I know this has been discussed on the forum many times, but I haven't found a solution yet. Along with migrating the site from J1.5 to J2.5, we wanted to offer a new free subscription plan that allows posting access only to the Kunena forum and no access to other member restricted areas, but providing an upgrade path to other paid membership plans. This aspect is working fine.
Our problem with the J1.5 site was when a membership subscription expired, the member was blocked and could not renew because a subscription was required to login. We want expired members to be able to login to the site to access their profile and submit a renewal without admin intervention.
Using free registration without a subscription, the problem I cannot seem to avoid is that these members have access to areas meant to be exclusive. Our classified ad ACL (ListBingo) only allows a distinction between registered and public access, so this registrant now has access to placing ads in a member only component. Blocking this component, or any other, with CB Subs denies viewing access to public viewers. Of course, the classifieds and the forum are now wide open to spamming and that is what is happening.
What I've tried (along with many variations):
No plan required for registration:
Free member - simply registered, no plan, no member access. Expired paid members should fall back to this group, allowing renewal.
Basic forum access only - Limited Forum Access lifetime plan.
Full member access - US, US+Assoc, Canadian and International plans (full access, only pricing is different)
Using this schema, registered users have access to member only areas and expired paid members continue to have access.
Registration requires plan:
Basic forum access only - Limited Forum Access lifetime plan. Expired paid members should fall back to this group.
Full member access - US, US+Assoc, Canadian and International plans (full access, only pricing is different)
Using this schema, full membership plans on expiration will not default to the LFA plan and members are blocked from renewing.
Your Joomlapolis plan (GUC5) seems to be the closest to what we need, but it excludes any explanation about the Advanced, Professional and Developer plans and how they are handled on expiration. I have tried a number of different membership schemas and created new Joomla user group assignments and either access is granted when it should not be or expired members are blocked and cannot renew.
I have also read on the forum that the Joomla Registered group must be used as the base registration group instead of creating specific groups for specific plans and in other posts I have read where it is not possible for an expiring member of one plan to be placed into a lower access level plan on expiration. Either way, an access control problem is created.
So, how can I configure the system to not block expired renewals and still give me the ACL control need for member only areas? What am I doing wrong and what are the proper settings to achieve this? One additional thing I need to do is change my avatar because I've torn my hair out over this!
CB 1.9.1, CBS 3.0.0 GPL, J2.5.16
krileon
