[notpoppy]

To investigate further, I thought it might be worth running the Repair Forums tools (/wp-admin/tools.php?page=bbp-repair). These completed successfully with three exceptions:

“Recalculate the position of each reply” – This spent a long time processing, then gave a 502 Bad Gateway error
“Remap existing users to default forum roles” – The page went blank
“Remove trashed topics from user favorites” – This gave a SQL error the first time and completed the second time.

I wondered if the “Repair BuddyPress Group Forum relationships” option would help. When I ran it I got the message: “Repairing BuddyPress group-forum relationships… Complete! 0 groups updated; 0 forums updated; 0 forum statuses synced.”

After doing all that I created a new topic as a test and again after publishing it I was taken to a different group.

[@mcuk]

Thanks @henrywright! I’ll stick with add_filter('bp_core_fetch_avatar_no_grav', '__return_true'); then if it’s all I need to stop the Buddypress calls. What is it that WordPress calls for? Are you referring to the default ‘white figure on grey background’? Or does WordPress also check for a Gravatar in similar way to Buddypress. (I don’t currently use Gravatar).

Hi @djsteveb , I came across some of those posts you listed which is actually what got me thinking about it in the first place :). I’m trying to be as transparent as possible on user privacy/data on the site I’m creating. Searched the forums a little further and some of the threads are v old so thought I’d check if the stuff there was still applicable or had been deprecated.

Hi @danbp, thanks for the plugin suggestions. I’ve come across a few Buddydev plugins and will probably use their ‘bp-activity-comment-notifier’ plugin since they aren’t part of Buddypress default currently. Trying to keep plugins to a minimum early on.
With regards to the ‘bp-avatar-suggestions’ plugin (which you appear to have inspired), does that override any WordPress calls Henry mentioned above since you are using your own locally stored images? (similar I guess to the new user Twitter eggs)?

[notpoppy]

Thanks for the replay @danbp. I’ve gone through everything you’ve suggested and can’t seem to find anything amiss:

When group component is activated, you should have a page assigned to groups. Ensure this page exist, without any content , page template or parent page. Just a page with a title.

I believe I’ve done this – if I go into Settings > BuddyPress > Pages then next to ‘User Groups’ there is a ‘Groups’ page defined and if I click on ‘View’ I see the link works. I’ve also checked the page and confirmed it’s blank and doesn’t have a parent or template.

Don’t forget to allow group forums in bbpress forum settings

I’ve got “Enable Group Forums – Allow BuddyPress Groups to have their own forums” ticked.

and to assign a group forum page, which should not be the existing Group page of BP.

Is this the ‘Group Forums Parent’ setting underneath ‘Enable Group Forums’? If so that is set up and it is not the existing group page.

On front when you create a new group, you create first the group. In one of the creation steps, you can check “allow this group to have a forum”. Then you save this. Once saved, you will see that the group name appeared in the select box. You must save this again to definitely activate a forum to this group. Same can be done by accessing group settings > forum tab.

Resume of creating a group with forum
enter a group name and description, check allow forum. Save. Select bow must contain the new group name. Save again.

These are the steps I have followed to set groups and forums up. I have also gone into all of them and checked they have “Yes I want this group to have a forum” ticked and the correct forum is selected; they all do.

And yet still I keep encountering the problems I described in my first two posts.

[danbp]

there is no result

that’s because you use a wrong file name.
The language file must be named “buddypress-zn_cn.mo”

If WP site language is set to chinese (general > settings if on a single install), buddypress will aotomagically upload the avaible chinese translation.

Search also this forum if you need more information, they’re many topics related to translation.

[caniwigirl]

Thanks @danbp

I’ve just tried it on twenty thirteen (the latest update yesterday) and the groups work perfectly, even for my test user who is a forum participant and contributor for WordPress AND member of two hidden groups. I had tested it previously, but it did’t work on the previous version of the theme. I didn’t even have to deactivate any plugins.

I then tested it with all the themes from 2011-2015 and they all work too.

So… It looks like I need to take this back to my theme developers… Can you please give me so info that I can relay to them so they can get the hidden groups displaying correctly? Or, is it possible to copy the appropriate BuddyyPress files from one of the WordPress themes and put it somewhere in the child theme of the theme I am using? If so… Which ones and where would I find them?

The theme I am using integrates BuddyPress in it, but not in any great detail.

