I’m getting a ton of spam signups. But, what’s weird is that, while they all show up as “users” in my dashboard, only some of them show up as “members” visible on the site. http://www.manfromscratch.com/members/
I have the “Prevent spam sign ups by redirecting wp-signup.php to BuddyPress register slug” option checked in the Buddpress Extended Settings plugin.
How are these people registering? For what it’s worth, I currently have 36 Members and 54 Users in my dash.
Thanks!
Hey @themightymo,
I did try SI Captcha, I was getting a strange PHP error by which the code was never successfully validated (even when entered correctly). I ended up settling on Sweet Captcha, which is a pretty neat idea, but it’s one of those annoying plugins that inserts a ton of sitewide javascript and css rules, so I’m working to hack these out with the exception of the register page.
I would still be interested in knowing how to filter user registrations though, in addition to whatever Captcha method I use I wouldn’t mind adding a honeypot as a redundant safeguard.
Hi guys. How are you. my website is done with buddy press. Beginning from today i start to invite my friends to it, and 3 of them registered today,two users already did it before. the thing is that when anather my friend wanted to register she did it, but she was not able to log in, and she was not listed in newly registered members list at all, then other two also tried, they did being registered, but they are having the same problem, and i can not see them in members list.
At the same time i did not receive in my email that the last person was registered, the confirmation did not came, as i am an admin of website. i did check my spam, no. at the same time i can not see her in ajax chat online, but she is telling me that she is sitting up there, and i am sittin also online. interesting thing is that the green round flash in ajax somehow bumped to drop down menu in there, it is also strange. i checked my mysql admin all of 9 users are being available there. But are in website in members i can see only 5 person. pls guys i was wondering if you pls can help me, i would really apreciate your help.
Which CAPTCHA plugins have you tried that have not worked?
Have you tried the following: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/
Hi BP Community,
I have a slightly urgent problem and could really use some quick advice. My site seems to have gotten large enough to attract a couple of the black hat seo scripts that automate user registrations. I’ve had to temporarily disable registration while I figure out a way to if not eliminate, at least reduce the number of these that get through. I looked into a couple of the Captcha programs, and ran into a problem.
* The captcha field was displayed on the registration page, but it’s contents did not affect whether a submitted registration was processed or not. It seems like some of the WordPress captcha options that are out there are not hooking into the right thing to filter BuddyPress registrations. I’ve seen some other recommended solutions add a filter to:
`bp_core_validate_user_signup`
I wasn’t able to get this filter to actually stop the registration from proceeding, though. It seems a lot of the BuddyPress captcha related solutions out there were designed for WPMU, which used a different set of registration functions. I could really use a hand figuring out how to filter an extra level of human authentication into the registration process.
Thanks in advance,
Andrew
You probably found the solution by bow, just thought I should post for future reference. Also had the same issue a few weeks ago and found this: http://wp.tutsplus.com/tutorials/security/best-practices-for-preventing-buddypress-spam-user-registrations/
Hope it helps you or the next person looking for the solution.
Just checked ,… Whenever i log into my sub sites … i get the following errors in my log file===
WordPress database error Table ‘wp_multisite.wp_3_bp_user_blogs’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT b.blog_id) FROM wp_3_bp_user_blogs b LEFT JOIN wp_blogs wb ON b.blog_id = wb.blog_id WHERE wb.public = 1 AND wb.deleted = 0 AND wb.spam = 0 AND wb.mature = 0 AND wb.archived = ‘0’ AND user_id = 0 made by require_once(‘wp-load.php’), require_once(‘wp-config.php’), require_once(‘wp-settings.php’), do_action(‘init’), call_user_func_array, bp_init, do_action(‘bp_init’), call_user_func_array, bp_setup_nav, do_action(‘bp_setup_nav’), call_user_func_array, BP_Blogs_Component->setup_nav, bp_blogs_total_blogs_for_user, BP_Blogs_Blog::total_blog_count_for_user
===
Any idea what is this about?
BuddyPress requires that users activate their accounts after registering. The activation link is sent via email to the registrant. It is likely that either your php mail configuration is messed up or that the email in question went into the user’s spam folder.
In any case, you can use this plugin to manage activations: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-pending-activations/
The only time that I’m getting this warning is when replying to a comment. The lines (316-332) of the code for this section are below. Does anybody know how to prevent this warning? I know that I can cover it up, but I’d rather fix the problem than sweep it under the rug. I am using WP 3.4.2 and BP 1.6.1
‘$comment_id = bp_activity_new_comment( array(
‘activity_id’ => $_POST,
‘content’ => $_POST,
‘parent_id’ => $_POST,
) );
if ( ! $comment_id )
exit( ‘-1
‘ . __( ‘There was an error posting that reply, please try again.’, ‘buddypress’ ) . ‘
‘ );
// Load the new activity item into the $activities_template global
bp_has_activities( ‘display_comments=stream&hide_spam=false&include=’ . $comment_id );
// Swap the current comment with the activity item we just loaded
$activities_template->activity->id = $activities_template->activities[0]->item_id;
$activities_template->activity->current_comment = $activities_template->activities[0];
$template = locate_template( ‘activity/comment.php’, false, false );’
Buddypress version: 1.6.1
Wordpress version: 3.4.2
I just found out that the number of friends is not correct if one of the friends is marked as spam or deleted by the site admin.
Example:
User A has three friends: f1, f2 and f3. Now the site admin deleted the user f2. The main nav (friend) for user A still shows the number of friends to be 3, even though only f1 and f3 show on page.
