Subscription fee - setting up.

[shamroc]

Your phpBB Version: 2.0.
phpBB Type: Integramod 141
MODs: Yes
Your knowledge: Basic Knowledge
Board URL: http://www.shamrocs.com

PHP Version:
MySQL Version:


What was done before the problem appeared?



What was done to try to solve the problem?




De.scription and Message

I want to start charging for new members to join my forum. How do I set this up>? I have looked in configuration menu in ACP and set up paypal settings, but this doesn't work. Any ideas?

Thanks

[Michalis]

I have asked thi in another post in a different way
& found that I am still facing this prob that you
are. I know much of it is to do with group admin in acp

So I have found no pure instructions yet on getting this working.

[richiebgood]

set up all forums as being private

set up a usergroup that needs to be paid to join

this usergroup can see all forums

job done.

[DjPorkchop]

nice richiebgood

[richiebgood]

No bother lads.. I learned a lot so its my duty to give a little back.

Don't forget to check out my site.... you can't miss the link in my sig <img>

[shamroc]

THanks for your help Riche. I tried what you suggested but had a problem. I created a standard member group in Group Admin and then set forum to be private. Then if a member wanted to use that group, what you say worked and the user is advised to pay. However, i wanted existing members to be in this group and even tho I can modify forum access for all those in a standard member group , I have to go into each users profil;e individually to set it up.

However, I want to set up sub.scription for New Users only and at the registration stage, can this be done?

[richiebgood]

There is an option where you can set a min post count. I tried to set up a test group there with a min post of 1 needed. I think pressed the 'update users' buttom. Nothing happened.

I assume thatn this is ment to add all the users with a min of 1 post into the group. This may be a question for helter or other wise men

[Michalis]

hi guys unfortunatly it did not work for me for the following

set up all forums as being private

set up a usergroup that needs to be paid to join

this usergroup can see all forums

job done.

here is my post what else i have done so far to get this to work, can someone check this please to see if I am still on right track.

http://www.integramod.com/forum/viewtop ... highlight=

[Michalis]

can someone maybe help me out please I could even make a temp admin to my forum for the person who can help check my setting s& stuff <img>

any help will be very much appreciated..

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

If you have existing users on your site that you want added to the group, when you create the group, CLICK the box that says 'Add/Update new users '. This will transfer all the users into that group.

NOTE: I don't think you can set it up as once you pay your in. At least I tried,

The issue I find is setting up group permissions. It says you can set it up, but gives you no options other than moderator ON/OFF

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Something you could try is setup group and permissions. Make site private.
Leave one section open to guests and post a note that to access site, you require a $20 donation.

In the ACP>General Admin>Configuration

At the bottom, you can set donations minimum = 20
Once donation made, user joins group id = whatever the group id is.

There is an option for 2 group donations.

20 gets you in one group with partial access
35 gets you full access

Might be worth a try.

[Michalis]

this is what i dide before

Ok I am going into ACP then selecting Group Adminthen selecting the group i made subscribed membersok now in the details group status I have selected Payment Group

Number of required posts: I put zero
Number of max posts: I put zero

I also selected Add/Update new users

I pressed submit & went back into the group i created after a successful update & see that Add/Update new users was not selected.

I have also done a test where i made the forum all private & not registered hidden. made a new user and still it did not ask me to pay

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

I don't know what's going on.
I had setup a pay forum. Most of the site was free and the one section was setup for pay-group only access.
When trying to access this area, you were required to pay and couldn't view it.
It worked well. Now I can't get it to work anymore. Like I said, it won't allow setting up permissions in group permissions. Something changed since then.

[Michael Lundie]

I think there may be an error in the GroupCP form. My first idea would have been for you to create an Auto Join group. Automatically add everyone to this group and then change it to a payment group once you had current users in there.

I'm assuming you can't add members to a payment group yourself, since it is a payment group. But I didn't look in the code or try it, so I could be wrong?

If you create an autojoin group and in the 'Number of Req Posts' field put '0'. Then In 'Number of MAX posts' put '1'. Select 'Users Auto add When Posting' and Add/Update users. It will add everyone in your forum that have a post count of '0'.

I believe the 'Number of required posts' field may be causing the form to only update/add users with that amount of posts.

I didn't have a problem setting permissions for a paid group however.

I may be able to take a closer look at this the weekend comming up. In the mean time, perhaps this may help anyone else who wants to have a shot at figuring this out. =) Perhaps simply adding an 'Add all users' button might be a quick fix. Again, if I get the chance, I'll program one this weekend! (I need to do this for my own forum anyway. ^^)

Hope my waffling has been of a little help. Good luck!

