XF 2.3 Some forums "Private" to guests. But not all

[Goldoff]

I can't figure out why some forums (and only some, apparently randomly) appear as "Private" to visitors/guests. When accessing them, a "no threads yet" warning appears.

Apparently, in the ACP, those nodes are configured exactly the same as those that can be viewed.

To make matters worse, some of the already accessible forums are still displayed as private...

Any idea on why?

Using XF v2.3.7

 

[ENF]

Here's a small demo of how it works.

Using these permission toggles:


Standard View, No specific restrictions: (can view forum sections & threads, etc.)


Changing the FORUM CATEGORY "Demonstration Environment" to the following:


Results: (The usergroup changed, sees the following)

[Can still click on sub-sections Alpha, Bravo & Charlie, but there's no content to view]

Changing the FORUM CATEGORY "Demonstration Environment" to the following:


Results:
[The entire category is removed from viewing and is not displayed at all]

Solution:
Look at your permission settings related to node permissions for the affected groups. Look at the basic settings that I displayed above and see how they line up. If you have a large amount of user groups, it may take some time to configure the way you'd like. For anything related to guests/visitors, please be sure to check the "Unregistered / Unconfirmed" group for the affected nodes/sections. Depending how how your categories or nodes are configured, consider how the children of any section would be affected as well. I used the category section in the demo above, which automatically applies to the children (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie).

 

[Goldoff]

First of all, thank you very much for the effort you took to explain this.

I followed your instructions, and while I was able to fix some things, I'm still wondering why some forums under the same category (and configured exactly the same) appear correctly, others appear as "private," and within the latter, some show the threads they contain when you click on them, while others simply tell you they don't contain any threads (when they do).

The user group I'm having trouble with is the "unregistered/unconfirmed" group, which, due to its nature, doesn't have an "inherited" option.

As I said, I followed your instructions, but the results are inconsistent and even illogical... I'll keep trying, though

 

[ENF]

The user group I'm having trouble with is the "unregistered/unconfirmed" group, which, due to its nature, doesn't have an "inherited" option.

Be sure you're looking at Node Permissions, it should look like this: (There is an inherit setting here vs what you see in user group permissions)



From this page: ../admin.php?permissions/nodes/, you can see which nodes/categories have been modified with custom permissions. If the name of the line is in red, it's been modified -- otherwise, it's following the default behavior.

I'm sure you that you can get to your goal, but sometimes it takes a moment to get it configured correctly. If you have a test site to work with, that'll help you work things out before making a bunch of changes on your production site.

 

[Goldoff]

I'm sure you that you can get to your goal, but sometimes it takes a moment to get it configured correctly. If you have a test site to work with, that'll help you work things out before making a bunch of changes on your production site.

In the end, it was a mix of poorly configured permissions and their interaction with a customized style. Thanks to you and some outside help, I was finally able to fix it and learn a little more about permission settings in the process.
I'm very grateful to you and Andy