[Gregg]

Resolved!

Grab a cup of coffee and a seat and I’ll tell you the story of how you might be able fix this. It may take several hours so be prepared…

Situation I was in:
Older version of phpBB 3.1v and wanting to port all topics, replies, and users to bbPress (latest version at the time). A handful of issues existed that were causing more trouble than they were worth. Host of the old site is GoDaddy. The new site is on WP Engine.

Forum Stats (approx)
Users: 2200
Topics: 7800
Replies: 22500

Outcome:
Successfully ported all topics, replies, and users to bbPress.

Updated phpBB
REMOVE ALL MODS, STYLES, anything that’s not a part of the out-of-the-box install. Then follow the upgrade instructions. Make backups (I kept a copy of the existing site on my local machine and duplicate database on the host). I found these instructions most helpful: https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3.2/ug/upgradeguide/upgrade31/

The Issues
There were two issues I ran into (in different flavors but it turns out they just stemmed from these two). 1st – utf8 formatting and 2nd missing fields. These issues are with the import and NOT the upgrade for phpBB. I was able to resolve those issues by making sure I followed the instructions on that link to the letter.

The first error (I don’t remember the exact error string but it was either utf8mb4 or just utf8 but it simply means the database holds the data in an older format. The solution is to export the date from the database then create a new database and restore the data into it. By creating the new database the fields will use the proper format and when the restoration is complete this issue should be resolved.

The second error was a little more mysterious – as in I’m not sure why it happened but essentially the import routine is looking for fields that don’t exist in the phpBB install even after I successfully updated it. The solution was to create the fields needed. How?

How to create the fields to get rid of the missing field errors
Note I created a copy of the functioning database on my phpBB install so I could screw it up and not hurt the functioning website. So here’s an example.

The error I got basically said the script couldn’t find “users.user_from” in the database I was trying to import from. That’s not an exact quote but the gist. So I edited the copy of my database and added the missing field (user_from) to the table it was looking for it in (users) using datatype VARCHAR and length of 255 (all else was left to default). I had to do this about a dozen times between the users, topics, and forums tables.

I should note I imported all of my users as well. I had to try this whole process several times. I’ve spent 40+ hours trying to figure this all out (I’m not that familiar with phpBB or bbPress) but the actual process once I figured out the issues – took about 6 hours – mostly waiting for the script to process the data. If your import bombs – read the error and look carefully at what it’s looking for or doesn’t like. Most likely it’s looking for something that’s not there.

I was worried that the connections between topics and replies and users would somehow be messed up. But in the end, it looks like it all came out fine. I’m pretty sure I’ll find something amiss – that’s my cynical side but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Good luck!

[Gregg]

phpBB is now fully updated but I still get errors on import like: Unknown column ‘users.user_website’ in ‘field list’

Seriously thinking of just staying with phpBB at this point since there’re no answers to be had here.

[John James Jacoby]

Yes, there is.

I must not have edited the link when I updated and saved the rest of the page.

I’ve updated the page now. Here’s the link if you need it:

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/bbpress.2.6-rc-7.zip

Sorry about that!

[Foliferous]

I didn’t change or modify any core. Just installed the plugin as is. But I did disable avatars. Apparently it keeps the space, even if you don’t have avatars?

And isn’t it weird that you’d have a space for an Avatar in this text that is displayed in very small font?

This forum contains 2 topics and 2 replies, and was last updated by Admin 2 days, 4 hours ago.

This doesn’t look like a place where you would display an avatar.

[Foliferous]

Hi people,

look here.

I noticed that’s there one space in front of “Admin” here:

This forum contains 2 topics and 2 replies, and was last updated by Admin 9 hours, 17 minutes ago.

You can also see it on the right hand side under “Latest forum posts”.

Best regards.

[writersabroad]

I created a list of 5 forums some with sub forums and used the short code to display the index of forums on a page which I added to my navigation menu. Today it is only showing the first forum and none of the others. I’ve tried refreshing the page, renewing the page with the shortcode and gone back over some of the steps (I’ve been trying to remove a sidebar from the forum page) but nothing seems to work. All the forums are listed and I haven’t changed any of the settings within the forums…

I’m using the Ruby theme – but have tried it with twenty fifteen, sixteen and seventeen and the problem persists. I’m using bbpress Version 2.5.14 and the bbpress style plug in Version 4.0.3 which was updated today.

