[Tynan Beatty]

Yesterday I updated a public site with a relatively inactive and fresh bbP forum from WP2.7.x and bbP1.0alpha-6 with the bbPress Integration 1.0-alpha-4.1 plugin…

to WP2.8-beta2-11509 and bbP1.0-rc-1 with the bbPress Integration 1.0-rc-2 plugin.

I haven’t done extensive testing, but the integration worked flawlessly before the upgrade (following Sam’s video tutorial sticky to the letter), and seems to work almost as well now.

The one scenario I’ve found where it doesn’t work is users logging in from bbP cannot logout from WP. All other bbP/WP login/logout combinations seem to behave as expected; however the only way I could get this to happen was to not add the wp-config.php changes suggested by the bbPress Integration plugin. When I did add those changes it broke at least WP login entirely.

I did a little bit of testing with different combinations of the definitions the bbPress Integration plugin suggests, and the details can be found in this post.

peace~

[Tynan Beatty]

I just upgraded a public site from the latest WP2.7.x to the latest WP2.8-beta2 and decided to upgrade the site’s bbP1.0alpha6 and the bbP Integration plugin that was made for that version (all working as expected).

I was having similar problems with wp2.8-beta2-11509 and bbp1.0-rc-1, using the bbPress Integration 1.0-rc-2 plugin. I found that adding it’s suggested changes to my wp-config.php was causing the problems. I also removed the integration speedups suggested from the bbP admin ‘WordPress Integration’ settings. Now I haven’t tested registration from the bbPress end, but everything else seems to work back and forth. Here’s what I have near the bottom of wp-config.php with everything working:

define('WPLANG', '');

define('COOKIEPATH', '/');



/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Where the '/' might be a '/subfolder/'

And here is the bottom of bb-config.php:

define('BB_LANG', '');

?>

The only thing I’ve found not working thus far is users logging in from the bbP side cannot log out from the WP side. Everything else seems integrated for logins/logouts (login/out from WP, login from WP/out from bbP, login/out from bbP).

This is a minor issue compared to not being able to login to WP at all when using the suggested bbP integration changes to wp-config. I also have all 4 random keys matching between configs, including the nonces (which I don’t think were mentioned in the integration video post, but I don’t remember now). I hope there’s a fix for the login from bbP/logout from WP in the next release of the Integration Plugin, and I also hope that the issue doesn’t affect registration from bbP (since it seems to be related to the plugin). Great work on this so far Sam

On a side note, further testing suggested that it was the ‘SITECOOKIEPATH’ definition causing the inability to login from WP, and the ‘COOKIEHASH’ definition seems to allow WP login, but break the integration.

peace~

[aberrantphoto]

PWRSHOT.com

Started this site for users of Canon Powershot cameras to share information, photos, tips, etc. Running bbPress 9.0.4 with Kakumei Blue theme and a number of plugins. Feel free to join if you’d like!

[citizenkeith]

It seems to be just the one member, who has a 3-letter handle.

I uploaded the screenshots here:

http://seorf.ohiou.edu/~ad180/screenshot-misty01.jpg

http://seorf.ohiou.edu/~ad180/screenshot-misty02.jpg

[llui]

All users have the following displayed for Last Activity: “39 years, 5 months ago”

It appears that any user who has posted to the forum displays Total Time Online with: “-345569 hours, 7 minutes”

Running bbPress: 0.9.0.4

Everything else on the forum appears to be fine. What caused this? Suggestions on how I can fix these dates/data without messing up the forum?

Thanks!

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Imageshack isn’t loading for me… Is it just that one member? Do they have an abnormally long handle?

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Imageshack isn’t loading for me… Is it just that one member? Do they have an abnormally long handle?

[eraticdance]

The problem with not being able to log into sub-domains was fixed when I changed SITECOOKIEPATH from ‘/wp-admin’ (as recommended by bbPressIntegration 1.0-rc-2) to ‘/’. An additional cookie, wordpress_XXXXX was created and now I can log into the sub-domains as admin. fyi.

[timskii]

The memcached information is useful to know. And based on what I’ve found below, will logically make an absolutely huge difference. Closer to “requires memcached” on a busy forum.

You see, I’ve done some more tests. And BBPress seems to do a lot of simple queries to check information that generally doesn’t change.

