work the class is bbp-reply-author
I tried
function ShowRoles($args =array()){
$args['show_role'] = true;
return $args;
}
add_filter('bbp_before_get_reply_author_link_parse_args','ShowRoles');
but there is no change. It is almost like the css section is being suppressed all together.
Any insight?
Another interesting tidbit of detail I just noticed,
for a not logged in user, who sees the roles, the avatar is a link to user profile (to which they get access denied)
for a logged in user its just an image, not a link