Reporting author-only doc permalink broken

Hi @drbtt – Thanks for reporting this.

You don’t mention whether the bouncing back-and-forth happens with specific kinds of users. Is it logged-out users, or logged-in-but-no-access, or the author, or the admin, or some of these, or all?

Also, it may help to know whether this item is associated with a group, especially a group that is non-public.

Are you running any other plugins that interact with redirects or privacy settings?

Hi Boone,

It is a private site so only when users are logged in and try to access this “doc” in the library — this is specific to all users who are not the doc author as it only happens when a user sets a doc to “author access only” i.e so it is only them who can read/write the doc.

No association with a group found, just that when an author-only doc is created and then if a user sees this doc in the library and tries to access, the URL attempts to work and fails i.e. goes from said permalink (name) to other (post number) even though permalinks have been checked.

As for other plugins, no — I had developer look over this and check settings etc and it was reported an issue with the permalinks and its set-up.

Hope this helps!

Besides that what you’ve managed to do with docs and achieve is awesome ??

Thanks for the additional info. A few follow-up questions:

– You say the site is “private”, but this must involve the use of another plugin. How are you keeping everything off-limits to non-authenticated users? I’m about 80% certain that what’s happening here is a result of the interaction between that plugin and Docs.
– You say that “if a user sees this doc and tries to access”, but you don’t specify which kind of user. Does this happen for the author as well as for non-authors?
– You say “it was reported an issue with the permalinks and its set-up”. Can you give more information about this? Did the debugging lead to something specific in the rewrite system? Or is this conclusion the result of a process of elimination? I ask because it doesn’t sound to me like a rewrite problem at all. If there were a problem with rewrites, the page would likely not resolve at all; redirects of the sort you’ve described are generally due to conflicting plugins that do access-protection. In the absence of direct evidence, my intuition is that “permalinks” and related settings are a red herring.

Hi Boone,

Thanks for the follow-up and apologies for the delay!

To answer your questions, being mindful that the core issue here is that the permalink is off i.e. when an author only doc is clicked from non-author i.e. say anyone else on the site, the permalink changes between the post# and the post-name before it ‘gives up’ and the page does not load i.e. instead of showing a no-access / restricted output (or simply the post name without access, whichever it may be).

Anyone who is on the site is a registered member i.e. so no visitors are even allowed, and all members have the same access levels, for example i.e. to access and create docs as they wish and/or to have them private (author only) or public (share with other site members). I contacted support for the membership plugin and they’re the ones who picked up the permalink misbehaving and suggested I get in contact here ??

Author can access their work/doc from the link (i.e. site activity has the URL of the docs) but issue is simply when a non-author tries to access — as in, it should still take them to a page (but, without doc access…that would be hidden from non-authors) but rather, it simply switches between post# and post-name in the URL when clicked until it eventually ‘tires out’ and then the page is ‘page won’t load’ error.

As for the result, this is from the URL — it is clear when it happens i.e. non-author clicks on author-only doc (in site activity) and instead of being taken to no access / private — the URL switches — this is the issue, the permalink goes from post# to post-name back-forth-back-forth then gives up — so site permalinks have been checked to always be post-name (always) but for some reason when a doc is created as author-only and a non-author tries to access, the URL bounces between the two — this is instead of say simply showing restricted/private doc.

So page does not resolve in this instance, the URL switches between post# (which shouldn’t even be the case with site set to post-name) and post-name before page won’t load/resolve at all — apologies for the lengthy reply, this is new territory at my end, but I’m a huge fan of what you’ve been able to achieve with this plugin (it’s quite literally brilliant, Boone) and hope there’s a way around this ??

Thanks for the help, and greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the update.

> I contacted support for the membership plugin and they’re the ones who picked up the permalink misbehaving and suggested I get in contact here

These additional details are helpful, but they still confirm my suspicion that this has nothing to do per se with permalinks, but instead with an incompatibility between Docs and the redirection performed by your membership plugin. If you can provide information about that plugin (ie, what it’s called) and how you have it configured, I may be able to look more deeply.

No problem > Membership2 — though I haven’t picked up an issue here, rather with the permalink bouncing between the two types; I say this only because anyone with access, needs a membership, and its only happening with author-only, but if an issue with the plugin I’m more than happy to report that then in turn to the plugin devs — thanks Boone!

I see from the plugin page that the “pro” version includes “Custom post-type protection” as a feature. If there’s a control panel in the version you’re using, try disabling protection for thebp-doc custom post type.

Are you using the free version or the “pro” version?

Thanks!

Hi David,

Thanks — apologies, Pro version is being used.
Yes — disabled the feature (no protection now)
Tested to see if helps but problem persists?
Note, admin can ‘get to’ page without issue, but non-admin and non-author issue persists?

I’ve reviewed the issue and I think I’ve found the culprit. It’s not a conflict with Membership2, but in fact with BuddyPress, since BP 2.9. (As suggested above, it doesn’t have anything to do with permalinks.) See https://github.com/boonebgorges/buddypress-docs/pull/639 for technical information.

Thank you very much ?? Bounces to homepage now ?? Would be super down the track if went to ‘restricted content’ display or similar.

Thank you for the help Boone! ??