Jason (Lead Developer)

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

OK. Well with that s2-hacks.php file, the log entry is wrong. It should say: “Redirecting Customer to a custom URL after modification: http://www.merrilldance.com/calendar/“, but it’s does NOT say that.

Something is off somewhere. Please submit a Dashboard login and I’ll run diagnostics for you. Please use this private contact form: s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Thanks for the heads up on this thread :-)

Please help as previous message, why aren’t any emails being sent to new members with their new login details? This is in regard to using the registration form (not pro form).Why is it in pro form it sends out login details no problems but not in the registration form method?

deactivated all plugins
changed theme
installed email logger plugin — S2 not sending emails
re configured S2 from scratch

Still same problem any ideas??

Please submit a Dashboard login for me to review. It sounds to me like your PayPal IPN Integration is not yet completed, or is failing for some reason. Logging needs to be enabled on your installation as well, so you can track what’s really going on here.

Please see: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Options -› Account Details -› Logging
Please use: s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Thanks for your inquiry. ~ We appreciate your patience :-)

add_action ("wp", "my_custom_capabilities");

Also, I’m curious if in the above code, does redirecting to S2MEMBER_MEMBERSHIP_OPTIONS_PAGE_URL mean that the user will be blocked, or meaning that they will be let through?

You’re blocking access, and instead redirecting them to your Membership Options Page, so they can pay you for access. Feel free to change that to whatever you prefer. If you have a special page that will display information more specific to this scenario, please use that instead. Just hard-code a URL of your choosing if you like.

1. Have a restricted set of pages, which I’ve already set in the S2Members settings, which are only accessible with Level 2 or higher. Level 2 is the all access level. (I know this probably should be level 1, but let’s leave it if that’s cool)

2. Be able to assign custom capabilities to users who are not Level 2, so they can access bits and pieces. Level 2 would be all access.

I see your dilemma. These two concepts really conflict with each other, because content protected at Level #2 or higher, is based on Membership “Levels”, whereas Capabilities provide more control, and grant access to specific things. So in this scenario, the fact that you have content blocked (and it requires Level #2), really goes against what you’re trying to accomplish in my opinion.

I suggest that you unblock the content from Level #2, and instead require Level #1 only. Then go back to your Custom Capabilities and do what you need to do with those. This way anyone that IS a Member (i.e. they have a Level #1 Membership), can gain access of some kind, based on your Custom Capabilties.

Now, in your Custom Capabilties, you might have two of them.

• Custom Capability “all”, which provides access to anything/everything, so long as they ARE a paying Member at Level #1 or higher.
• Custom Capability “limited”, which provides access to a subset of information on your site.
• You could of course, create additional Custom Capabilities that might break down what “limited” really means (i.e. music, videos, or something more specific if you like).

So you might end up with a custom script like this:

add_action ("wp", "my_custom_capabilities");

function my_custom_capabilities ()
	{
	if(has_tag("smartbuying") && !current_user_can ("access_s2member_ccap_all") && !current_user_can ("access_s2member_ccap_limited"))
		{
		header ("Location: ".S2MEMBER_MEMBERSHIP_OPTIONS_PAGE_URL);
		exit();
		}
	}

So will the Pro Forms work even if I dont have Paypal Pro….I mean for my other levels. I only have Paypal standard.

That is correct. Free Registration Forms will work regardless.

However, the use of PayPal Pro Forms to charge customers for paid access, does require that you have a PayPal Pro account, in order to facilitate on-site credit card processing through a Pro Form. So if you’re planning to charge for access to Level #2, you will need to use a PayPal “Button” instead of a Pro Form. Or, you can read over this article about how to get Pro Forms working without a PayPal Pro account, via Express Checkout (free).

See: http://www.s2member.com/faqs/#s2-faqs-paypal-pro-not-required

Thanks for reporting this important issue.

In the log entry you posted, an existing User/Member is making a purchase. So this is NOT a new customer, it’s an upgrade for an existing User on your site. The success="" attribute only deals with NEW paying customers, it is not designed to support upgrades, which should really lead the customer back to their account.

Please create this directory and file:
/wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-hacks.php
(NOTE: these are MUST USE plugins, see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Must_Use_Plugins)
(See also: http://www.s2member.com/kb/hacking-s2member/)

Please let us know if problems persist :-)

Awesome. That’s great to hear.

