[jfbprivate]

Hi there,

I’m running a community with bbPress and Paid Memberships Pro. I’ve come across an issue I can’t fully explain or resolve:

Whenever a user with the bbp_blocked role tries to access bbPress content, they get a 404 page instead of a “you don’t have permission” message or a redirect as expected and set in PMPro.

These particular users are not suspended but free members without access to the bbPress sections of the site. I understand the bbp_blocked role is meant to restrict forum access, but why does it result in 404s rather than a proper restriction notice?

My specific questions:

1. Is it intentional that bbPress shows a 404 for bbp_blocked users?

2. If so indeed, can this behavior be changed to show an “access denied” message or redirect instead?

3. Is the bbp_blocked role actually meant only for moderation (bans), and not general access control?

Since I haven’t been able to find anything like my specific setup, any clarification or guidance is much appreciated before I start remapping roles or overriding behavior.

Thanks much in advance!

[John James Jacoby]

Hi @hardel 👋

I’ll take another look at this.

Is it possible you may have a work-around activated as a plugin that might be interfering, now that bbPress 2.6.14 includes its own fix?

[John James Jacoby]

This is also fixed directly in bbPress 2.6.14

[hollandnumerics]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. The HTML in the topic is too large for this forum, and fails to save in a topic AND in a page using Classic Editor

I now suspect this problem is caused by Classic Editor, and not specifically bbPress

[hollandnumerics]

I have 1 success to report thanks to your WP_DEBUG suggestion:

• There were error messages being generated by bbpress Simple View Counts in debug.log, so I deactivated the plugin, and now the critical error messages are no longer seen when viewing topics.

The saving of updates to large topics containing table tags is still not working.

Not sure if these are relevant, but I’ve seen these messages about null parameters in functions.php:

[06-Jul-2025 14:51:35 UTC] PHP Deprecated:  strpos(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($haystack) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 7360
[06-Jul-2025 14:51:35 UTC] PHP Deprecated:  str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /var/www/html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2195

Any assistance will be gratefully received, as my PHP knowledge is limited.

[hollandnumerics]

However, in Troubleshooting Mode, updated topic “test 3” is being shown correctly.

Active plugins: bbPress and bbp style pack

[titice]

No it is not theme related. Just decided to install BBPress plugin on my website and get same criticall error. Unpublished every plugin, except BBPress and activated default theme 21. Same problem – critical error.Version 2.6.14

[hollandnumerics]

FYI in issue #1 the post, when viewed, is empty whether the body contains table tags or not:

test 1:

hello

test 2:

hello

This is in Troubleshooting Mode with only bbpress and bbp style pack active.

[Robin W]

Does this occur anytime you try and access the forum page?

if so, it could be a theme or plugin issue

Themes

As a test switch to a default theme such as twentytwenty, and see if this fixes.

Plugins

If that doesn’t work, also deactivate all plugins apart from bbpress and see if this fixes. if it does, re-enable one at a time to see which is causing the error.

If you cannot do this to your site (say because it is live) then use the ‘troubleshooting’ features of this plugin to let you test without affecting other users

Health Check & Troubleshooting

Then come back

[watbos]

Upon update of bbPress plugin followed by activation, my user forum returns Critical Error. Thank you for any help.

Website: clubposh.com

Hosted at Hostgator
Wordpress version: 6.8.1
bbPress 2.6.14
Theme: OnePress Child (a child version)
PHP version: 8.3.6

[hollandnumerics]

Sorry, I will go back to just “bbPress” and “bbp style pack”, which currently shows the body “This topic is empty”.

However, my original issue with “There has been a critical error on this website.” occurred when the only users that could read this page were in Group5 = VIEWS UK, so maybe we should both add “bbP private groups” too?

Are you using Troubleshooting Mode to restrict the active plugins like me?

[Robin W]

ok, I’m a bit lost as to what your testing is showing.

The essence of fault finding is taking a setup that works and finding the difference between that and one that doesn’t work.

so I have a test site working with bbpress and style pack and nothing else. If your site with that same setup doesn’t work, then we can find the difference.

If it does work, then yes adding back plugins until it fails is a good strategy, but until we are both seeing the same, then it is not doing much good?

