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lost bbPress user roles, all set to inactive

  • @susanjohnstone

    Member

    I’m running bbpress 1.0.2 and had it successfully integrated with WP 3.0.1. WP is on the subdomain http://wisdom.theheartsvoice.com/ and bbPress is in a folder on that subdomain /forum/. They are sharing a SQL database.

    I have the bbPress integration plugin installed in WP and all the secret keys are copied over from wp-config.

    I had mapped the user roles successfully and all my users (only 11) had registered on WP as subscribers and were successfully being added as members in bbPress as soon as they logged in there.

    In order to create both a private site and forum, I had installed the “registered users only” plugin on WP which is still working fine. And then to make the forum private I installed the “zaerl visibility” plugin, and set it up so that “inactive” and “blocked” users can’t see any of the forums. The roles ‘member’ ‘administrator’ and ‘keymaster’ all had full visibility.

    This all worked brilliantly for at least 6 days and there have been no changes that I know of to anything – no one has permissions on my admin, etc but me.

    Tonight, I tried to log into the forum and discovered that I’m not getting an admin link anymore and I’m unable to reply to anything or start topics. Then I realized that me and all the other users have been set to “inactive”. They are all still showing as “subscribers” in WP.

    However, as an inactive user now I shouldn’t be able to see any of the forums and all of them are fully visible. So I’m suspecting the zaerl plug-in as the cause.

    I’ve reviewed most of the threads on this topic here and haven’t found anything that applies.

    I’ve tried:

    – clearing my cache and my cookies.

    – created a new admin user in WP and clicked over to the forum, hoping the role would automatically be translated into keymaster there. No. (And when I checked the wp_usermeta table there had been no new line of code added on login to assign a role for that user_id, so I suspect the role mapping has stopped working completely.)

    – logged in directly to the forum with both admin accounts, no admin link appeared, no change in user status.

    – I deleted the line in my bb_meta table that set the values of zaerl-visibility and also the line that activated that plugin and then deleted the zaerl plugin file from the bbPress plugins directory (I’m not really a coder, so may be in WAY over my head trying to use phpMyAdmin!)

    – I inserted a new line of code in my wp-usermeta table to reset my bb_capabilities to keymaster, by copying exactly what was set before to my user_id.

    – I did that also for the second admin user I created.

    None of these things has worked and since I can’t get into my admin I can’t reset any of the users from inactive to member and so my forum is essentially dead (and it’s week 1 of a 5 week class)

    The WP and bbPress integration is still working fine and I’m still an admin on the WP side and when I get to the forum, I’m still logged in already, but I’m inactive.

    How can I get back in and get the roles reset?

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • @zaerl

    Participant

    So I’m suspecting the zaerl plug-in as the cause.

    Absolutely not. My plugin doesn’t change roles, doesn’t change permissions neither it attempts whatever action that invole writing of data nor it install nasty things on any of the bbPress tables. It just read and write a single bb_meta value in which there are packed all the visibility rules. Nothing more.

    Keep in mind that a user that hasn’t posted anything is actually inactive and become active only when he will post something. Also double-check that role-mapping on /forum/bb-admin/options-wordpress.php.

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    OK, I understand what you’re saying about what the plugin does.

    Can you give me any clues about why all the forums are now completely visible, now that I’m inactive? I had set all forums as not visible to ‘inactive’ and ‘blocked’ users like you suggested in the notes and that worked perfectly until yesterday.

    Now that my role is ‘inactive’ I would expect to not be able to see anything, so something about how the visibility is being generated has clearly changed.

    All 8 of the forum users have posted at least 2 posts upon login and all were showing as members, not ‘inactive’ ’til yesterday.

    And I was the most active in the forum, but I’m now ‘inactive’ as well.

    How would you suggest that I double check the role mapping? I’m locked out of my admin, remember? And when I go to the page you suggest, I’m redirected back to the main forum page.

    Any other suggestions will be most welcome. I don’t mean to tear down your plugin, I’m just looking for help here.

    @zaerl

    Participant

    I’m locked out of my admin, remember?

    Open phpmyadmin -> open the usermeta table -> find the row called bb_capabilities with user_id == 1 and change it to a:1:{s:9:"keymaster";b:1;}.

    I deleted the line in my bb_meta table that set the values of zaerl-visibility and also the line that activated that plugin and then deleted the zaerl plugin file from the bbPress plugins directory

    Now that my role is ‘inactive’ I would expect to not be able to see anything, so something about how the visibility is being generated has clearly changed.

    As it seems you have deleted the plugin from the plugin folder. Given this it’s perfectly normal that you can see everything.

    Addendum: my plugin hasn’t been created for hiding an entire forum: https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/zaerl-visibility/faq/ the line “zaerl Visibility doesn’t allow me to hide all forums.”

