Hoping you can help; running WordPress 3.5.1 with Buddypress 1.7.1 and bbPress 2.3.2

I’ve been running sitewide forums for quite a while without issue; but recently we have needed to enable groups and group forums. I have done this successfully and I’m able to create groups and add forums to them; these show up correctly under the Group Forums Category and also within people’s profiles and the group itself.

However the problem arrives when trying to create a topic in a group forum (sitewide are still fine). You can create the topic and it is listed in the group forum after the fact; however when you click on topic to view it you get a http 500 error saying the page can’t be displayed.

additionally topics posted in both privite and hidden forums also show up in the bbpress “recent topics” widget for everyone to see (even logged out people) which defeats the purpose of being private or hidden.

I’ve tried using the forum repair option and this didnt help, anyone got any ideas what the problem might be?

I’ve noticed under permalinks wordpress is complaining about access to the .htaccess file; could this cause the problem considering everything else is ok? or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks!

[@mercime Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

I’ve noticed under permalinks wordpress is complaining about access to the .htaccess file

@rigormortis_uk Did you change to a new theme or add any new plugins recently? Revert to old theme or Twenty Twelve theme and deactivate all other plugins except BuddyPress and bbPress then run Settings > Permalinks again.

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

I’m pretty sure I know why its complaining about the .htaccess file; it’ll be my new host. I moved from a shared hosting service to a dedicated host and I don’t think the file permissions for that particular file is set correctly; so I’m guess it’ll be easy to fix; but I was just wondering whether that could be causing the problem I described.

and also I’m still confused why posts from private and hidden group forums are showing up in the bbpress recent posts widget; this doesnt happen on the none group forums.

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

forgot to put @mercime so you know I’ve replied 🙂 hehe.

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

Just to make this clear, this is the first time I’ve ever activated groups (I moved hosts a number of months ago) so really I’m just wondering if that permalinks message could have anything to do with Topics in “Group” forums giving an http error 500. everything else, including topics in the sitewide forums are working fine.

[@mercime Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

@rigormortis_uk have you checked what’s in your .htaccess file recently?
Have you tried backing up htaccess file, deleting it and then running Settings > Permalinks?

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 2 months ago]

i changed the permissions on the file and the error is fixed; so back to the original issues.

Still can’t view topics in “Group Forums”. They show blank in the browser when clicking on them; but topics in the regular site-wide bbpress forums are fine. I’ve tried a different theme and disabling all plugins and still happens 🙁 also tried updating buddypress to the latest version without success.

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

Hi @mercime , thanks for trying to help earlier, I’ve managed to fix all the issues I listed, I was stupid enough to enable the legacy forums component in buddypress along side my bbpress plugin; removing that fixed the group forums.. however! one problem remains.. the bbpress widgets!

I have a group setup with its own discussion forum which is set to hidden! the forum works fine but any topic posted in it is shown in the bbpress “recent topics” or “recent replies” widget which defeats the purpose of the group forum being hidden or private.

Is there a way to fix this? I’ve tried running the repair tools located at:

http://……/wp-admin/tools.php?page=bbp-repair
“Repair BuddyPress Group Forum relationships”

However this says nothing has been repaired or changed and the problem persists.

I’m running WordPress 3.5.1, bbpress 2.3.2 and buddypress 1.8.1 (problem happened in 1.7 as well)

[@mercime Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

@rigormortis_uk glad you were persistent and resolved the group forums issue 🙂

I’m running WordPress 3.5.1, bbpress 2.3.2 and buddypress 1.8.1

I suggest updating your bbPress installation to version 2.4.1 as I remember that issue was fixed in the bbPress Trac sometime after bbPress 2.3.2. Also, I recommend updating your WP installation to the latest version as well. Of course, please back up before updating.

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

Hi @mercime

I appreciate all the help 🙂 .. however!.. (sorry!) I’ve updated to WordPress 3.7, Buddypress 1.8.1 and bbpress 2.4.1 and also ran the repair tool mentioned above and still hidden topics in group forums are showing in the bbpress recent topics and replies widgets, even to logged out people 🙁

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

Hi @mercime

ok another small update 🙂 by deleting and re-creating the groups the topics no longer list in the bbpress recent topics widget if you are not a member of said group. This is one step closer! however…

bbpress moderators are still able to see the topics listed in the widget even though they are not members of said groups…. if they click on them it gives the expected “paged cannot be found”; but again they shouldn’t even be listed and click-able in the first place?

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

and additionally adding a member with “participant” role in the forums to a hidden group does grant them full access to the group’s forum however the widgets don’t show any of it’s recent topics.

honestly its really pretty messy and I’m kinda starting to lose hope in using group forums in buddypress 🙁

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

Hi @mercime

Sorry to pester you, but is there a place I can log this officially as a bug? I saw you mention something called trac? is that where I can log it? I assume it should be logged in the bbpress trac since this is an issue with the bbpress widget?

[@rigormortis_uk Participant 11 years, 1 month ago]

Hi @mercime

I’ve logged this as a bug, I think we have got as far as we can support wise.

https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2458

Thanks for all the help! 🙂