My site is not published as I’m still working on it, ironing out some of these issues.

Thanks for any advice

[trehesten]

When upgrading php version on domain to 7.2, bbpress stopped working.

I made contact with domain company, and they say bbpress have’nt been updated in 3 years, and gave me this info from my site:

wp-content/plugins/bbpress/bbpress.php:

* $Id: bbpress.php 5951 2015-10-28 04:07:50Z netweb $

checked version on site, and it says Versjon 2.6-alpha??

What to do????

[Robin W]

whilst this hasn’t been updated in a few years, I think it still works

bbPress Moderation

[richardt111]

Still no success.

I have been reading about some people saying they reverted to older versions of PHP. Could this work?
Bluehost are telling me they can’t see anything from their side either.

Also, if it helps, I haven’t updated to added any plugin etc to my site in a while.

Thanks!

[krioteh]

Buddy-bbPress Support The topic still works with bbPress 2.6, albeit with errors.
You can return the form to the console settings of a specific forum using this code:

add_action('add_meta_boxes', 'bbbp_support'); 
add_action('save_post', 'bbbp_save'); 

function bbbp_support() {
	add_meta_box('bbbp_support', 'BbbPress Support', 
	'bbbp_support_callback', 'forum'); 
}
// HTML код блока
function bbbp_support_callback( $forum = falce ){
		if ( empty( $forum->ID ) ) {
			return;
		}

		$support_feature = bpbbpst_get_forum_support_setting( $forum->ID );

		$mailing_list_style = '';
		if ( 3 === (int) $support_feature ) {
			$mailing_list_style = 'style="display:none"';
		}

		$support_only_style = 'style="display:none"';

		if ( 2 === (int) $support_feature ) {
			$support_only_style = '';
		}

		bpbbpst_display_forum_setting_options( $support_feature );
		?>
		<div class="bpbbpst-mailing-list" <?php echo $mailing_list_style;?>>
			<h4><?php _e( 'Who should receive an email notification when a new support topic is posted ?', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' );?></h4>

			<?php bpbbpst_checklist_moderators( $forum->ID );?>
		</div>

		<?php do_action_ref_array( 'bpbbpst_forum_support_options', array( $forum->ID, $mailing_list_style ) ); ?>

		<div class="bpbbpst-support-guides" <?php echo $support_only_style;?>>
			<h4><?php _e( 'New Topic form extras', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' );?></h4>
			<label class="screen-reader-text" for="support-topic-intro"><?php esc_html_e( 'New Topic Guide', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' ); ?></label>
			<textarea rows="3" cols="40" name="_bpbbpst_support_topic[intro]" id="support-topic-intro" style="width:100%"><?php echo bpbbpst_get_forum_support_topic_intro( $forum->ID );?></textarea>
			<p class="description"><?php printf( esc_html__( 'Use this field to insert some instructions above the new topic form. Allowed tags are: %s', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' ), join( ', ', array_keys( (array) wp_kses_allowed_html( 'forum' ) ) ) ); ?></p>

			<label class="screen-reader-text" for="support-topic-tpl"><?php esc_html_e( 'New Topic Template', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' ); ?></label>
			<textarea rows="3" cols="40" name="_bpbbpst_support_topic[tpl]" id="support-topic-tpl" style="width:100%"><?php echo bpbbpst_get_forum_support_topic_template( $forum->ID );?></textarea>
			<p class="description"><?php esc_html_e( 'The text added within this field will be used as a template for the content of new topics.', 'buddy-bbpress-support-topic' ); ?></p>
		</div>
		<?php

		do_action_ref_array( 'bpbbpst_forum_support_options_after_guides', array( $forum->ID, $support_only_style ) );
	}
	function bbbp_save( $forum_id = 0 ) {
		$support_feature   = false;
		$is_forum_category =  bbp_is_forum_category( $forum_id );

		if ( ! empty( $_POST['_bpbbpst_forum_settings'] ) ) {
			$support_feature = absint( $_POST['_bpbbpst_forum_settings'] );
		}

