What version of BuddyPRess are you using?
Thanks! Works! This is actually basically what I had done but you accomplished it in a much better way!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!! Halifax Regional Search and Rescue thanks you 
And by the way… I found out why my attempt “broke”. It actually didn’t break. Not exactly. I had been trying to send test messages to myself at a second member account with a BuddyPress profile name of “David Lewis (test)”. And it would always fail. I realized what was probably happening was the BuddyPress was thinking that “test” was the username… but it wasn’t. The autocomplete for that member was showing up as “David Lewis (test) (davidlewistest)”. “davidlewistest” was the username. I tried changing my BuddyPress name on that account to “David Lewis Test” and now it works.
Your code had the same issue of course. Not worried about it though. Who puts parenthesis in their BuddyPress name! Still… I think maybe I came across a REAL “bug” this time 
“Messages fail to send if members BuddyPress name contains parenthesis”.
Anyway… so either way worked (mine or yours) but I’m very grateful for a solution that doesn’t require me to touch the core.
I am not able to contribute to the code or programming aspect of this discussion but i can and have tested as many things as I could. I am a user of the BuddyPress software and have been for a while now, where do we (users) fit in this puzzle? I would be willing to contribute some $$ if that would help in any way.
I have to add that at this point it would be awesome to keep underlying framework flexible and constant long enough so that each new release builds not breaks the previous one. That might not be sexy or exciting but it sure helps when running a site with many users to have it be functional at all times.
+1 on KISS
Probably not. The deadline is more of a moving target; it’s something the core dev team strives for, but won’t necessarily hit.
Keep an eye on the latest builds of the BP Album+ plugin:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/bp-album/forum/topic/latest-version-nightly-build/
It’s progressing quite nicely. Keep in mind that these builds are development versions suited for test installs, rather than production environments.
The stable version is good as well, but lacks many features that the nightly builds have.
That’s why we have a roadmap: https://buddypress.org/about/roadmap/
If you want to contribute something you know is going to take the project in the right direction then that’s the place to start. The roadmap represents the one place to dig.
@johnjamesjacoby : it fixed it !
thanks A LOT.
3sixty noticed that the forum topic count was a big performance eater:
https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2421
Try the solutions listed there and report back.
@kevbow – Some sleep for me helped!
Your image URL from Pastebin worked, but when I went to your site in IE8, there was an additional backslash added to the avatar image URL:
http:///vapersplace.com/wp-content/uploads/avatars/1802/191f39155d4b7abce53b63d5972abc9c-bpthumb.jpg
This is an odd one for sure!
Can you please try the updated code for avatars and see if it fixes your problem?
https://trac.buddypress.org/browser/branches/1.2/bp-core/bp-core-avatars.php?rev=3055
Hi, welcome to BuddyPress.
BuddyPress is a WordPress plugin and available for download within your WP admin panel. Within plugins, click on “add new” and search for buddypress. You can install it from there.
BuddyPress Documentation: https://codex.buddypress.org/home/
Also, there are a few things to be aware of – depending upon the version of WordPress and Hosting. For example, in your .htaccess, you may need to increase the amount of memory alloted to php.
A few steps and cautions
1. Make sure you have the database and files backed up.
2. If possible, practice on a local site or developer site before you try this on your live site.
3. Deactivate your other plugins first.
4. Check your permalink structure
5. Download and activate the buddypress plugin.
6. A new panel should appear in your WP-admin panel
7. Activate the default buddypress theme.
8. Activate forums (if you are interested)
9. Test your site
10. Activate one plugin at a time – and verify the site after each activation
Come here and find extensions – ask questions – etc
Here is a link to more details on building a child theme (an excellent way to work with BP).
https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/building-a-buddypress-child-theme/
5887735Inactive
@Peterverkooijen
I don’t believe it is the standard. Facebook and LinkedIn at their core are just name directories so they wouldn’t work without real names, but I can’t think of any other sites that use real names by default. Every forum I’ve ever seen uses “user names,” and so does every other major site I can think of (Twitter, MySpace, Youtube, Digg, Reddit, WordPress, Blogger, Google, Yahoo, etc., etc.). The reason the user/real name issue is so confused with BP is because they have no privacy controls. If BP did it would make perfect sense to use a “fake user name” in public and keep your real name private for friends only.
LOL…I agree with you. Really, after nearly a week’s worth of work on the newest and 11 months running at the oldest, I don’t want to start over.
I can see the pre-Tweetstream threads at both sites, but can’t view the content. Neither will let me create new threads.
Additionally, when I have tried to reinstall the forums, both current and fresh, there is no change. And when I reinstall fresh, I get a parsing error :Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘%’, expecting ‘]’ in /home/drifter1/public_html/extremewritingnow.com/bb-config.php on line 73
Line 73 looks like this reasonable facsimile :
define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT’, “#2yB1 @8^e!-lM.%yqNUr^ju+2OLP ~ hDJ$GkeMIP[3%mwDm3*sbNpNdZSq(8c^.”)
When I chage it to this:
define(‘BB_LOGGED_IN_SALT’, “#2yB1 @8^e!-lM.[yqNUr^ju+2OLP ~ hDJ$GkeMIP3%mwDm3*sbNpNdZSq](8c^.”)
the error goes away, but I still have no functional forums.
Am I getting closer?
Thanks @Eric but I did that and it still isn’t working 
well after my last comment on this thread I must say I am surprised that with WP3.0 out a week now, there still hasn’t been any mention of a BP point release even just to fix the WP3.0 issues such as incorrect avatars & activity stream on front page.
I know there are fixes in trac but I doubt most users will go looking in trac to fix these simple issues.
I see on the trac roadmap that BP 1.2.5 is due today but have seen few issues closed recently, will it be released today?
also, will it have the required bits for @jeffsayre‘s privacy plugin? I presume this will be a well used plugin and many are waiting on it.
@Andrew
Hi
To enable user registration a had to set the ‘Membership Anyone can register’ checkbox in General Settings
http://www.iluvscifi.com
Wondering if I should delete and reinstall BuddyPress?
ta @hnla, group-tags also wasn’t working on my install, you have to go to admin panel>my account>groups>tags ( its blank-just have to name it ) and you can enter the tags there. Doesn’t work on the group creation which thinking of it now, is probably what the problem is >.<
Been looking for guidance on where I can find ‘help’ files/plugins for like 3 weeks to do this, learning as I go along. Ill drop the group-tag stuff, just keeping the form in the group creation steps and try looking at the skeleton competent as you mentioned.
On top of everyone’s ideas, be sure to check out how to correctly attach your plugin to bp_init:
https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/make-your-plugin-buddypress-aware-v1-2/
Because of the way that WordPress loads plugins, its possible that bp_init is firing before your plugin has added the hook. If that’s the case, your function is safe to run and needs to be called directly as a fall-back.
@Erich, (“t does not have to be a “REAL” name…”)
The standard on social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) is to use real full names. That should be the default imho and then there’s a plugin for those who want something else.