The same thing happens after marking f2 as spam. I do this by set the user_status from 0 to 1 in database.
I search the code and found out the function friends_get_total_friend_count () is used. This function returns the user meta ‘total_friend_count’ as the friend count.
So my question is, how do I fix this? Should I forget about the “total_friend_count” meta and recalculate the number of friends in the function friends_get_total_friend_count ()?
Or should I update the user meta “total_friend_count” each time when a user is marked as spam, deleted, or recovered from being marked as spam?
Any suggestions?
@MickeyRoush
Thankyou very much, I’ll check these up, seems like it could be what we need…
Baffling.
We could either lower your version number, so BP would re-run the update (I have no idea if this would have any other consequence), or add the missing column in manually:
Add a new column to the wp_bp_activity table:
name: is_spam
type: tinyint(1)
NOT NULL
DEFAULT 0
Then add a new index key:
KEY is_spam (is_spam)
Before you do this, find a way to trigger the SQL error in your log. Then modify the DB table, and then try to trigger the SQL error. Hopefully that’ll be fixed, and then we can see if it affects your activity posting error. Make sure you backup your database first 
Thank you. So to know if akismet works, I will have to wait until the first spam is marked by akismet?
Ok ill give the BP Humanity plugin a go, thanks
Regarding the WP_DEBUG errors. Have you recently upgraded to BuddyPress 1.6+? There was a schema change, and we added the is_spam column in the wp_bp_activity table, and your error message says that it doesn’t exist.
Can you look inside your WordPress admin area, and check that you’ve not got some pending update action? https://i.imgur.com/MseHC.png
In your WordPress admin area, there’s a “Activity” item in the main menu list. On this page, there’s a button to filter to view only spam posts, and if any have been marked as akismet, there’s a little label nearby that says “marked as spam by akismet” etc.
yeah, i haven’t quite known what to “do” with akismet since they started charging. there is something “odd” about paying to “not get” spam — especially when anyone can “create” spam — so theoretically — akismet could make spam that gets through spam filters other than their own.
or something like that.
i have some other spam filters activated and they seem to work so it’s not biggie for now.
thnx for your feedback paul!
cheers,
dainis
Thanks for the response. I will do that. Just a quick question, after getting the Akismet API kay and installing Akismet, how do I know if Akismet works against activity spams? Is there a way for me to test that?
@megainfo @djpaul i can’t post updates to groups *or* my profile.
this is what i get with debug on (mind you no errors in chrome dev tools)
`WordPress database error: [Unknown column ‘a.is_spam’ in ‘where clause’]
SELECT a.*, u.user_email, u.user_nicename, u.user_login, u.display_name FROM wp_bp_activity a LEFT JOIN wp_users u ON a.user_id = u.ID WHERE a.is_spam = 0 AND a.user_id IN ( 25 ) ORDER BY a.date_recorded DESC LIMIT 0, 20
WordPress database error: [Unknown column ‘a.is_spam’ in ‘where clause’]
SELECT count(a.id) FROM wp_bp_activity a USE INDEX (user_id) WHERE a.is_spam = 0 AND a.user_id IN ( 25 ) ORDER BY a.date_recorded DESC
WordPress database error: [Unknown column ‘is_spam’ in ‘field list’]
INSERT INTO wp_bp_activity ( user_id, component, type, action, content, primary_link, date_recorded, item_id, secondary_item_id, hide_sitewide, is_spam ) VALUES ( 25, ‘activity’, ‘activity_update’, ‘wec posted an update’, ‘ajax 2’, ‘http://tier1alumni.com/members/wec/’, ‘2012-11-02 00:53:15’, ”, ”, 0, 0 )
-1
`
@ A Swede in Greece
You could try this plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stop-spammer-registrations-plugin/
But you’ll want the beta version as it fixes an issue with BuddyPress
http://www.blogseye.com/beta-test-plugins/
Also, you should look into installing ZBBlock.
http://www.spambotsecurity.com/zbblock.php
The spam comment by “panlong” is still here after 2 weeks and 5 days…This says a lot about BuddyPress I think. We have started up a new site with BP, still not ready, but I think we’ll have to close it because of all spam members and spam activity, if we can not get help how to stop it. It’s UNBELIEVABLE how much spam we get. Three persons had made 100 membership each as well!!!
This Akismet plugin is for comments, but this is not so much needed as you can have comments with moderation.
I really think spam protection should be included from the beginning in the BudyPress plugin!
Another issue as well is that someone made a group without showing who created it. It doesn’t show up in the activity stream, even if I filter “created a group” either.
Something else, the page forums doesn’t show up. It says:
The forums component has not been set up yet.
What do I need to do?
The below used to work to help stop spammers, it was placed in the wp-config, however it doesn’t work any longer. Does anyone know the replacement for it?
`define( ‘BP_REGISTER_SLUG’, ‘whateverwordyouchoose’ );`
I’ve found that BP Humanity helps with spam robots but not human spammers.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-humanity/
For human spammers, you may need to approve each user.
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-registration-options/
Hi, my wordpress buddypress site http://www.releasethereal.com seems to get a lot of spam profiles sign up. Whats the best way to keep the spam count down i currently use these plugins:
Akismet
SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam
Is there any others i should know about?
Found out that this was caused by “Stop Spammer Registrations Plugin”. It has an “Undefined variable: email” within its code.
