[Kalico]

I posted this initially on the BuddyPress forum, because I did not know what the cause was. Now that I’ve narrowed it down to being related to CBOX, I’m posting it over here for further consideration as suggested by @r-a-y.

The original post is here for all the gory details.

Short version:

I have a multisite running the latest version of

• WP
• BuddyPress >> <span class=”s1″>define(</span><span class=”s2″>’BP_ROOT_BLOG’, 20);</span>
• bbPress
• <span class=”s1″>CBOX >> define(</span><span class=”s2″> ‘CBOX_OVERRIDE_PLUGINS’, true );</span>
• Everything above is (WAS) network activated.

Users noticed that private group forums had “disappeared”. They see a message that says “This group does not have a forum.” As superadmin, I can see the forum just fine in the group. This is only the case for private forums.

I ran tools to repair the group/forum relationships, and it says complete….but it says “0 forums, 0 groups were fixed” and there are 11 groups. (That might just mean that no groups/forums were broken; maybe it’s just unclear messaging.)

After a good bit of fiddling around, I finally activated bbPress only on the subsite of the network where I want it to function. This got rid of the confusing forums/topics/replies count on all the other subsites, which was probably just a red herring anyway.

So from here on, everything listed above is network active EXCEPT bbPress.

After some additional testing I pinpointed one plugin that triggers the forums to “vanish”: BuddyPress Docs (in CBOX). Here’s how I discovered it:

1) I deactivated all the CBOX plugins, except for BuddyPress. Tested forums/groups and it all appears to be associated properly. The users can see the private forums in private groups. Yay!

2) I activated the “Group Email Subscriptions” plugin via CBOX, since that one is very important to our existing setup. Forums/groups associations are still working fine. Yay again!

3) I activated the “Docs” plugin via CBOX, and WHAMM! It clobbered my forum visibility! Now only admin can see forums on the front end “group” pages. I tried deactivating it from CBOX (which makes it network-wide) then activating it just on the root site for BuddyPress, and it still has the same breaking effect.

We really need “Docs” working, so now the focus is on figuring out why Docs is breaking the forums.

Apologies to those who may see this more than once — I’m also cross posting in BP Docs (per @r-a-y) in case it’s a bug specific to that plugin.

I am open to testing suggestions, so I can figure out the true root and get it solved.

Thanks!

[Kalico]

Hello 🙂 I’ve posted this issue in three places (buddypress forums, BP Docs support on wordpress.org and here), and had absolutely no response in 4+ days (except on buddypress, where I was eventually redirected to the BP Docs forum, and here). If I’m barking up the wrong tree, I hope someone will let me know rather than just ignoring this. Right now, we’re just sitting on this problem, unable to identify whether the root issue is CBOX, BP Docs, or something else entirely. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

[Scott Voth]

@cbox_admin or @r-a-y – can you guys take a look at this issue?  Thanks.

[Boone Gorges]

Hi all – I have seen the report, and will follow up with it primarily on the wordpress.org thread https://wordpress.org/support/topic/docs-breaks-bbpress-private-groupforum-associations?replies=3

I’ll circle back here if it appears that it’s specific to Commons In A Box.

[Ray]

@marci – I took a brief look at your site as mentioned here, and it looks like your site is using the BP Group Hierarchy plugin.

What happens if you disable that plugin? Does your problem still occur?

If not, please list all the plugins that you are using.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by Ray.

[Christian Wach]

@marci I have a test install that tries to mimic your setup to the best of my knowledge (apart from the BuddyBoss theme) but cannot replicate your issue. To follow on from the suggestions from @r-a-y –

• Did you create a Parent Forum for your Group Forums?
• Have you tried switching to another theme?
• Have you applied any of the patches to the (seemingly abandoned) BP Group Hierarchy plugin?
• Does the problem persist if you disable all plugins other than CBOX and BP Group Hierarchy?

Cheers, Christian

[Kalico]

Hey thanks for the replies! Since everyone was pointing me back to the BP Docs forum, I didn’t bother to check back here….and it turns out “here” is the only place I’m getting help! 🙂 Sorry for the oversight.

I just wanted to let you know that I have seen this, and I’ll be looking into the questions raised.

Parent forum: Yes – however in testing this problem, I noticed that the parent forum was not a “category” so I fixed it. But the private forums were working fine for almost 2 years prior, and the problem has just cropped up recently. I don’t think the parent forum was ever a “category”, even while everything was fine.

Plugin testing: I have to get a copy of my server set up for testing (I can’t disable plugins on the live server), working on that now but it will take a couple days for IT to get it done.

Patches: In the meantime I’ll work on those patches for the Hierarchy plugin. I really can’t imagine being without that one. :\

Theme: I almost can’t see how the theme would be a problem. My setup was working just fine for almost 2 years, with hierarchy, docs, private groups, etc. Nothing in the theme has changed. But I will try it when I have a test server.

Also, it’s evident that something is going wrong on the backend, not just the frontend. The metabox to change the group forum from the admin side of things actually disappeared.

Here’s how I found out: I had to test one of my private groups. So I went through admin, added my test user to the group and saved it — and immediately the group lost its forum. So I went back to admin to look for the forum association metabox, and it was not there.

I remember having noticed the missing metabox at one point during my original testing of this issue, so I figure that without the feature being available when I added that test user in admin, the forum association just went to “nothing” when I saved my changes. I had to go to the frontend of the group, and use the Manage tab to select the forum that goes with the group.

If any of that provides any new clues, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll proceed as suggested and post back when I have some more info.

Thank you!!!

[Kalico]

I had to abandon this issue and project for a while, due to other priorities….but I’m back at it.

The first thing to do, it seems, is apply the patches to the BP Group Hierarchy plugin (which is really vital to my set up, so it would be really hard to turn it off). But I will admit to confusion about how best to proceed.

When I look at the plugin’s GitHub mess pages, I see 7 pull requests (the link I was directed to by @haystack above), each of which seems to have its own separate thread and multiple commits.

Do I just take the most recent commit from each of the 7? Should I do them in order, oldest to newest? Or does the newest one include the others?

One other, similar, question: I have not been able to update BuddyPress to 2.6 due to critical errors (I don’t recall the details, but it was enough that I had to revert to 2.5.3 and stay there). I am guessing now, based on the Support BuddyPress 2.6 thread, that BP Groups Hierarchy may be at the root of that problem, as well.

If I update using that patch, will it resolve everything from the other issues? or will all the other patches be necessary as well?

 

Thanks in advance for any help with this 🙂

[Christian Wach]

@marci It looks to me as though @r-a-y has collected many (possibly most) of the fixes into a branch on his fork of the BP Group Hierarchy repo. You can download the zip file from the link at the top right of that page. BP 2.6 definitely throws fatal errors when the fixes are not made to BP Group Hierarchy.

Cheers, Christian

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