[Plugin: Page Security by Contexture] Protection not working with Categories and Posts?

There’s currently a bug with protecting terms that we’re looking into. Basically, when you protect a term (like a category or tag), it seems to be adding duplicate requirements to the protection object (as opposed to merging them.

The way it’s SUPPOSED to work is that protected terms simply cause posts to be treated as if the post itself is protected. This isn’t really the case.

More often than not, this seems to lock users out of content they should technically be allowed to access.

We’re working on a fix and will push out an update as soon as we can.

I just uploaded 1.5.6, which fixes this. It should be available via WordPress’s update panel any minute.

I have tried 1.5.6 already. But the categories and tags are still not working. I do the test by following procedure:
1. Create a user named UserA. Create a user named UserB.
2. Create a group named Group.
3. Set UserA into Group and UserB not in Group.
4. Create a category named Cat and a tag named Tag.
5. Set Cat only available for Group. Tag too.
6. Create a new post named Post.
7. Set Post with category Cat.
8. Login with UserB.
9. Open Post.
The result is I can see Post with UserB. It means the category doesn’t deny the user not in the allowed group. But it’s weird that UserB can’t see Post in the post list and search result list. It means the security check work in the list but not in the post. I think there’s some bugs in the post open function.
By the way, UserA is normal.

I download 1.5.5 to test the same procedure. But 1.5.5 works well. I think it’s weird because this post says 1.5.5 doesn’t work.
Anyway I think 1.5.6 has some bugs, please fix them.

I just downloaded 1.5.6 and can’t recognize the problems you are having. My “UserB” cannot read posts only meant for “UserA” so that part is great.

However, I do have another problem, which was also in 1.5.5. Maybe it’s just me being an idiot…it most likely is, but hopefully someone can help:

A lot of users log on to my site, they are of course in different groups.
Each group has its own menu, which I let them see through a user-defined menu in the widget area.
All menus are created from Categories, there is a Category for each user, because that allows me to make posts to the user whenever I want to show them something, it’s fast and easy for me and the user, and allows the user to see his/her posts on the frontage when logged in.
So when “UserA” who is part of “GroupA” logs on, he/she should see a menu that corresponds to his/her group, and be allowed to read the posts in that group through the menu in the widget area. The user should not be able to see the other group menus.

However, he/she can. “UserA” can see all menus (and all categories in the menus) but can still only access posts in his/her own menu.

If I make the same setup using Pages instead of Categories there is no problem. The users own menu is visible and the other menus are invisible.

Does this make sense at all, can anyone help?

I can provide user login if needed

@jacobbie:

Protected categories aren’t part of the menu filtering system in 1.5.6… the good new is that I just finished adding this feature. I’m going to try to round up a few other bug fixes and feature requests (including improved WPML support) and push those out today as 1.5.7.

@yzqiang:

1.5.5 was handling term protection incorrectly. Before, separate checks would be performed for the post AND/&& it’s terms (resulting in an AND check, with some unintended impossible scenarios)… now, posts simply inherit any protection that has been added to the term.

Now, that said, I’ve followed your report with a fresh install of WordPress and the unit test data and I just can’t replicate it. If UserB is not a member of a group attached to CategoryA, then UserB gets denied access. Can you tell me what theme & plugins you are using?

P.S. If you’re referring to protected Categories being filtered out of menus (like jacobbie), then yes – that’s a problem that will be fixed today.

@yzqiang:
Just FYI, someone in another thread helped me identify a problem with adding multiple protected terms to a post. I think this may be the same problem you are experiencing. I’ve managed to fix the problem and will be pushing out an update shortly (today).

Now, it works well.
I think your job is great! Thanks.

It is perfect, everything works the Way it is supposed to now.
You’ve done a great job, thanks a lot