BuddyPress.org

Specs…
WP 3.9.2
BP 2.0.2
I use Bluehost
No Core Files Changed
Also using BuddyMenu 2.2.0 to utilize shortcode for community homepage
I am using BuddyPress with OptimizePress 2.0 and creating a community page.
I have enabled the members to create groups

Everything works well except for the fact that members cannot see public groups or a group directory.

From the Groups Menu the Sub-menus are “Memberships” and “Invitations”
In the “order by” drop down there is no way of finding anything either.

I want new members to be able to access the group directory and join the public groups I already created with the admin account.

Any suggestions?

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any anomaly with this particular account. I created a new account for that user and assigned him all activity from old account. Sorry, afraid I can’t much of help.

For now, I’ve come to another solution, where I allow users to Register new account with base Fields and a Role selection (Student or Lecturer in my case). They then fill in only base field and then after account creation they can update their Student or Lecture xProfile Group Fields in their profile page edit.

I do these above by using 3 plugins:

1. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpfront-user-role-editor/
This will allow me to add new Role: Student and Lecturer in my case (I have tried other Role plugin but they conflict with other plugins on my site, this one doesn’t).

2. https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-roles-at-registration/
This one allow me to add a Drop down for New user to choose their wanted role : Student or Lecturer

3. https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-xprofiles-acl/
This plug in allow me to set buddypress xProfile group to a specific user role. In my case, I created two xProfile Group fields named “Student” and “Lecture” each has different fields. Then using this plugin I assigne the xProfile Student to Student Role, and the xProfile Lecturer to Lecturer Role.

That’s all done!

Meanwhile I will use this, but I still want to be able to have two sign up forms with different fields so that I can require New user to fill in the Required field to make the profile better. I can’t code much so hope someone will help!

Hi, I wanted to also hide admin from the “last activity” widget. I did an override of bp-core/bp-core-widget.php in my theme but it was not taken into account. However if I directly modify bp-core-widget.php in the BP plugin directory, then in works. Too bad the override doesn’t work, I guess I need to create my own widget…

Small update with regards to bluehost. I have been exchanging emails with them regarding this email. For your reading enjoyment.

First Bluehost tries to accuse me of spamming

Hi, it appears your emails have been reported by multiple providers
(such as yahoo or comcast) as containing spam, this in turn has flagged
our outbound email filter. We have removed your domain from the filter
for now. To prevent this, I would advise the following:

If you are sending email via email lists or a third party ad vendor:

BE sure you are not using any purchased lists

Be sure 100% sure the emails you are sending to are emails that those
people want to receive

Be sure you are using a double opt in when adding to your email lists

Be sure you are not sending to ANY spam traps- a spam trap is created by
multiple providers, it is an email that is never given out and found
only in source code. If a spam trap receives an email from a domain,
this is a clear indication that domain is using an email list that was
not created by people opting in, which is against the terms of service
and is considered spam.

Further more, be sure you are following our complete terms of service
concerning Sending email:

We do not allow the sending of unsolicited mass emails to others. We
have zero tolerance for accounts which contain material that has been
promoted through unsolicited email (spam) or mail fraud schemes, or
which contain pages that promote or condone the sending of unsolicited
email.

All emails sent from our servers or sent from another server that
advertise a site that is hosted on our servers are required to stay
within these rules:

(1.) You are required to follow all rules in the Can Spam Act
(additional information at:
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
)

(2.) No purchased lists. Everyone that you send emails to MUST HAVE
CONTACTED YOU DIRECTLY and asked for the information you are sending.
Affiliate opt-ins are not a valid method of opt in.

(3.) The list must be double opt in. This means that the recipient must
request to be added, and then you must send an email asking them to
confirm the request.

(4.) You must have an automated opt out link; Email based opt out
(mailto: links) are not acceptable.

Quoting from the above link:

Please see our Terms of Service at
https://www.bluehost.com/antispam_policy and
https://www.bluehost.com/acceptable_use_policy#spam for additional
information.