[Helter]

I think there may be an error in the GroupCP form.

this could explain alot of other permission issues also. Ill be eager to see your results

[Michalis]

Hi Guys

well I have tried all the suggestions here
including making certain sections of the forum
private & private hidden

then I make a new member & see if I can get into
those sections that I have made private with payment.

I can still see those sections and enter without payment.

Does anyone have an actual working sub.scription with version 141 with other themes and not a default..

I would appreciate someone checking my settings for me in case its me <img>

[Helter]

does it work in fisubice or Integra2 for you?

[Michalis]

no it does not work for me in integra2
or any other of the themes i have <img>

[Michael Lundie]

Hi Michalis. Was the test member you created assigned to the payment group, or could you see the forums without the test member being assigned (also without paying)?


First up, make sure you have set up your pay pal account details to recieve funds. You'll find this at the bottom of the page in your main forum configuration. (Hopefully your template version allows you to see this - if not switch to another default template temporarily.) [If you skip this, when you try to join a paid group with a test user you'll just get an error telling you no account has been set up to recieve funds.]

Set up your payment group like you would any other. Select a minimum payment. (ÂÂÂ £10 perhaps. Don't enter currency symbols, you can set this up in configuration also. Just integer and decimal.) Make sure you set no free trial period. (Leave fields at 0.)

Log out, sign in with a test user - go to user groups and try to join the group. You will then be taken to paypal payment page - if you have set up an account. Once the user has paid and joined the group they can see the forum you have set 'pay group' only permissions for.

I can't yet tell you what will happen when a sub.scription runs out, but I'm assuming the user will be automatically removed from the user group. I've not got that far down the code yet.

Hope this helps!

PS: If your still having problems perhaps I can take a look this weekend - time allowing.
PPS: I'll help out Shamroc first this weekend and give him priority since he was the one who originally requested assistance about a similar, but different matter. It's likely that any problems that occur will be conected though.

EDIT: I just read your previous post Michalis and realised that you ARE wanting the same thing. I'm now wondering whether or not there is actually a problem with the programming, or whether it just works in very mysterious ways! I'll keep everyone posted.

[Michalis]

Hi Michael Lundie

thanx for your advise dude. I already have paypal set up which works well
for donations. I will go thru ur advise later tonight when i get back in from DJ'ing

I will try again with ur advise & hope something may materialize with it.

I understand the priority in helping the other guy first & thanx for reading my post too...

will let you know what happens with another reply <img>

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Actually subscribing never worked that way. When we had it working, once you paid the sub.scription, an admin still had to add you to the usergroup. It would be nice if it worked as expected.

[Michalis]

ok this is how far I have gotten after following the advise.

WHen I register & visit as a new user I can see the main portal
but when I go to forum I cannot see the sections. it does say I have to be registered to view this section...

I also noticed a bit to configure in ACP/General Admin/configuration.

so even tho I have followed advise it did not ask me for payment automatically when either registering or entering forum..

.=QUACK=.Major.Pain

u maybe right I may have to use manual take payment and move user to that group. but when they are moved to that group will sub.scription re-accure payment.

Anyway did a test as a new member entered baord and could not see the forum. so I selected user and moved them to the payment group. but once they are added they still could not see the forum.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

I don't know. We setup a pay section with adult content. It was a monthly fee, but we set it to expire and user could re-pay if they chose.

[Michalis]

.=QUACK=.Major.Pain

so are you also saying u have setup sub.scription on integramod 141 for the type of service the site is offering & works well.

If you have is there anychance you can checkout my setting for me dude please if I give you an admin account.

I would also make a manual for this for others to read and follow if it works.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

We don't use it anymore. We deleted the section.
Something has changed now, because I tried to setup a pay section to test it and it won't allow me to pay at all.

[Michalis]

shame I hope we can work together as a community to try & get
this as a fix.

[Helter]

i set it up here for 1$, but it wont let me pay myself....lol

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Funny- it used to work and when I did a new instalation, it wouldn't work anymore.
Something must have been modified in the past year that changed it to not work anymore.
As well as the group permissions which worked before too.

[Helter]

strange. I just finished comparing every file I can find pertaining to forum permission with the files on this site and they are all the same.
the only different files are includes/sessions.php and the theme overall_headers. Neither of these has anything to do with this prob.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Only thing I changed was updating CT. But if I recall everything was still working ok.
Then our host went out of business and we had to start all over.
The new install was when I saw the difference. That was about last summer sometime.

[found it]

I have a sub.scription site working in 1.4.1 and have for 2 years now.

I have made no changes to any files and it works fine....

I can check my settings if it helps...


off topic... nice theme Michalis shame the credits were not left in...

[Helter]

what credits are removed? is this one of your themes?

[found it]

yes it is but no biggie

[Michalis]

found it

I got this theme off someone else at the time
only credits was integramod. I can enter credits to theme creator if necessary.