    If you want a plugin that hide an entire forum install mr_pelle great swirl unknowns: https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/swirl-unknowns/

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    Thanks for your response. As you’ll notice in my first post, I already tried adding a line in phpMyAdmin to set user_id 1 to keymaster with the code that you said. There was already a line in the database that had originally set that role for me and it looks like it was never changed. (I don’t know if added a line to do it again was right or not). And I also set that user role for the second admin I created which had never previously had a bbPress role assigned. Neither worked.

    Re: the visibility – everything in all forums was fully visible from the moment I started working on this and saw that the users were all inactive. I tried all the fixes around creating new users and editing roles in the php first. Everything was still fully visible to me as an “inactive” user throughout.

    Removing the visibility plugin from the folder and the database was my last resort and unfortunately it didn’t help or fix anything, so it may have nothing to do with the plugin at all.

    As you mentioned, I saw in your FAQ that your plugin wasn’t designed to hide a whole forum. I saw the next FAQ right under that, however, which says:

    “How do I create a forum that is visible only to registered users?

    Select “Inactive” and “Blocked” roles hide rules.”

    That’s all I needed, so that’s what I did on each forum. It worked great. The problem is, I don’t know what has changed now to make this stop working or how to get into admin to fix it.

    Any other thoughts out there?

    @zaerl

    Participant

    What plugins have you installed?

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    bbPress came with Askimet, bozo and hello dolly, none of which I activated. I only installed and activated zaerl visibility.

    On the WP side, I installed ‘registered-users-only’, bbPress-integration and ‘audio-player’ and also activated Askimet.

    That’s it.

    @kevinjohngallagher

    Member

    I’d hasten a guess that “registered-users-only” is more than likely the issue here.

    When did you upgrade to WP3.0.1?

    If something changed in teh last 6/7 days, thats most likely it.

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    Thanks for that. I’m not quite sure how that could be affecting bbPress, since all it does is direct non-logged in visitors to the login page on the WP side.

    And I didn’t upgrade to 3.0.1 at all. It’s a brand new site and so it started out with that version.

    What’s so weird about this, is that I was able to log into the dashboard Friday night and I didn’t log in again until Sunday night, when I discovered that all users were showing as inactive and the admin link was gone.

    In that time, one new user registered and posted twice and then when she went back in the next day she couldn’t post anymore even though she was logged in and was told she didn’t have the permission to start a new topic.

    Is there any way the activity of a single user could cause something in all the user roles?

    @kevinjohngallagher

    Member

    It’s really unlikely a single user could have done something.

    Excuse the obvious nature of the questions, and i aprecaite that you’ll have answered them in teh text above, but this isn’t a normal everyday bug, so we’re starting from scratch:

    1) What version of WordPress?

    2) What version of bbPress?

    3) Are they integrated (share login cookies)?

    4) Are they “deep integrated” (can call functions in the other program)?

    5) Do you have the latest version of akismet on both WP and bbP?

    6) Can you log into WordPress?

    7) Can your other users log into WordPress?

    8) Can people register with WordPress?

    9) Can people register with bbPress?

    10) Can people log into bbPress?

    11) Have to tried disabling all plugins and trying again?

    12) If so, have to tried switching to the default theme?

    13) Are you using a premium (paid for) theme?

    14) Are you using buddyPress?

    15) What has changed since Friday?

    16) What WordPress plugins are you using?

    17) Are you using WP MultiSite?

    18) Did you know that “registered users only” plugin has been marked by others as not working for WP3.0.1 on the plugin repository?

    I know it’s a load of info, sorry, but it will help.

    Very few, if any, bbPress plugins change the “role” for bbPress users, simply due to it’s rather convoluted nature.

    Hopefully, we’ll get this fixed :)

    @techpad1

    Member

    This may not be the same issue at all, but I thought it best to share just in case. I’ve experienced a similar incident to Susan’s when I first setup the User database sharing in the integration area. For the User database table prefix option, I had put in the prefix used with my WordPress install. As soon as I saved changes, I was logged out and could not log back in again until I went into the bb_meta table, found it under a meta_value field and deleted the prefix from that field. That immediately fixed my issue.

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    OK, you’re not going to believe this….

    Everything is working perfectly again!

    I didn’t look at the forum all day and just saw your list of questions and registered a new user successfully on bbPress to see if it could be done.

    When I got in there as a new user, I was showing as “Member” and when I looked at one of the main forums and the posts there, all the other users were showing as members too.

    So I quickly logged out and logged back in as the keymaster and everything is right back where it was – admin link, comment boxes and all!

    I’m going to get some of my students to try logging in and make sure it’s working for them too.

    (Don’t know if you go in for this stuff, but I actually did some energy work this afternoon and sent it to the forum. That’s the only explanation I have for why it’s working again) = >

    Otherwise, it can only be gremlins.

    If my students are back up and running, I’ll come back and resolve this thread. Thanks everyone for your help.

    @kevinjohngallagher

    Member

    I’m a big fan of gremlins (well of Mogwai anyway)

    Just real happy it’s working for you.

    Kev

    @susanjohnstone

    Member

    Thanks Kev! It appears my students are back in and able to post as well, so I’ll mark this mystery as resolved (but far from solved!)

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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