If you are sending email individually:

Change all email passwords and check all devices/computers for any virus
or malware

Confirm with everyone that uses email from your domain that they are
following the spam rules as stated above

If you are sending email through a script or a contact
form/tell-a-friend script:

Be sure you have or add a captcha feature on all contact forms or
tell-a-friend scripts

Check your websites content for any malicious or suspecious files that
should not be there

Update all your Websites scripts including themes and plugins

Once you are have confirmed you are following or now applying all of the
above information, you will need to wait for your domains reputation to
become clear. We have no time frame on how long this takes as our
outbound filter relies on information from other providers to determine
this.

In cases of a compromised script/email:

Change all your passwords to your emails

Update all your email scripts

Check for malicious files hidden within your sites

Secure all devices that access your account.

We hope this information helps you.”

****ENDQUOTE****

If you have any other questions please reply to this ticket, chat us, or call our technical support line which is open 24/7.

My response to the bluehost response above

I send no emails from this account. I don’t have any email accounts
associated with this domain. I only use one email forwarder to send any
email sent to admin@site.com so I am not really sure any of
your analysis below holds any ground. Please provide any information to
back up your summary? What email account was sending messages?

There is a bigger issue at hand here. Look at the buddypress FAQ. Why
do you think that out of every web host they only call out bluehost?

Your resolution was the same resolution that was put in place a month
ago. How do I prevent my account from getting flagged again? Please
find out what it is about buddypress that is causing bluehost to
incorrectly flag accounts as spam accounts.

Bluehost continues to stick to the assumption that my account is spamming

Thank you for contacting Technical Support. We understand that sending out emails is vital to any business. Since you are on a shared server, all email you send out uses shared mail servers. Our filter system is in place to prevent our mail servers IP from becoming blacklisted by third party companies. When this occurs, it will block the ability of all of our customer accounts to send out emails. The process then becomes long and complicated once it has been flagged. In order to prevent this we have put in place several services to prevent this from happening.

We don’t solely check blacklisting services to see if a domain and or IP address is being blacklisted. One of the spam prevention tools that we have in place relies on reports from other email and internet service providers; such as yahoo, comcast, broadband and others. The reports were generated by those who receive the emails and are marking them as spam or junk. We do not have the ability to view who specifically flags the email. Due to this, we can only rely on the reports from these major providers that report them to us. As we do not have control as to if they flag it or not, we cant control if your domain gets listed or not.

I would recommend checking through the lists that you send out and remove any email addresses that you get bounces from. You can then remove that email address from your list. Over time people may forget that they had signed up for your list and are simply marking your messages as spam/junk. It might be a good idea to email your list and have them opt-in again to your list. You can then remove those that do not opt-in to ensure that that those on the list are legitimate.

If you have any other questions please reply to this ticket, chat us, or call our technical support line which is open 24/7.

My response

I don’t think you are reading my email responses. I do not send emails
from any account on this domain. The only emails that are sent are
registration activation emails. How is my domain getting black listed
if I am not sending emails?

Their response. Apparently my email forwarder to my own account is also somehow sending spam email to other people and buddypress is responsible for spam.

Hello,

You send e-mail via buddypress, you also send mail via the forwarder. These both contribute to the blacklist you’ve now been added to.

My response. I request information on what about the activation emails is causing my site to get blacklisted

I have only received one email via the forwarder and that wouldn’t put me
on a black list. Therefore the activation emails must be what is putting
me on the blacklist WordPress installations get registration spam all the
time but they do not get the sites blacklisted. What is it about
buddypress that is triggering the blacklist?

Their response. It is top secret.

Hello,

We release no specifics on the exact criteria incorporated to flag the contents of e-mail messages to prevent our filters from being defeated. Generally, quantity of messages sent, specific reports of spam e-mail from third parties, internal links or keywords associated with known mass mailing agencies, or a combination of all of the above can lead to the domain’s reputation being reduced to the extent that it requires intervention.