I have done another test for group management.
even when certain sections of forum are private.

since auto sub.scription dont work when entering site and forum section I thought of manually transfering members to group to enter a section of the board. update successful but when the user goes back to forum after being updated to group it shows that the member is not in a group. hope this info helps in finding a solution to this sub.scription problem..

[found it]

found it

I got this theme off someone else at the time
only credits was integramod. I can enter credits to theme creator if necessary.

no biggie just nice sometimes to see the themes I make on other sites... with the credits intact...

I will run some tests on automaic upgrade when joining the site and check the files for possible errors ... give me a day or so...

[Michalis]

found it


I have changed the forum back to registered hidden as no one could see the forum in private settings.

If ur logged in nas a member on the site tell me the username & I will be happy to make u admin to do any tests u want.

also if u would like me to insert a banner to ur themes site i will be happy to

just give me a link.

[Michalis]

I am making another reply to this topic
to see if there is any progress in the
investigation of the the sub.scription
problem on integramod 141.

I have done many tests to try & get it to work
& still its dumb founded me hehehe

I am sure this should be something that is important
to try & fix. has anyone done a fresh install of 141
& see if the sub.scription works.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

I created one of my sites about 30 days ago and it wasn't available.
The site I did over a year ago, did work. Something changed since then.

[Michalis]

ok .=QUACK=.Major.Pain

do you or anyone else have an idea what might have changed it not to work.

I am only guessing but could it be anything to do with CTRACKER like updates. (remember I am on guessing)

<img>

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Not CT update, because my last install is still on the old CT version and it doesn't work.

Kinda stumped.

[Michalis]

just wanted to check if anyone is actually investigating the fault, cause I am waiting patiently
to see who has found the prob

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Not yet, but finding more issues.

If you set your site to only allow 3 attachments per post, you can still put as many as you want.
I have added 12 attachments when it should only allow for 3 max.

[Michalis]

.=QUACK=.Major.Pain

its very unusual with these issues turning up to this popular Integramod. so really there must be something that has changed within the .scripts from when 141 was released until now.

but i suppose that could be a number of things. I have learned alot from u guys here, just wish i had more knowledge to really help out.

cause at the moment all i can do is wait & read the problems that appear.

[richiebgood]

Just bumping this as I have the same trouble. Nothing happens when add/update users is selected.

[Michalis]

Hi guys has anyone done any further investigation to this problem or made any fixes as its been a while since we last chatted about this.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Actuaaly the site I had installed a couple years ago, did work, but I have updated CT and phpbb version (I think that was the other update). Since then, it stopped working. Guessing it is something with one of those 2 updates that has messed it up.

We had an area with adult content that required paying to gain access.
Once the person paid, the admin had to manually set user up with sub.scription access with the 1 year expiration unless user paid again then the expiry was extended.

Never had it automatically added user to usergroup.

Right now, I can't even setup usergroup as a pay group. Setting wouldn't take.

[richiebgood]

there was an update to groupcp.php in the last phpbb update, but I do not know enough about it to see why it is causing trouble.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Sounds like a good place to start looking.

A job kind of beyond my skills. LOL

[Michalis]

hehehehe
I have been waiting patiently to
see if anyone had fixed this prob <img>

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Ok - I finaaly figured out how I did this in the past.
Note: It doesn't automatically add members to the usergroup, and I don't really know if it was supposed to.

There was an issue with sub.scriptions just like the donation mod.
The security is set so high, that it conflicted with the use of paypal.

When donating or subscribing, several things have to happen.
The user chooses to donate or subscribe, they eventually have to go to paypal to complete the transaction.
After the transaction is completed, paypal attempts to send the IPN log to your site. (This is a record of receipt of payment)
Because the security is set to high, paypals IP will get banned on your site for DDoS attack.

So to get the donation and sub.scription mod to work, you need to do the following:

1) go to admin area
2) go to Security>Special
3) set "DDoS Protection Level:" to LOW - Note on strong or medium, will cause paypal ip to be banned - Must be on LOW
4) SAVE

This will now allow you to receive the IPN log, which you can view at ACP>Sub.scriptions>IPN Log
Leave the box blank and just click on "Look Up User" - This will show activity in the last 7 days.
You can change the period of time to go back further if you choose.