I’ve hooked up _ck_’s excellent BB-Benchmark, and started looking for patterns. I assume this picks up everything in 1.0.

As a general rule, page rendering (after queries) is very slightly slower with 1.0. That can probably be explained simply by twice the volume (in bytes) of files typically being executed from 0.9.4 to 1.0. Only about 10ms difference. So, not an issue.

The crux of the problem is the volume of queries. The fastest query execution is 1ms – measured, it seems, to within 0.1ms – although I’m unsure of that accuracy. This may be due to the way the database is hosted – mySQL is on a separate machine, which is logically going to impose a delay in getting results back.

1.0’s slowest query is faster than 0.9.4. But 1.0 executes vastly more queries: It’s almost inevitable that 40 queries will takes longer to execute than 10 queries, because there is such a significant overhead associated with “running a query”, regardless of its complexity.

Here are examples of what I found:

On the front page, forum views, and tag views, many pairs of queries are being run that look like:

SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE ID = ‘n’

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id = ‘n’ /* WP_Users::append_meta */

My first thought was that my templates or plugins were broken. But disabling everything, and switching to the default theme, still causes all these pairs of queries to be executed.

The only reason I can see for the first query is to extract the display name for each of the last post authors. I can’t see any requirement for the second query, unless you were trying to augment the name with some extra information, like a title.

The topic table contains a last poster field, but it cannot contain the display name, presumably because the display name can be changed on a whim, while the old username was unchanging. If you have a lot of active posters (rather than a handful), a 20-post-per-page view could easily require 40 individual queries, just to check a piece of information that probably has not changed.

Now, we can argue that there should be some element of caching of the display name in the topics table. I wouldn’t have a problem with, for example, always seeing the name the user displayed when they posted, rather than the name they are currently using. But there’s also a compromise position, where the last poster name is only checked against wp_users at intervals.

Profile views repeat this a lot:

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM bb_meta WHERE object_type = ‘bb_post’ AND object_id = n /* bb_append_meta */

And I’m only displaying recent replies.

Turning to a topic page. I’ve looked at the first 20 posts in a 260+ post-long topic. A real mix of users, some who have added a lot of custom data (I allow quite a lot to be added, which is stored in wp_usermeta). This is painful: 30ms total query time on 0.9.4, 120ms on 1.0. 14 queries plays 79 queries.

Again, the key weakness is duplication of ostensibly similar queries. Line after line of:

SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM bb_meta WHERE object_type = ‘bb_post’ AND object_id = n /* bb_append_meta */

or

SELECT * FROM wp_users WHERE ID = ‘n’

or

SELECT post_id FROM bb_posts WHERE topic_id = n AND post_status = 0 ORDER BY post_id ASC LIMIT 1

In contrast, 0.9.4 manages to decide all the IDs it needs, throws them all into one query, and presumably lets the PHP split out the results. The wp_usermeta data continues to be pulled out in such a manner:

SELECT user_id, meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id IN (n,n,n,n…) /* WP_Users::append_meta */

In 3ms. Bargain.

Keep in mind, you won’t see this pattern if your forum contains 20 posts by you. You must have the variety of posters, that tends to only be found on larger forums.

My gut feeling is that some of the loops aren’t terribly well optimized. Or not well optimized for remote databases. Or not well optimized for operation without a secondary cache. Something’s instinctively not right.

[eraticdance]

Does anyone know what cookies should be generated when you’re logged in as admin and using user integration?

In the video tutorial on bbpress integration, there were 3 bb- type keys, but I don’t see any. all I see are the wordpress_test_cookie and the wordpress_logged_in_xxxxxx cookies. Has the cookie handling been changed for WPMU? If someone could point me to any documentation on this I’d appreciate it.

[Arturo]

if you use poedit it generate automatically .mo when you save the .po

i use it to translate bbpress, wpmu and buddypress

[citizenkeith]

I’m having a CSS problem with this theme.

One member’s posts are always running on top of the post below his.

Here are the screenshots:

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/966/screenshotmisty01.jpg

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8995/screenshotmisty02.jpg

This is stumping me… any ideas?

[chrishajer]

Really, it’s not that big a deal. It’s your forum, you can do what you want with it. Train your members now so you have less to worry about in the future.