[BewitchingFiction]

I have tried with multiple themes, including the 2015, 14 and 13. I am currently using Firmasite (which works but isn’t the most user-friendly in other ways). I have BBpress, Buddypress, Mailchimp for WordPress, Akismet (activated), Buddypress Group Chat, Buddypress Security Check, Jetpack. I try and keep the plugins to a minimum as my WordPress site is only used for the forums – I use efiction in a subfolder for the main part of my site.

[donalconlon]

@danbp. I followed your instructions in the thread you closed, and confirmed the same in codex. It does not change anything. I still cannot get a forum to show unless it is public. Please advise.

[danbp]

Please don’t double post.

If you activated Groups in BP, you assigned also a page to the group component.

If you use bbPress, you have to create a group form.
dashboard > forum > new forum and call it group forum.
In the right column, there is a setting box for forum type. Assign category.

In forum settings, check activate group forums for BP and choose group forum parent page.

Now on front-end create a group and follow the steps. Make it hidden or whatever. Save after each step.

Allow group forum. And save. Now the tricky part.

You have to resave this step, because BP registers first the group. As now forum is active, you have to select the newly create group name in the select box above the option yes, i want a group forum.

For already existing groups, it the same thing to do. The forum tab is existing, but nothing shows on it because of this.
Go to group settings, and select the group name and save.

In brief, you create the forum, save, assign the group name to the forum and re-save.

This was already explained to you on another topic and is also explained on the mentionned codex page.

Topic closed and discussion continue there.

[donalconlon]

Actually, it won’t even show if i make the forum private. The forum has to be public for me to see it.

[donalconlon]

Hi @caniwigirl

Yes, i tried it from the back-end. The only way I can get a forum to display with a group is if I make the forum public. It will not work for either private or hidden :(.

[@mcuk]

@henrywright. I raised the priority to 999 and went one step further by creating a new bp_functions php to put it in by itself (and put the original in another location). Didn’t make any difference. All users still directed to the stated page.

Anyway don’t waste your time on it, I appreciate the input. It’s not a huge deal. Was just a little confused as I haven’t seen anyone else on the forums have the same issue, which suggests that if the code is correct then there’s something else going on locally within my setup. Might reveal itself in time!

[caniwigirl]

Hi @danbp, Thanks for joining this discussion.

When I first looked into running BuddyPress on my site a couple years ago, Hidden groups did appear for members of them as outlined by BuddyPress. However, this is no longer the case.

Yes, members can access them if they have the URL for the Hidden Groups’s activity stream…

Yes, members can access them via the forums…

BUT hidden groups do not appear to members of them, moderators, admins or keymasters in any of the group directory pages or member/user profile pages or menus which link to ‘All Groups’ or ‘My Groups’. However, the group count increases to show the number of all groups, be they public, private or hidden.

From https://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/installing-group-and-sitewide-forums/

List of Groups created in the site including time active stamp, group description, number of members and group privacy setting. Only Public and Private Groups are seen in list by regular members. Super/Site Admin sees all groups including Hidden groups. – NOT working

My Groups… List of Groups you are a member of – Public, Private and Hidden (only by you and Super Admin) – NOT working

Is this what you are experiencing @bewitchingfiction?

[danbp]

@bewitchingfiction, @caniwigirl,

have you read group forum install instruction ?

Installing Group and Sitewide Forums

Note also that for hidden group

Only users who are invited can join the group.
This group will not be listed in the groups directory or search results.
Group content and activity will only be visible to members of the group.

Members who are part of such a group can see their group activity on their profile, when they’re logged-in.

Groups

On a correctly installed BP, user can access to hidden group forums via the profile, the group activity itself or the group forum.

This how BP handles members and how bbPress is built. And has nothing to do with a standard coded theme.
If you don’t believe, try by activating one of Twenty default theme.

[BewitchingFiction]

I have two such groups – both with different memberships.

I have provided the users with the URL but that relies upon them either remembering it or constantly referring to their email.

I have looked at using a further plugin but I have about 9 already for the forum functionality alone, and the more php functions I call during a page load the slower my site becomes (because of the set up of my site at the host level – something I have no control over).

I have also used all the widget slots that I feel comfortable with (about 5 on the page) in order to ensure that the layout is neither too cluttered nor too messy (I find the more stuff you use the less pleasant the site is to look at) – I work for a charity for the visually impaired and one thing we discovered was that users – no matter what their visual capabilities – didn’t like a cluttered page.