		// Forum is not a category, save the support metas
		if ( ! empty( $support_feature ) && ! $is_forum_category ) {
			update_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_forum_settings', $support_feature );

			if ( 3 === (int) $support_feature ) {
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_recipients' );
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_intro' );
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_tpl' );
			} else {
				$recipients = ! empty( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_recipients'] ) ? array_map( 'intval', $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_recipients'] ) : false ;

				if ( ! empty( $recipients ) && is_array( $recipients ) && count( $recipients ) > 0 ) {
					update_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_recipients', $recipients );
				} else {
					delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_recipients' );
				}

				if ( 2 === (int) $support_feature ) {
					if ( ! empty( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_topic']['intro'] ) ) {
						update_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_intro', wp_unslash( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_topic']['intro'] ) );
					} else {
						delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_intro' );
					}

					if ( ! empty( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_topic']['tpl'] ) ) {
						update_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_tpl', wp_unslash( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_topic']['tpl'] ) );
					} else {
						delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_tpl' );
					}
				} else if ( ! empty( $_POST['_bpbbpst_support_topic'] ) ) {
					delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_intro' );
					delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_tpl' );
				}
			}

			do_action( 'bpbbpst_forum_settings_updated', $forum_id, $support_feature );

		// Check for support metas to eventually remove them
		} else if ( $is_forum_category ) {
			$support_feature = get_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_forum_settings', true );

			if ( ! empty( $support_feature ) ) {
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_forum_settings' );
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_recipients' );
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_intro' );
				delete_post_meta( $forum_id, '_bpbbpst_support_topic_tpl' );
			}
		}

		return $forum_id;
	}

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a way to eliminate errors when editing themes in the console: (

[haddly]

For some reason, emails weren’t being sent out to subscribed users when a new forum post was posted. When i started using Asychronous they started working.
I wrote to the plugin author as well (today), and he has advised to use an email queueing plugin (due to the fact it calls the wp_mail() function. And then use the queueing plugin to set a number less than 100 with an interval.
I will try his advice, but unfortunately there are 2 plugins i found, both of which haven’t been updated in 3 years such as: https://wordpress.org/plugins/smtp-mailing-queue/

[Clivesmith]

Hi,
I am sure this has been asked before but I cannot find an answer.

I have 289 posts/replies in my forum, if I look at the posts table I have 782 record, most of the “extra” ones are post_type revision, can I get rid of them.
I have seen a plugin that says it can do it but it is 5 years since it was updated, does anyone know if it still works? or is there another way that I have not seen ?
Thanks

[lookingahead]

@robin-w oh, i used a string modifier to change ‘forum’ to ‘discussion’ — that is how i got the tabs in buddypress groups to say ‘discussion’ versus ‘forum’

i’ll go back and modify it to say ‘chat’ later, but for now many things in the site that used to say ‘forum’ say ‘discussion’….because i can change that at-will and it’s not causing conflicts, i’ve not updated it yet to say ‘chat.’

the problem that is currently unmovable though is the group forum slug name; it still says ‘forum’ at the end of all buddypress groups. that was unaffected by the string modifier, and is apparently hard-coded.

i went to the wp_options table and it does currently say ‘chat’…..sooooo…….apparently that setting is not being used in buddypress when it creates group forum slugs. it is defaulting to ‘forum’ no matter what i do.

is there another place within bbpress where the instructions on how to create a slug for any type of forum whatsoever is listed…even ‘hard-coded’ as a default setting?

[AdventureRidingNZ]

Bumping this as the sentiment in the original post about the lack of progress with maintaining bbbpress as an active project seems to be even more relevant now than when this topic was made.

While somehow wordpress.org indicates the bbpress plugin was last updated a week ago, the current version 2.5.14 was released in September 2017.

The next release as far as I can tell is 2.60, for which the latest development version, rc5, was first put out for feedback 13 months ago.

it is not reasonable to call this project under active development.

[ak08820]

I have updated the top level forum name to forums and made it a category and still I get the same result.