I would just post a message after their post and tell them to post their reply in the correct place. After that, delete the errant posts, including yours. I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Regarding adding the feature to a future release, this ticket is from 3 years ago:

https://trac.bbpress.org/ticket/584

[kpapadimakis]

Hi,

I just found this post and I would like to participate in the translation of bbPress ..

If someone already started any translation and reads this .. well, reply to this so we can talk.

Kostas

[Arturo]

chris i can’t find my ticket in trac… but is the “same” text in this 3d.

hey JohnJJ, i use bbpress 0.9.0.4 with mu+bp and with the latest trunk i’ve problem with deep-integration and buddybar you remember? but with 0.9.0.4 i’ve resolved this problem.

[michael3185]

Prof; check your info@ email – I’ve added some instructions on fixing your theme image, etc.

[michael3185]

Yep, the idea of a minimal core engine with stable plugin hooks sounds the best way to me too, even as a non-developer.

Something I’m sure would help is a standard for plugins. I think too many people are put off when the core doesn’t have a function they want, but yippee; there’s a plugin! Then after many hours of frustration, ah crap; this fails too, and here we go with the forum questions again. It also makes the product look bad, even though the plugin developer may not be related to that product in any way.

A ‘bbPress Certified’ system would give users more confidence, and raise the bar for forum development as the outside world perceives it. I can see that plugin developers work hard to get things right for others, and every eventuality can’t be tested for of course. However, I also know from struggling very hard with different forum packages over the last 6 weeks that there really are no standards, and on a couple of systems people seem to have jumped on the plugin bandwagon because it’s fun and brings kudos. In one case, I found myself delving into posts from as far back as 2005 in an attempt to get something simple working. They have a massive forum, but it’s jam packed with ‘How can I make this work?!’ posts going back years. (bbPress is a gem by comparison, which is why I’m still here).

Non-programmers see a plugin on a ‘legitimate’ forum and naturally assume it’s going to work properly. Not everyone’s into hacking around, and some have no time or inclination to do so whatsoever, especially working people who want Open Source software but need it to just work out of the box. On the other side of a crucial plugin may sit a very competent programmer with great ideas, but it can just as easily be a school kid who’s learned a bit of php and doesn’t have the experience to make their ideas actually work. There’s no way of knowing, unless they post in an obviously off-putting way. The current user rating system looks good, but is quickly dismissed when two or three 5 star plugins fail.

Any standard takes time and effort in the background to assess the code others produce, though it sounds like that’s already being done anyway. I submitted a very simple plugin and wondered why it hadn’t appeared on the forum, and another member mentioned that it can take a while for it to be reviewed. If some checks were done for code readability, apparent competence, etc., as well as the checks already being done for maliciousness and obvious bugs, then you’ve got a working standard. If someone submits something your programmers can see is messily written, uses innapropriate function calls, etc., then they get a ‘Sorry, it doesn’t reach our standards’ email. Maybe a Certified bbPress Star System; 1 star – not rated; 2 stars – appears competent, or is excellent but has no admin panel; 3 stars excellent structure and use of core functions, and has admin panel, and so-on. No guarantees, but at least we’d know to go for 3 stars or more, or if you love to play, grab the 1 star and have fun improving it. Kudos for both developers! The user ratings could be left in as an extra, though casual, system.

It doesn’t really have to be any more labour intensive than at present, and if bbPress and associated systems want to be taken even more seriously in the working world, then standards for plugin development are essential.

[johnhiler]

Wow nicely done johnjamesjacoby!!

Chrishajer, I think this is the ticket if you’re still interested:

https://trac.bbpress.org/ticket/1096

[John James Jacoby]

This will be fixed with 1.0 of bbPress. Problem is that the get_locale call gets triggered by WordPress when using deep integration.

I submitted a trac ticket about this a few days (weeks?) ago and talked to Sam via IRC about it. He’s aware of it and it’s on his radar.

I suspect that checking for deep integration and hooking into the locale filter will be the only way to do it without forcing it through a new bb_get_locale function.

[John James Jacoby]

vhosts works fine. Eraticdance, it has to be a mismatch in the paths and cookies somewhere. Might end up to be a trial and error process adding, removing, and modifying your -config.php files, but that’s all I can really suggest as different hosts and setups all require different settings.

