Paid Members Only, No Subscribers

Hi All,

I keep beating my head against a wall.

I only want paid members (level 1) with subscribers only as a fallback when someone lets their membership lapse.

I have some subscribers who registered without paying, so now I can’t turn off Open Registration.

I want Sign Up Now, Registration, etc. to all take a new person to pay (I don’t care if they register first and then get directed to paypal or vice versa.

I keep changing things to accommodate people who sign up but don’t pay.

I feel like S2 Pro probably does this, and that I am just making things harder.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Robyn

I don’t follow. Why can’t you? That solves the issue at a stroke.

I know. Right? I have tried several times.

General Options, Open Registration set to “No”, Save…

When I look to verify, it has reverted back to “Yes”.

I’m thinking that’s because I have I have 300+ people in the system, with about 50 as subscribers.

I’m fine using “subscribers” to store user’s data before they pay again.

-Robyn

No, that’s definitely not it. Even if you stop open registration, those subscribers will remain as they are. Closing a means of accessing your site doesn’t do anything to the status of those already on it.

So let’s take it in steps.

First, if you want to stop the free-loaders accessing your content, you can simply protect all of it at level 1. Those subscribers are at level 0, so they won’t be able to get to it.

Then you can add a Billing Modification form to the Login Welcome Page, enclosed within shortcode conditionals so that only subscribers see it. This will enable those members to upgrade to a paying level.

As for not being able to prevent Open Registration, there are two primary possibilities. One is that your installation of s2Member is corrupt. If s2Member is working properly otherwise, though, this is unlikely. It typically happens only if you installed s2Member in a non-standard manner anyway.

More likely is that you have a theme or plugin conflict. Try turning off all your other plugins and changing to the 2017 theme. If you can close registration then, you will know the issue is a conflict. Then turn things back on one by one and test each time until the problem recurs. There’s your culprit.

Thanks for the ideas.

The site is delawareseniorolympics.org

I currently have WP User Capability required for purchasing this
ticket: required
for all of their events.

Subscribers see the events, but cannot select / pay for events. You must be
logged in as a member to do that.

You may be correct concerning a plugin conflict. I will check…

My problem isn’t that subscribers can view an event (they can’t sign up
unless they are paid members).

I would just like a way to get them to pay when they complete the
registration process. I have been playing around with settings, etc., but I
feel like I am missing some fundamental feature that S2 probably does.

This is the first time I have used S2.

Do you want them to be able to pay when they first register? It looks like you do, and that’s normally what I’d recommend.

Or do you want them to register first and then pay?

Both are possible, but obviously the answers are different.

I’d like them to pay their membership fee first. Then they can signup and pay for their various events.
-Robyn

OK. The first thing to do is to turn off Open Registration. I have already explained how to do that. It’s really important to track down conflicts before trying to do anything else.

But it also occurs to me now that maybe you haven’t created a Membership Options Page (MOP). s2Member won’t do anything until you have. See General Options -> Membership Options Page

Then you go to the PayPal Buttons section in s2Member and select Buttons for Level #1 Access. Just follow the instructions to generate a shortcode and paste it onto the MOP (and/or anywhere else you like). Save the page and you’re done.

Actually, my recommendation would be to upgrade to the Pro version of s2Member. The process is much the same, but you would then create a shortcode for a form instead of a button. This makes it possible to keep users on your site instead of sending them off to PayPal.

It also makes it possible to use Stripe as your payment processor instead of PayPal. Stripe is so much better.

1 Like

Thanks Tim,

I have tried many times to turn off open registration. Configuration
changes are not being saved for some reason.

I do have a Membership Options Page — Membership Signup.

I am using S2Member Pro.

This site is for a non profit, so I didn’t use PayPal Pro (monthly charge).
I use the S2Member Pro generated button for S2Member Level1.

I had some caching problems early on, but I followed S2’s recommendations
re: pages I should exclude from caching.

I have taken your advice and contacted Stripe with the organizations 501
© (3) info.

Thinking of cache, maybe I need to clear my browser cache again.

I have also deactivated all of my plugins and switched to the 2017 theme,
but all that bought me was having to restore this mornings backup!

Thanks for your input.

-Robyn

So, Robyn, are you saying that deactivating all your other plugins and switching themes still didn’t allow you to turn off open registration?

Which caching plugin are you using?

Are you using a security plugin?

Robyn

I have just tried going to where your open registration form would be (https://delawareseniorolympics.org/dso-wp/wp-login.php?action=register) and I get the message: “User registration is currently not allowed.”

So it looks like it is switched off.

Yes. But I decided to use a browser that I don’t use normally, Microsoft Edge.

It worked! Though any browser should work. If it’s a caching problem, I have CCleaner clean up my browsers the moment I close them.

Anyway, in Edge the setting is correct. No on Open Registration. In Chrome, etc. it still says yes. No bigee. I’ll just make config changes in Edge.

When I have more time, I would like to track this down further.

-Robyn

It’s weird. It is switched off, but still reports on in Chrome. Again, when I have time, I’ll figure it out.
My sites are all scanned by Securi. I’m testing Hummingbird cache, etc. on this site too.

Thanks again,

-Robyn

Robyn,

You could also ask your host whether it is running a cache on your site. This is particularly important to know in case it’s running Varnish. That is incompatible with s2Member.