It displays like this
ForumTopics Posts Freshness
Forums
Root forum for WVV forums
Vegan Activism (0, 0), Vegan Diet (0, 0), Vegan Lifestyle (0, 0),
Vegan Recipes (0, 0)

If I click on the word Forums above, it displays as follows, 1 forum per line which is what I need.
ForumTopics Posts Freshness
Forums
Vegan Activism (0, 0),
Vegan Diet (0, 0),
Vegan Lifestyle (0, 0),
Vegan Recipes (0, 0)

[grimmag]

Hello. It shows that this plugin is “Untested with your version of WordPress” and hasn’t been updated in over a year? I don’t want to get another plugin that doesn’t work so could you tell me if there are any plans to update to the latest WP Version? It’s not like Version 4.9.8 just came out. Thanks in advance!

[jimmy369]

Hi Robin, So sorry for late reply.

Yes, I still stuck on the issue. Hoping the topics of the certain forum (by forum ID) can automatically close after 30 minutes, even if it has updated during this period. I paste the original code of the plugin and I have tried to modify it but failed. I will appreciate your patience and help with this situation.

[remcuatotgiare]

I just got notice when I went to the backend of my wordpress site that there was an update. It was a bbpress update, so I clicked to install it and it broke my website. I can’t get to the plugins page or anything to uninstall the update. Please help! Even the front end of my website is down.

It looked like it installed correctly, but I get a HTTP ERROR 500 when I try to access my homepage or any other page on the website.

“Downloading update from

Unpacking the update…

Installing the latest version…

Removing the old version of the plugin…

Plugin updated successfully.”

Thank you,

[KVNHNF]

Hi there!

We are having the same issue on our website whenever we create a new BBPress topic. Tried adding it to GTM manually didn’t do the trick either.

In the search console, there is an hatom error everytime you create a new forum topic.

Missing author
Missing updated

Testing data online with Google structured data testing tool does not reveal error in that regards any idea what JSON-LD should be added to BBPress files to fix this?

Thanks

[wpGonzales]

Hi, I found the plugin “bbpress Sort Topic Replies” https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress-sort-topic-replies/ can do that, but only for the first reply of a thread. Also, the plugin has not been updated for a long time, it seems to be abandoned.

[antardrishti]

Hi, in group forum or forum alone page it shows in first line ” This forum contains 2 topics, and was last updated by Drishti Connect 4 days, 23 hours ago.” and below it display “Oh bother! No topics were found here!” my wordpress ver is 4.9.8 | bbpress ver is 2.5.14 | buddpress ver is 3.1.0 and my theme is PE School by PixelEmu. its work fine with Twenty Seventeen wordpress theme.
my problem is that my site will be used by blind people and it need to be 100% accessible and PE School theme provide me the same. our theme provider are not ready to support voluntarily.
website link – https://drishticonnect.antardrishti.org/groups/visually-impaired/forum/topic/this-is-test-msg/
Any suggest/help will be great to support blind people.
thanks

[smartplanhelp]

I believe my site was automatically updated to WordPress 4.9.8 today. I went to
Appearance -> Customize, and I got a 505 Internal Error page. After a bit of
digging, I found that bbpress v 2.5.14, when deactivated, makes this problem go
away. When I enable the plugin again, the problem returns. When Deactivated the
problem goes away again. Everything else seems to work fine except for the Customize under Appearance. Since this is isolated to bbpress, I figured I should notify you.

[nikone27]

Good day. I want to add new notification type in my site – Updated the status of the task I have assigned to the user (for example, the task completed). But by default, this function is not. How to do this?

Version WP and BP last.

I’m surprised no one has asked such a question before… Please, help me.

[TrustedOrb]

I need the forum information (the one that displays “This forum contains 1 topic and 1 reply, and was last updated by admin 1 month, 2 weeks ago”) to be moved to the bottom of the forum. How can I do that?

[Ash Whitney]

Hi Robin

I was using your BBP Style Pack plugin already as it’s a very useful plugin. I’ve just updated to the lastest version and set the number of forums in the new feature under Forum Display – which works great.

Thank you kindly for your time and for the very useful update to the plugin.

Regards

Ash