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== WordPress & bbPress Cookies ==

We’re going to ignore the new WordPress 2.6 cookie method for now and focus on 2.5+0.9 (2.6 triples the complexity)

FIVE things must be identical in WordPress and bbPress configuration for cookies to be sync’ed and logins to be shared:

1. DATABASE secret key

2. wp-config.php/bb-config secret key

3. cookie DOMAIN

4. cookie PATH

5. cookie hash

If ANY of these are not the same, you will get a weird effect where you can be logged into WordPress and not into bbPress or visa-versa and you won’t be automatically logged into one or the other.

#1 can only be seen under /wordpress/wp-admin/options.php and copied to /bbpress/bb-admin/options-wordpress.php

#2 must be edited in each file as appropriate

wp-config.php

@define(‘SECRET_KEY’,’blahblahblah’);

bb-config.php

@define(‘BB_SECRET_KEY’,’blahblahblah’);

#3 & #4 should be edited in each file as appropriate

#5 is the tricky part – in theory bbPress should create the same hash as WordPress if #1 & #2 are the same but sometimes it gets it wrong for one reason or another. You can override the hash and force it to be identical in both programs. There is no easy way to see what hash WordPress is using, you either have to examine your cookies with a bookmarklet or web developer tool or install a plugin that lets you see/edit your WordPress cookies.