Yes, please let us know if you have any trouble with the other issue.
Feel free to create a new topic for that. Thanks!

Thanks for reporting this important issue.

It sounds to me like these are byte-range requests coming from mobile devices. When you’re trying to reach a large audience and support multiple devices, I would strongly encourage you to integrate s2Member with both Amazon S3 and CloudFront for maximum compatibility where audio/video are concerned.

From what you’ve described, it sounds to me like a byte-range request is being performed by a mobile device, and since s2Member’s default WordPress-based file server does not support byte-range requests, the file is being served again from the beginning, instead of from a specific byte-range.

In other words, the mobile device is not trying to download the file ONE time, it’s trying to download it multiple times, but starting at different byte-ranges each time, until it gets the entire file. s2Member’s default file server does not support this yet. However, it is supported by s2Member through Amazon CloudFront integration.

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Download Options -› Amazon® S3/CloudFront CDN Storage

This has only recently come to our attention, that mobile devices have started making more and more requests like this. While we have every intention of updating s2Member’s default file server to support this, we’re not there yet. Even so, I would still encourage you to integrate with CloudFront for the best experience, from both a site owner’s perspective, and also from a customer’s perspective. CloudFront is going to be faster, more reliable, and more compatible across different kinds of devices. And, since s2Member is already integrated with CloudFront, it’s really a great way to go.

Or, if you’d prefer to wait, we’re working to release an update that adds byte-range support to the default WordPress-based file server that comes with s2Member. Hopefully our next update will resolve this for you.

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

You can access this via PHP using the s2Member global options array.

Thanks for your inquiry.

~ We appreciate your patience :-)

1. I want my site to be a membership site, with 2 levels of membership – free and paid. The main aim of my site is to offer paid members technical advice via a Q&A. The way I want it to work is for paying members only to be able to view the Q&As, a paying member can ask a question but ONLY I can respond to the question.
Does s2Member support this, and what Q&A plugin would best suit my needs?

I can’t offer any specific advice about a Q&A plugin, because really, I’ve not spent any length of time testing a bunch of existing plugins for something like this. Generally speaking, I would suggest building something like this for yourself, or with help from a freelancer at sites like Elance.com, where you might find someone you can hire to help with this. I say that, simply because it does’nt sound like anything really complex that you need (e.g. not real expensive), but you ARE looking for some specific functionality, and having a coder helping you, will give you that.

s2Member can most definitely be integrated with things like this. Aside from basic Restriction Options in the Dashboard, s2Member also provides both Simple Conditionals, and Advanced PHP Conditionals. We call them advanced, because most aspects of s2Member are point and click. However, the Advanced Conditionals are NOT hard to work with either.

For instance, if you have a particular section of your site that needs to be protected (i.e. only YOU can access the form that allows you to answer the question, or something else like this, even if it’s related to a User/Member), you would wrap that section of your site (in the code), with a Conditional expression.

<?php if(current_user_is('administrator')){ ?>
	Display the form to post an answer to this question.
<?php } else if(current_user_can('access_s2member_level1')){ ?>
	Display a box where the customer can ask a question.
<?php } ?>

Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Advanced PHP Conditionals
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Simple/Shortcode Conditionals
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Advanced Query Conditionals

2. Subscription options: I want an introductory offer where new members sign up to a reduced rate for their first year, but to pay monthly. This will allow me to increase the rate after the first year. At the moment it appears that the Paypal options are for ongoing monthly subscription, without a fixed term.

s2Member supports a whole bunch of different options/scenarios, above and beyond what you see in the UI where the PayPal Button Generator is. Please take a look down below in that same page of your Dashboard, at the Shortcode Attributes. s2Member can certainly handle fixed-term subscriptions for you.

See: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Buttons -› Shortcode Attributes (Explained)

That being said, it is NOT currently possible to start your customers on a monthly payment plan, where the first year is billed at one rate, and the second year is billed at another. Actually, you could do this, but it would require the customer to stop paying for the original subscription, and then signup again under the new terms for the second year.

If you’re looking to make this a seamless transition from the first year to the second, where you’re simply changing the price, it’s not possible to do this with s2Member or with s2Member Pro. This is due to limitations in the payment gateway APIs that s2Member integrates with, and can be attributed mostly to consumer safety. Payment gateways generally don’t like you to setup a billing plan and then change the price on a customer, because that leads to chargebacks and confusion in some cases.