[bzmillerboy]

I tried deleting uft8_general_ci from my wp_config.php file and left it blank during the install however now I’m getting the following error.

Referrer is OK, beginning installation…

>>> Setting up custom user table constants

Step 1 – Creating database tables

>>> Modifying database: bria5519_buddypresstest (localhost)

>>>>>> Table: bb_forums

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_meta

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_posts

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_terms

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_term_relationships

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_term_taxonomy

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

>>>>>> Table: bb_topics

>>>>>>>>> Creating table

>>>>>>>>>>>> Done

Step 2 – WordPress integration (optional)

>>> WordPress address (URL): http://brianandlindsaymiller.com/buddypresstest/

>>> Blog address (URL): http://brianandlindsaymiller.com/buddypresstest/

>>> WordPress cookie keys set.

>>> WordPress “auth” cookie salt set from input.

>>> WordPress “secure auth” cookie salt set from input.

>>> WordPress “logged in” cookie salt set from input.

>>> User database table prefix: wp_

>>> WordPress MU primary blog ID: 1

Step 3 – Site settings

>>> Site name: BuddyPressTestForums

>>> Site address (URL): http://brianandlindsaymiller.com/buddypresstest/forums/

>>> From email address: bzmiller@fuse.net

>>> Key master created

>>>>>> Username: keymasteradmin

>>>>>> Email address: bzmiller@fuse.net

>>>>>> Password:

>>> Description: Just another bbPress community

>>> Forum could not be created!

>>> Making plugin directory at /home/bria5519/public_html/buddypresstest/forums/my-plugins/.

>>> Making theme directory at /home/bria5519/public_html/buddypresstest/forums/my-templates/.

>>> Key master email sent

There were some errors encountered during installation!

[itissue]

I tested it out and it sort of works but when I miss just a few characters in the captcha, I still pass the test. It’s only when the thing I type is way off that it works. That’s probably how reCaptcha has it set up though. I guess it should be fine since bots shouldn’t be able to read images. We’ll see. Thanks for taking the time to code it into a plugin though dchest. It’s just what I’ve been looking for.

It does clash with bbPM though. I’m not sure what it is that’s doing it, but I can’t use both this and bbPM together.

[daniellaf]

[UPDATE] I have kind of fixed my problem – I logged onto phpMyAdmin and went to wp_usermeta for my admin account and changed the wp_capabilitoes meta_key back to a:1:{s:13:”administrator”;b:1;} from a:1:{s:9:”keymaster”;b:1;}. Now, my BBPress admin of course does not have keymaster privileges, but that’s ok right now. Still haven’t sorted out cookies.

[Sam Bauers]

The additional queries are probably due to the new taxonomy structure we are using for tags.

On the upside, you can now use memcached to cache bbPress objects which should give you better performance than 0.9

I’d be interested to know if the query count was also higher on other pages.

There is a small amount of code “bloat” because of BackPress abstraction layers, but it’s here to stay. It’s already being utilised in a couple of other projects including GlotPress and there are a few people interested in merging it into WordPress as well. The benefits of using it to the ongoing development of bbPress is becoming clearer all the time.

As for feature creep, it’s going to be really limited. bbPress is just supposed to do a few things simply and provide enough hooks for plugin and theme devs to add the bells and whistles. That won’t be changing any time soon. Most development over the next few iterations will be concentrating heavily on easing integration with WordPress and making the lives of plugin and theme devs easier.

[timskii]

To put some more detail on the “bloat” thing: I’m comparing databases with identical sets of posts/users, and very similar templates/plugins (I’d hope the 1.0RC code would be better). One setup is 0.9.4/2.5.1, the other 1.0RC/2.7.1.

With 0.9.4, my forum front page is processed consistently in under 100ms (when repeatedly refreshed). With 1.0, 150-200ms is more typical. For reference a simple 2.5.1 (without wp-cache active) WordPress front page on the same hardware is just under 100ms, 2.7.1 is just over 100ms.

That’s barely noticeable to the user, who often experiences a few 100ms of latency, and is still more likely to be slowed down waiting for adverts/graphics than the forum software to dispatch the HTML. But it evidently is slower. I don’t have a reliable way to break down that extra processing time… but I’m instinctively drawn to 11 queries vs 45 queries. Probably because those are the only other number I can see!