Author shows up for logged in users, but not anonymous/public

OK, this is one heck of a head scratcher and it all started when I was troubleshooting the privacy tools. A quick backstory, then what I've done to troubleshoot.

I wanted to be able to have anonymous users be able to click on the Author of the blogs on the site and be shown their profile page...sounded simple.

At first it wasn't working because of some permissions stuff, and when troubleshooting that, I noticed something odd...the link to the profile page was different if you were logged in vs. if you were not, and this was tested with both the SU and a general registered test user. If you were logged in, the link was to the cb-profile... page, and if you were not logged in, it was linking to the native Joomla contact (which I realized after some troubleshooting, was a pain in its' own right) I chalked it up to not having CB Privacy fully turned on and configured, so I went there and set it up. At this point, any plugin/module/component/extension that I may have locked down permission wise, I opened back up to Public. After getting CB Privacy in working order, I made sure to open my profile up to Public.

While working through the above, things I toyed with included the Cache (turning it on, off, and everything in between), flushing my cache, force full reload, gzip compression on and off, turning plugin/module/component/extension on and off, reinstalling.

At the same time, I was shoring up my analytics code on index.php, so I audited that, again, to make sure I didn't accidently f-up the code. Then, Sleep...

Today, I wake up and now notice different behavior (obviously something refreshed)...Now for non-logged in users, I get a "Written By" label, but no Author. Log in, everything behaves fine. So instead of having a linked author that had a different link before and after login, now I have no link but a label when not logged in, and a cb-profile...link when logged in.

For settings, I did they whole audit to make sure that everything was set up to show the Author and Link using the Global Settings, making sure I covered all the usual suspects (Menu, Category, Article) were set to pull from the Global Setting. I then verified that was working by turning the Author Global Setting to "Not Display" and for any logged in user, it disappeared on the article, and turning it back on, showed it again. I reverified the work I did when I was half asleep, all looked good. For good measure, I reinstalled the CB Author plug in. Today, I played around more with the Contacts in Joomla, and noticed when I turned off the CB Author plugin, the Article now shows the Author and Link, but a link to the native Joomla Contacts.

Back to troubleshooting...Not too long ago, I also applied the Canvas layout...not sure if that has anything to do with it, and I'm using the Beez Joomla template. As far as the timing goes, I couldn't accurately remember if this issue was happening before the Canvas layout or not, nor can I account for it ever working as it was only recently I set the site up and going through my learning curve again.

I've even looked at the CB Plugins setting on the Login module making sure that was on and the configuration for it to work, matched. I also checked to see if the system would honor the CB setting for how to display the user (at least for logged in users), turning the Name to include and not include the (username), which it did honor. Also, if I take the link that is offered from a registered user and put it into the browser when I'm not logged in, I have access to the profile information (which, in itself, was a challenge to get working just the way I wanted it).

What am I missing? Screen shot so you see a visual. The logged in user is part of a custom user group that is one below "Registered" that has no additional view access above standard "Registered" (no Author/Manager/Admin/SU view rights).

Today, I wake up and now notice different behavior (obviously something refreshed)...Now for non-logged in users, I get a "Written By" label, but no Author. Log in, everything behaves fine. So instead of having a linked author that had a different link before and after login, now I have no link but a label when not logged in, and a cb-profile...link when logged in.

You have privacy controls blocking access to the formatname field which CB Author Bot uses to output the linked name or username. If you've no privacy controls for that field exactly then edit the Profile Privacy field and ensure you're not blocking access to the formatname field.

Your original issue likely had nothing to do with CB Privacy and was just either missing CB Author Bot or it wasn't properly set to public access.

So I had the settings to "Normal CB Settings" for that field, and not until I forced it to be Public, did it show up. Now, to re-lock everything and get that setting tweaked some I would think having it set to that, and having all the CB stuff opened up, would have taken care of that...I guess one thing I didn't test was disabling CB Privacy to see if that would have had an effect.

I thought I had played with that setting, or I thought keeping it default would have worked, another few hours towards mastering the ecosystem in the history books!

It seems to be working now, and I have a whole new level of understanding what those settings do

Jimmy

Just to make a mention...I reversed the change that made it work, and it did not revert to a non-working state. I'm going back and reversing a lot, to try and break it again with no luck. My cache on the site is turned off...

I consider this issue resolved, but may stop back and mention some weird (to me) things that are going on in case there is something else going on.

I really need to figure out why when I do what the tutorial video is doing, I don't get the same screens. I'm not seeing any privacy options at the user edit level for my users, no drop downs whatsoever on these fields...I'm going to flounder through this some more, but it is starting to feel like there is something else lingering in the backend causing me strife...

I'll continue to update the thread, probably a little less frequently now.

SMH, I have some wicked foot in mouth disease...basically it has to do with me not fully grasping the inner workings of the platform. There is a recipe to follow for some of this stuff, CB Privacy is one of them. Not only does it have to be a field, but it also has to be a field that will show up on your 'profile' which is a subset of all of your information.

So I gather, if I want every single field to be controlled by the user on whether or not the public can see that field, then that filed also has to have the profile option selected, otherwise, it is a mute point as that information would never be exposed to the public otherwise. OK, I think I got it now