My final response tonight

Very well,

The net sum is I do not send email from this account. The only email sent is activation emails sent by wordpress/buddypress. I have had the typical spam troubles dealing with fake registrations from spammers and I assume those spam registrations are flagging the spam filter. I have never had this issue with wordpress spam activation emails flagging one of my accounts as spam so it is clear that SOMETHING about the buddypress activation emails is to blame (it is the only variable that has changed). This fact is reinforced by the fact that buddypress calls out bluehost.com’s failure to address this email in their FAQ https://codex.buddypress.org/legacy/faq/

[quote]BuddyPress isn’t sending out emails (eg. activation emails, email notifications). This appears to be a problem with certain web hosts (Bluehost primarily). Members of the BP community have had success using]/quote]

I have provided a copy of the activation emails my account is sending on my previous ticket for analysis. I have changed nothing to the default buddypress activation emails.

Please invest some time in identifying why this very popular wordpress plugin is triggering spam filtering by bluehost email. I am happy to make any modifications to my code to resolve this issue and I am sure the buddypress community would love to remove this section from their FAQ. I appreciate your support addressing this issue. Thank you for your continued support with this issue. I have invested a lot of time and effort into this project and I would hate to see it die because bluehost continues to flag my account incorrectly due to an error in the spam filtering software on bluehost’s end. Thank you.

@henrywright
Thanks. I still don’t see anything related to how to get help with my account on this support forum. That’s the point i feel like i’m not getting across, i do not see a subforum for questions related to this website, buddypress.org.

@bphelp
Ok. The problem i’m having is that i would like to change my avatar. But when i try to, i am told i have to create a Gravatar account. When i try to do this, i run into a bunch of problems. The reason i didn’t start out by describing my problem in more detail is because i don’t see a place to post this kind of inquiry. This is not about BuddyPress, this is about my accounts at buddypress.org, trying to understand how this relates to my account at wordpress.org, and how this all relates to Gravatar.

I’m looking for help with this website, not with the software. I was trying to NOT post my question in an inappropriate place. If there is an appropriate place to post this kind of question, all i am asking is where that is.

Thank you.

Cheers for the quick reply Dennis, I’ll go down the route you suggested and uninstall my multisite, carry on with a single instance.

The main reason I have gone round in circles on this is because the department head is sure to make additions to his team as time goes on, as well as lose some people I imagine. I’m not sure I can get a single Buddpress instance to give me the functionality to allow users to create and delete users.

I guess what I’m saying above is that I’m getting the feeling I need a different user structure, with one user account per department, each department having their sub-users created by the account admin guy. This smelled like multisite initially, but then I also need users to be able to create their own departments (if new departments are created in the company), as this will take the burden off my shoulders. This on the other hand smelled like just a regular blog with user signup to me.

Hence my confusion.

Thanks again!

Thank you for your response @barney92

Now I am finding that:

* Sometimes the user is able to login using id/pw selected during account registration even if the activation message (after clicking the link in the email) is : Invalid Activation Key

AND

** Other-times the message is still “Invalid Activation Key” and the user is NOT able to login using username/pw created during account registration.

What a mess! It is now 2 weeks and can’t figure out what is going on.

Really need some help here please.

Okay, so yes the website is working however new registrations are not going through. When I click ‘Complete Sign Up’ the registration page refreshes and comes back blank just with the heading ‘Create an Account’ no registration form on the page.

No activation email sent, tried all basic possibilities, deactivated all plugins, just buddypress is active. Cannot do any registrations.

Please help

Hello @mercime @hnla I started this thread more than a year ago and I have never been able to remove MultiSite from my website.

By the guidance provided by @eisenwasser I have created a clone of my website on another hosting account elsewhere. This clone installation is 100% functioning like my original website and now I am ready to do all the experiments safely.

I have followed again all the steps here – http://wpmututorials.com/how-to/how-to-disable-multisite/ and now see the following error message –

Notice: wpdb::escape is deprecated since version 3.6! Use wpdb::prepare() or esc_sql() instead. in /public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 2913

No site defined on this host. If you are the owner of this site, please check Debugging a WordPress Network for help.

I request you to kindly help me with the current situation so that I can successfully remove MultiSite from my website.

Many thanks!