Why Do My BuddyPress Groups Keep Breaking?
BuddyPress Tutorials, bbPress Tutorials May 26th, 2009
A few days ago, someone came to me for help with integrating WordPress MU, BuddyPress & bbPress. After a little work, we finally managed to put our heads together, sort out the issues and get everything working properly.
Logins were working together. Posts were being saved. New groups were being created. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. Until….
He handed control over to the client. Within the hour the site was broken again. BuddyPress groups refused to allow any new posts or groups. We were getting ugly red errors. The sky darkened and the birds gathered their young and went into hiding.
We were assured that the only thing that had been changed since the site was handed over was the addition of a few groups and a password change. The client had no access to the files or database that made the scripts work but that was of little comfort. If no changes had been made, what would break the site?
We disabled discussion for the groups and re-enabled them as instructed by other tutorials. The groups were immediately fixed and we could post topics again. We gave a couple of virtual high-fives and the site was handed over to the client again…. And they broke it…. again…
I started to wonder if a prank was being played on us. How was it possible that no settings or files or were being touched, yet every time the client was given control, the site made a mockery of the people doing the work?
This time, the only change that was made was another password edit. How often does a password change break an installation unless it’s in a database configuration? As far as either of us knew, never. I couldn’t think of a single troubleshooting session where that was the problem. But it had to be the problem.
I ran through my tutorial about integrating bbPress forums and something jumped out at me. One of the very important steps is to tell WPMU and BuddyPress who the administrator of bbPress is. Not only does the install need to know WHO the keymaster is, but it needs… a password!!!
We changed the admin password back to its original state and like magic, the groups were fixed. If the bbPress keymaster’s password didn’t match the settings in BuddyPress’s forum settings, it would break again.
So remember, if you, as the administrator/keymaster of bbPress decide it’s time for a password change, you must also change the password that’s being used in the BuddyPress forums settings.
