[michael walker]

I’m using WP 4.0 and the current bbpress with a twenty-ten theme. I expect the question I’m going to ask has already been covered by someone, somewhere, but I couldn’t find it – so apologies for that.

My forums are restricted to registered users of my site and, on the site itself, this works very well. A non-user tries to visit a forum and just gets a ‘page npt found’ message. Even if they enter a URL directly into their browser, in the form “http://www.site-name.org.uk/forums/forum/general-chat/” they still can’t access the forum.

The problem is this: This site also maintains a Facebook page, Twitter account and so on. Now, if a poster writes something along the lines of: “All members should read this post on our forums: http://www.site-name.org.uk/forums/topic/postname/”, then anyone clicking on this link will be taken to that post, regardless of whether they are members or whether they are logged-in to WP. And, once in, they can then browse the remaining topics/forums. This is undesirable and I would love to know if there’s away of preventing it. Setting permissions etc within WP seems pointless in this instance, as the visitors concerned are not members/users and are thus unaffected. Any help received with thanks.

[Robin W]

Not quite sure where you are saying that they enter this – is this on their facebook account – surely that’s just the same as the url you quoted in para 1.

Are your forums private? – that would prevent access

[michael walker]

Thanks for the quick response. Yes, I didn’t make that very clear: If a Facebook poster posts the URL of a specific topic within a forum (that is, posts it on FB), then that link can be followed by anyone – site member or not. However, if they post a link to a forum (as opposed to a topic within it) then the permissions kick-in and only site users/members (that is, logged-in WP users) can see it. Hope that’s clearer. (I’m using the Capability Manager to set permissions, if that’s any help)

[Robin W]

No problem, set the forums to private and only registered users will see them

If you want some visibility to encourage new users use

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbp-private-forum-visibility/

to control access

[michael walker]

Many thanks. I see now that I have been wrongly using the private/hidden options available within BBP, but your post has put me on the right track – again, thanks.

[Robin W]

great – glad you’re fixed !

[michael walker]

Thanks again. BTW – I tried to install your plug-in (above) but got a message to the effect that it contained an ‘invalid header’. Thought you’d like to know.

[Robin W]

but got a message to the effect that it contained an ‘invalid header’. Thought you’d like to know.

Yes thanks for letting me know – I just re-tried it and it loaded fine. I did it direct ie

Dashboard>plugins>add new and searched for it. It installed and activated with no issues.

Strange 🙂