I will continue to look, but really my point is that if there is a piece of functionality in something then it should work – UAT isn’t hugely expensive (part of my professional job as it happens) and that is something which would have failed it – it would be nice if there were clear guidelines on which templates (including the core ones) worked with the hidden/private group settings before they were used – I have spent so many hours mucking around with templates only for them to fail at that last hurdle (the groups not appearing) it’s getting rather frustrating.

[caniwigirl]

Hi @bewitchingfiction,

How many groups like this do you have?

Another solution would be to provide the members with the direct URL to the group… Again, you could look at using a plugin which will only show to users that meet certain credentials (either via menu or a sidebar widget).

When I tested, members of the group could still see the activity stream, it just doesn’t show up in the directory of groups or under ‘My Groups’

To find the group URL… Make sure it is allocated to your forum, then look at all your forums, click on the particular one you are after and, at the top of the screen, you will see that it is associated with a hidden group. Click on the avatar for the croup, and you go to the group’s activity stream. Copy the URL and use it either as a link in the menu, on a button, or whatever else suits your format… If you don’t want it to be visible to other users, use a widget or plugin that allows you to show it only to who you want to see it.

[BewitchingFiction]

Hi @canwigirl,

Unfortunately, that won’t work for me, mostly because the groups are already in use and have been for over a month. I don’t use the actual comments/blogging functionality of WordPress at all on my site at all and asking the users to repost a large number of the conversations so that they could continue would be unfeasible. Really I want to know why this particular functionality is included on the forum build if it doesn’t work in the majority (make that the largest majority) of templates (Firmasite is the only one I have found where the hidden groups actually appear but it has certain appearance issues that it doesn’t appear to be able to correct without a large amount of additional coding).

[caniwigirl]

Hi @donalconlon,

Have you tried going into the group via the back-end instead of editing them from the front-end? This works on my site.

From the Dashboard, select Groups then edit the group you wish to change.

In the Discussion Forum box in the right column, below the Settings box, tick the box Yes, I want this group to have a forum. Then, if you click in the Group Forum: selection box directly below that says (No Forum) A list of all your existing forums (public, private and hidden) should appear for you to select from. Click Save Changes and it should be working.

If you aren’t familiar with the back-end editing or groups, you might be interested to know that you can Add New Members to the group and Manage Member roles here too. Those parts are directly below the Name and Description box. If you can’t see any of these options, you might have to select screen options in the top right and tick their selection boxes to get them to show below.

Hope this helps!

[donalconlon]

I am finding if i add a public/private forum to a group it will work fine. If i change the forum status to hidden it is no longer available to the group. If i set the forum back to private/public, it is still not part of the forum. The only way I can assign a forum to this group is to create a new one. Less than ideal.

[BewitchingFiction]

Hi, I actually came here to see if anyone else had found a resolution for this issue. I have found one template that displays the ‘hidden’ groups as they should be shown on the relevant profiles but after several comments from people on the forums decided to go with a different theme yet I am unable to find one that still displays the hidden groups on the profiles (one is just a group with no forum but a chatroom as it’s used for weekly meetings so it wouldn’t even be possible to find it using ‘most recent posts.’.

Any advice/information would be greatly appreciated. Hidden groups are important to the running of my site as they are where the mods meet to discuss any issues and have some time away from the rest of the forum, but they are of no use if even the members of them can’t find them.

[shanebp]

Note that BP installs usually use bbPress for forums.
Integrating BP and Simple Machine Forum may not be easy or even possible.

The best approach is to clone your site as a dev site and try things out.

[zeesh49]

thanks for the response, I searched google as well as this forum, nothing…

One resolved query on this forum says to implement virtual host, did that, nothing, I checked the html, the signup form tag doesnt have an action set, I can update that in the php file, but to what?

Another post suggests thats its because of the fact that no email is registered, I wana confirm that before looking into sending emails from localhost…

[djsteveb]

bp works with default 2015 theme fine (pretty sure, 2014 theme I know), and most others.

never tried localhost thing, perhaps search the forum for “localhost or local host” to see if others have found settings or components needed to run in that environment.

[shanebp]

Your question is better asked on the bbPress support forum.

The fix is simple – open to the file and go to the line in question and change function display() to function display($group_id = NULL)

[@mercime]

@dleit Re: There is a picture to the right of the instruction depicting how step 7 should go, but I don’t ever see that screen when I try to do step 7.

Looks like you deactivated bbPress. If you activate it again and cannot find the Forum Attribute box, then I suggest you try re-uploading bbPress via s/FTP or you can delete bbPress from the admin backend then install it again.

[@mercime]

@knutta you need to install bbPress then follow instructions at

Installing Group and Sitewide Forums