Issue with sharing membership with existing user

I've run into another interesting user experience and not sure what is and isn't supposed to happen.

If a primary plan user shares the membership with an existing user already in the system, what is supposed to happen?

I know when a shared used clicks the "accept" link in the email, they are directed to the sign up page. If they are new, the whole thing works great! The proper emails notices go out, and they are activated

However, If they already exist this is what I find happening:

If they complete the sign up form and press sign up, the system sees they already exist and the next message indicates they only need to login. But when they do, they are met with a "blocked message" For some reason, the system does not enable the user.

When I tried a second time, but this time instead of completing the sign up, I logged in using the login module, I end up with the same "user blocked message".

The workaround now would be to manually enable them, assuming the user sends the admin an email about the issue.

Any ideas what's supposed to happen?

Blocked message? Please provide the full message of exactly what you're seeing. A user can't register with the same email address twice. That'll be blocked by normal Joomla registration. It sounds like you have CB AntiSpam duplicate registration protection enabled though and it's probably blocking their registration due to duplicate accounts with same ip address.

As for accepting a shared subscription as an existing user all they should need to do is login for it to accept or click the link after having logged in.

I haven't been able to replicate the message but tried again with another dummy user account. I also checked the AntiSpam logs and nothing was showing as blocked. Here are three scenarios/user workflows I tried:

[hr]

Scenario 1
Primary user shares membership with existing user who previously had their own plan (expired)

When they accept the share, they are met with the reactivate option to their own original plan (i.e. need to pay)

Attempted solution was to make sure the second user is not part of the plan they originally had (i.e. delete plan in their profile so it shows as none). This did not work.

This warning message appears:
Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website.

Back end shows X in the enabled column

[hr]

Scenario 2
Primary user shares membership with existing user who was either removed (unshared by a primary user) or cancelled themselves.

a) If the shared user login they are also met with the same warning message: "Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website."

b) f the shares user completes the sign up form (with the same username, email & password) they get this message:
"You are already signed up with this username and password. Sign Up Complete. You may now login"

When the user logs in they get the same warning message: Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website.

Back end shows X in the enabled column

in both cases the URL of the error message is .../cbprofile/pluginclass/cbpaidsubscriptions?do=accountexpired

[hr]

Scenario 3
Primary user shares membership with existing user who completes sign up form but changes the username

They get this message: Error: The email address you entered is already in use. Please enter another email address.

[hr]

All in all the sharing of memberships to an existing user doesn't seem to work as expected. In most cases sharing of memberships would be with new users anyways, so these issues aren't deal breakers. What I haven't tried yet is what happens when that new user is unshared. In this case, they would have never been part of any previous plan, so presumably would be able to either grab their own plan or be shared with another.

Scenario 1
Primary user shares membership with existing user who previously had their own plan (expired)

They can't accept a shared subscription for a plan they already are subscribed to. This should be ignored for expired states though as it should only be checking for existing active subscription. Have added a bug ticket to fix.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/8344

a) If the shared user login they are also met with the same warning message: "Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website."

That's normal. You have your site configured to require a subscription and they no longer have one.

b) f the shares user completes the sign up form (with the same username, email & password) they get this message:
"You are already signed up with this username and password. Sign Up Complete. You may now login"

They should not be able to register with an existing username and email address. Their registration should be blocked by validation in that case. Are you sure the username and email matches an already existing user exactly?

Primary user shares membership with existing user who completes sign up form but changes the username

Changes the username where? In profile edit? That wouldn't throw an already in use email address error unless you're also changing the email address and it matches an existing account. This wouldn't have anything to do with CBSubs Family Plans.

Please keep in mind email address is irrelevant to CBSubs Family Plans regarding accepting the subscription. Its sole purpose is to whom to notify about the shared subscription. Beyond that it's irrelevant. Accepting a shared subscription is entirely tied to the code included with the accept link.

Typically an existing user should login then use the link to accept the shared subscription OR login AFTER using the shared subscription link. Both cases don't work for you because you've CBSubs configured to not allow free registrations without a subscription. Have added a feature ticket to see if CBSubs Family Plans can do anything about that, but it's not likely since that happens really early in the process.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/8345

Scenario 2 : Primary user shares membership with existing user who was either removed (unshared by a primary user) or cancelled themselves.
a) If the shared user login they are also met with the same warning message: "Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website."

That's normal. You have your site configured to require a subscription and they no longer have one.

The error I was referring was a user that had been deleted in the share page or the user cancelled themselves. Meaning it seems like they can be added back as a share if they had been removed. I'm not sure if that's supposed to happen.

Scenario 2 : Primary user shares membership with existing user who was either removed (unshared by a primary user) or cancelled themselves.
b) If the shares user completes the sign up form (with the same username, email & password) they get this message:
"You are already signed up with this username and password. Sign Up Complete. You may now login"

They should not be able to register with an existing username and email address. Their registration should be blocked by validation in that case. Are you sure the username and email matches an already existing user exactly?

This makes sense. The thing is even after they get the message and try to login the share didn't seem to take. That's why they get the message: "Notice: A membership is needed to register on this website." The back end also confirm they were not activated or added a a shared user.

Typically an existing user should login then use the link to accept the shared subscription OR login AFTER using the shared subscription link. Both cases don't work for you because you've CBSubs configured to not allow free registrations without a subscription. Have added a feature ticket to see if CBSubs Family Plans can do anything about that, but it's not likely since that happens really early in the process.

Oh, ok. I suppose if I create a limited access user group could get them past the issue for now. I think what I also need to do is add a note in the activation email along the lines of ..."If you already have an account on our website, please login first before clicking the accept link...."[

Thanks!

The error I was referring was a user that had been deleted in the share page or the user cancelled themselves. Meaning it seems like they can be added back as a share if they had been removed. I'm not sure if that's supposed to happen.

You mean the used the link to accept the shared subscription again after having cancelled or the shared subscription was deleted? Sorry, don't understand the issue. Please provide steps to reproduce this. A share link should only be usable one time. Once it's cancelled or deleted it doesn't exist anymore to be used again.