[Robin W]

ok, so this on my test site with just bbpress and style pack, using admin and keymaster roles publishes fine

<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
hello
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

do you still get a critical error with this combination, and if so I still need the exact error it produces

[hollandnumerics]

Sorry, I missed Keymaster for Forum Role.

Plus extra plugins added, but no change to what is seen when viewing the topic:

bbPNNS Private Groups Bridge
bbP private groups
GD bbPress Tools
powerSearch for bbPress

[Robin W]

so in dashboard>users you will see a column showing the bbpress role

[Robin W]

ok, but what about the bbpress role?

[hollandnumerics]

Wordpress membership levels:

Free = Subscriber
Programming = Student
Recruiter = Employer
Admin = Administrator
Educational Games = Customer

Wordpress roles:

Subscriber
Student
Employer
Administrator
Customer
Keymaster
Participant
views_subscriber
views_student

bbPress Private Groups:

Group1 = Registered
Group2 = Programming
Group3 = Recruiter
Group4 = Admin
Group5 = VIEWS UK
Group6 = Educational
Group7 = No messages

[Robin W]

what are your wordpress and bbpress user levels?

eg

admin and bbp-keymaster
Subscriber and particiapnt

etc

[hollandnumerics]

• I have tried Troubleshooting mode, with no active plugins.
• Activated bbPress, then bbp style pack.
• Topic “test 1” now displays, but body shows “This topic is empty”, even though the HTML tags are seen when the topic is edited.

Do I need to activate more plugins?

I have the following bbp-related plugins installed:

bbp-valoration
Version 0.1.1 by Eric Zeidan | Auto-updates enabled

bbPNNS Private Groups Bridge
Version 1.5.1.1 by Vinny Alves (UseStrict Consulting) | Auto-updates disabled

bbP private groups
Version 3.9.7 by Robin Wilson | Auto-updates enabled

bbPress
Version 2.6.14 by The bbPress Contributors | Auto-updates disabled

bbPress Move Topics
Version 1.1.6 by Pascal Casier | Auto-updates enabled

bbPress Notify (No-Spam)
Version 2.19.3 by Vinny Alves (UseStrict Consulting) | Auto-updates disabled

bbpress Simple View Counts
Version 0.2 by jezza101 | Auto-updates enabled

bbPress Votes
Version 1.2.5 by G.Breant | Auto-updates enabled

bbp style pack
Version 6.3.9 by Robin Wilson | Auto-updates disabled

bbp User Ranking
Version 3.7 by Robin Wilson | Auto-updates enabled

[hardel]

Hi Robin, I’m replying to this old thread to report that the pagination issue has not been fixed in version 2.6.14. This ticket, which was marked as complete for version 2.6.14, highlights the pagination issue in comment 17: https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3576#comment:17

Is there a way you can relay this info to @johnjamesjacoby?

[hollandnumerics]

WP: 6.8.1 (latest).
bbPress: 2.6.13 (latest).
bbPress Move Topics 1.1.6 (latest).
bbp style pack: 6.3.9 (latest).
themes: Twenty Fifteen and Twenty Twenty-five.
site: https://hollandnumerics.org.uk

Forum topic contains <TABLE>, <TBODY>, <TR> and <TD> HTML tags.

1. Able to edit title, body, tags in Forum Topic.
2. Clicking [Update] starts update.
3. Edit viewer disappears and Post list appears.
4. Forum Topic is unchanged.
5. No error messages.

Have also tried moving Topic to Page, but this fails to change type.
Creating new Forum Topic with copy of body text also does not complete.

[Robin W]

bbpress just uses the WordPress user login, so if they are registered already, they don’t need to re-register to use bbpress.

[Robin W]

Step by step guide to setting up a bbPress forum – Part 1

[loona677]

Bonjour,
je viens d’installer bbPress sur mon site WordPress mais les pages : forum, incription, etc…. n’ont pas été créée….
Merci pour votre aide.

Hello,
I just installed bbPress on my WordPress site, but the forum, registration, etc. pages haven’t been created.
Thank you for your help.

[farrahhenleyeducation]

I have tried all the recommended solutions here (I searched). Installed the hellow-elementor-bbpress-fix (which broke all my ELemntor templates again after fixing them by unchecking the theme support box in bb press style pack. I moved the folder into a child theme…ect.

Any idea why search results are not linking?