Now on to the sub.scription part.

a) Create a forum area and set it to "Private"

b)
1) Create a usergroup - eg: Subscribers or whatever name you choose.
2) Enter a de.scription
3) Select a moderator
4) Select Payment Group
5) Enter the fee.
6) Select recurring, length of sub.scription period, etc.
7) I would set "reattempt payment if failed" to yes to ensure you get paid.
8) Save

How it works:

1) User attempts to access private area (you may have one area, many areas, or entire site setup as private. Your choice to how you setup your site.
2) User will receive a message that it requires payment or similiar message, and user will have to click to continue to next step.
3) User must now choose a usergroup that requires payment. You can setup multiple groups.
eg: 1 month for $10, another group for 6 months for $50, etc.
User can choose the group preference they can afford or wish to join.
4) After user pays, you will receive an email of the payment from paypal.
5) You must check ACP>Sub.scriptions>IPN Log as above and see who paid and how much.
6) Now you must give user access by going to ACP>User Admin>Sub.scription
7) Enter the user name and click "Look Up User"
8) You will now see the available groups.
9) Select the appropriate usergroup that the user paid for and select "In This Group?" and set it to YES
10) Enter an expiration date (if there is one) and click on "Update"

That's it.

You will have to add each member as they pay for their sub.scription or renew their sub.scription.

Note: You should also add a forum area titled "I paid for a sub.scription and still have no access" or similiar.
This will allow members to post for help if they haven't received access yet. It happens, and we could forget, but this allows the user a place to request help and you somewhere to help users get what they paid for.

Hope this helps you understand how it works.

[Helter]

nice work Major.Pain, I think ill add this to the kb

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Your Welcome

Might need some cleaning up, or clearer explaination, but you get an idea anyway. LOL

[Michalis]

hey .=QUACK=.Major.Pain

gotta say thanx to you, as I follwed your advise
what you written out & I have managed to have
the sub.scription work. thanx alot dude really appreciate a semi fix hehehehehe

[Michalis]

I have found a problem.

when u member pays for a sub.scription and trys to enter a part of the forum which is set to to private they get the following message that they need to subscribe.

in group permission control in ACP/GroupAdmin/Permissions the simple permissions will not stay on "Allowed Access" when u press submit it always shows "Disallowed Access"

can you advise please

[Michalis]

I have found a way round the problem I have found but it takes ages. instead of selecting permissions in simple mode, it worked on advance mode which takes forever.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

You have to set the group to ALLOW ACCESS.

Then after user pays, you go to ACP/USER ADMIN/SUBSCRIPTIONS
Search the users name, and change "IN THIS GROUP" to yes. You can also set the expiration date if the sub.scription is only for 1 month, 1 year, or whatever. Then SAVE it.

This will add the member to the group forever if no expiry date or until the expiry date if you set one.

[Michalis]

Hi .=QUACK=.Major.Pain

any advise on the permission problem
about the advance & simple mode

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

We don't have availibility of the permissions. Another glitch I think.

[Michalis]

I have the subscriptions working now have been working for 4 months without any problems

Thanx integramod team...

[viragotech]

Everything .=QUACK=.Major.Pain post is the way to go.
Just member to unban the paypal IP if ya tested it and it failed once.

Took me 3 tries to get that right.

ACP/ user admin/ ban control

Though I still did/do have problems setting it up to work with a forum with sub forums. So a bunch of them take up less space on the forum page.
When I made a forum with several sub forums, when I go to set group permission to allow access as they are private sections. It will not work no matter what I did. Soon as ya reload group permission they are changed back to disallow access. Using advanced mode did not help.

I was able to get things working by using all forums, that makes the forum page allot longer but at least it works.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

Did you setup each subforum with Private only access?

Then setup the usergroup with the only permission to view these sections.

[viragotech]

Did you setup each subforum with Private only access?

Then setup the usergroup with the only permission to view these sections.

Yep, cept for view.

all private section have
view:All
reply, read, post, download are all private.

So all sections can be seen on the main forum page but only certain ones can the plubic get in. Like the rides n events sections. But we want the general public to see what all we have to tease em in too.

I was just trying to make the main forum page more clean, using sub forums within a forum, ya kow how it takes up less space.

But setting group permissions to view said sub forums, within a forum will not take effect. When you reload the page they have changed right back to disallow access.

But just have them all as regular forums and said setting above work just fine so the public can see the section, but only members can get in.

[viragotech]

Not like its a real big deal, but would be nice to figure it out.
Like our bike talk section that is 20 forums, if I change bike talk from a category to a forum, them 20 forums become sub forums and take up less space on the main forum page. Can see be seen by general public that we have such sections, but only members have access and it directs them to join / pay.

[.QUACK.Major.Pain]

I tried it on my forum and it works ok, but I think your setting it up wrong.

If you have:

Category
Forum
>Subforum 1
>Subforum 2
>Subforum 3

If you set "Forum" to Private and leave "Subforum 1,2 & 3" set at registered or less, then the subforums will be open and not private.

If you set "Forum" to Private and "Subforum 1,2 & 3" set to Private, then everything is unavailable to everyone.
Then you set a usergroup to have access to these Private areas and start adding members.