3. I’m having trouble testing my site, as I can only log on as 1 user (admin). I want to be able to view the site as a visitor, a free member and a paid member. Is there a way of doing this?

You would just create users manually from the Dashboard so you can login as someone else. From your Dashboard, go to: Users -> Add New, and give them a Role, of whatever Level you want to test as. It’s helpful to setup usernames like “subscriber”, “level1”, “level2”, so you can just login with those test accounts and view things from their perspective.

Please let us know if you have any other questions/concerns.

Thanks for your patience.

r1) These courses (events) would require on-line registration and payment.

I will leave the actual course registration itself, and how you present the course itself, out of the equation here. Except to say that I’ll assume that your Course/Event will be accessed from either a Post or Page that is created in WordPress one way or another. There are many WordPress plugins available for this type of thing, or if you plan to create one for yourself, that woud be fine too. s2Member will only help you restrict and sell access to this functionality, it’s not going to provide the actual course or events manager for you.

So let’s assume that you have a Post/Page you need to sell access to, which is where a customer gains entry to the Course/Event. As I understand it, this Post/Page would be sold through s2Member, to either a new or existing User/Member of the site, using s2Member’s “Specific Post/Page Access” functionality.

If you need to sell this access at different rates, depending upon the current status of a User/Member (i.e. whether they are already paying you for ongoing membership access or not), you would accomplish this using s2Member Simple Shortcode Conditionals.

All of this stuff is documented within s2Member, but I’ll post a quick example for you here.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]
	The discounted rate for existing Members at Level #1 or higher.
	[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form ... sp="1" ids="123" ra="5.00" /]
[/s2If]

[s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)]
	The normal rate for those who are NOT yet Members of the site.
	[s2Member-Pro-PayPal-Form ... sp="1" ids="123" ra="10.00" /]
[/s2If]

Here are the relevant areas in your Dashboard with s2Member installed.
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Restriction Options -› Specific Post/Page Access Restrictions
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› PayPal® Pro Forms -› Specific Post/Page (Buy Now) Forms
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / Scripting -› Simple/Shortcode Conditionals

There is also a video tutorial here that covers this additional layer of functionality.
http://www.s2member.com/videos/ED64B278374AB72F/

r2) They are open to both members and non-members.

I considered this above.

r3) Members would be charged a lower rate.

I considered this above.

r4) There would only be a certain number of spaces available for each course.

This is something you would need to add a counter for. It’s not something that comes with s2Member by default, but it’s not anything difficult to implement either. You can wrap the example I gave above, with an additional check to see how many people have already purchased this in the past. If it exceeds the number of slots you allow, you would display a message, instead of allowing another purchase.

When you get to this point, please let us know if you need further assistance. s2Member comes with API Notifications that make this easy to accomplish with just a couple lines of code, and we can certainly help with that. I wish you luck. Please let us know if you have any additional questions/concerns.

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

I’m continuing to investigate this. Thanks for your patience.

Could this be related to new S3 or CloudFront versions security? When I set up my s2Member CloudFront integration I copied the contents of my CloudFront key pair’s [*.pem] file into the text field without the “—–BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY—–” and “—–END RSA PRIVATE KEY—–” parts. This method worked for me on my previous setup.

No, that’s fine to do that.

QUESTION: Is the Amazon S3 Bucket (tied to your s2Member installation), or the CloudFront Distributions (tied to your s2Member installation), or any other part of your Amazon Console or API being accessed by another service or system? For instance, how do you access the Amazon S3/CloudFront Console when you’re working with your files? Do you use the Amazon website, or another software application? Do you have any other websites interacting with these files?

Thanks for reporting this important issue.

Please submit a copy (or sample) of the export file you’re actually working with, so we can understand the problem better. It sounds like there could be a problem on your installation, so if we see the export file that you’re dealing with, it might shed some light. Thanks!

Please submit the export CSV file privately.
s2Member® » Private Contact Form

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

Sure :-) Thanks again for reporting that.

One other note, and forgive me if this is apparent somewhere else, as I’m just digging in. The CCBill buttons that are generated from the button generator are not very attractive and they both look identical for the two membership levels I set up. Can I create my own buttons and have them serve the same function? What are my options?

Yes. Please check this section of your Dashboard for full details.
Dashboard -› s2Member® -› ccBill® Buttons -› Shortcode Attributes (Explained)