BBPress 2.3 and 2.4 Only Work When Network Enabled (Multisite)

[sysfailure0x5a]

I have a wordpress 3.6.X multisite installation. I want to provide bbpress as an option to all the users of blogs on the network. The problem is, if the plugin is not network activated users of the sub-blog cannot activate it. They get a permissions error, "You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page". The only way I’ve found to get around this is to network activate it, which I do not want. Many of my users will not need forums and by network activating it they all get the widgets, dashboard notifications, and pages created which go unused and end up indexed by google.

I have tested this on a brand new install and it works the same way. This is a seriously annoying bug and needs fixed.

[johnjamesjacoby]

All bugs are serious and annoying.

This isn't exactly a bug, as it's working how it's intended to. Whether or not to change those intentions is worth discussing, and in your use case, I can see why you'd want it changed.

Because the ability for administrators to activate plugins on multisite installations is disabled by default, and because multisite installations typically demand further consideration, we've limited most administration actions to super-admins in these installations, requiring filtering bbPress default behavior to get the results you're looking for.

In the future, we could check above mentioned option, and switch the behavior. Or, we could just change it.

It's also possible, though less likely, that something in your installation isn't correctly mapping the administrator to a keymaster, causing the redirect to fail and the activation page not to be available. That's worth investigating also.

Moving to 2.5 to investigate further.

[sysfailure0x5a]

"Because the ability for administrators to activate plugins on multisite installations is disabled by default"

EDIT/CORRECTION:
It is still a feature of Multisite. Administrators CAN and do enable plugins by for their own individual sites and is a built in feature of multisite. If I install a plugin as a super admin, any admin of a blog can enable that plugin. This is how multisite works. What they CAN’T do is install plugins, I.E upload them. They CAN however enable them. Network Activate will enable that plugin for EVERYONE without the ability to disable it. Not network activating gives users the ability to pick and choose what plugins they want to enable or not.

So here we are with the famous, "It's not a bug, it’s a feature ;-)" deal.

Forcing me to network activate bbpress is a serious flaw. I've tested this on a brand new install so it's not my environment.

So it appears I have to drop support for bbpress. I was hoping this was just a bug would be fixed before 2.5. I'll have to seek out an alternative. You should at least document this on the website and install instructions...

[johnjamesjacoby]

Replying to sysfailure0x5a:

It is still a feature of Multisite. Administrators CAN and do enable plugins by for their own individual sites and is a built in feature of multisite. If I install a plugin as a super admin, any admin of a blog can enable that plugin. This is how multisite works. What they CAN’T do is install plugins, I.E upload them. They CAN however enable them. Network Activate will enable that plugin for EVERYONE without the ability to disable it. Not network activating gives users the ability to pick and choose what plugins they want to enable or not.

I understand, and offered some solutions in my original reply.

Forcing me to network activate bbpress is a serious flaw. I've tested this on a brand new install so it's not my environment.

No one is forcing you to do anything. Everything in bbPress is pluggable, so if you require this type of configuration, bbPress will not explicitly prevent you from doing so, you'll just need to write any code you need to support it the way you want.

In the mean time, you as a super-administrator can still activate bbPress per site and assign the Keymaster role to whomever requires it. The manual intervention may be annoying, but again, bbPress will still work the way you intend for it to.

So it appears I have to drop support for bbpress. I was hoping this was just a bug would be fixed before 2.5. I'll have to seek out an alternative. You should at least document this on the website and install instructions...

2.5 is due out by the end of the month; it will take you longer to find and test a replacement that suits your needs.

In three years of bbPress working this way, you're the first to bring this up as a requirement for your site. In my opinion, this confirms that we've made the correct decision to not rush the code required to support this type of installation, and is also an indication that the rest of bbPress is stable enough to start thinking about this specific configuration.

[johnjamesjacoby]

In 5133:

About Page:

• On activation, check that current user can access About page before redirecting to it.
• Once activated, only add About & Settings links if current user can access those pages.
• Before making the current user a Keymaster, make sure they do not have a previous forum role, preventing role escalation if the current user was previously demoted.
• Fixes #2443.