Formbuilder form: SET "Accessible on front-end of website" getting "You do not have permission to access this page."

Question

New install of CiviCRM (latest version) in Wordpress (everything latest version).

I have created two new forms in two ways

1. copied the existing "New Individual"
2. created a new form using "Individual"

then added some fields plus some custom fields we need for the volunteers.

Also we need this form exposed on the website for ALL users as this is a "Volunteer signup", so they are NOT in the DB yet. I read all documentation and searched the Internet and stackexchange (civicrm).

I set the following flags (whether needed or just to make sure)

1. Generic allow all users
2. Civicrm add contacts
3. Civicrm access all data
4. access crm backend and api
5. all cicicrm permissions and acl

The issue I am having that 50% of the time (whether I made changes or not) I get "You do not have permission to access this page" - it ALWAYS works when selecting "View Page" in formbuilder.

So I clean the cache, change some flags. I also checked the filesystem settings as well, even the wp-content/civicrm directory, I cannot find any faults.

When I make some changes in the form - even just change some text - then save and load the page "civicrm/volunteer-signup" - it sometime works, sometimes does not.

I just want consistency, so I can rely that this works.

Is there anything I can do that would help me? thanks

Answer 1

I am answering my own question AGAIN with some feedback to people at @civicrm.

I am a seasoned admin but CiviCRM nearly broke me due to the challenges I faced. Please, @CiviCRM, improve the documentation AND provide examples that work straight for VARIOUS scenarious, e.g. give an example that can be cloned for EXTERNAL facing webpages - this was my problem after all.

When I start using new software I just use the examples provided, read the documentation and follow the steps.

It worked as long as used the LINK in form builder "view page" and filled out the form.

What I did not know ALL examples are for internal use, i.e. need a user logged in and/or details of the user passed.

I needed this form to work EXTERNALLY as we are asking new volunteers to SIGNUP - this was my problem.

So I played with MANY settings, I changed setting in "WordPress Access Control". I got the from to work externally and we got plenty of people signed up.

However I got explained (rightly so) one of my settings is dangerous.

Turns out all I had to change the Form security from "User Based" (the DEFAULT) to "Form Based" - suddenly it started working.

I HATE Nationbuilder with a PASSION for so many different reasons, that's why I tried sticking with CiviCRM.

Please @CiviCRM, improve the Documentation AND provide better examples.

Examples that match different scenarios - especially one for EXTERNAL use - and NAME them in that way.

Answer 2

I am a very seasoned SysAdmin, I also know that new software can be tricky - but I nearly threw in the towel with this one. Yes I figured it out in the end but this one has been a difficult experience.

I had constant permission problems and submission problems.

Note: when clicking within Formbuilder on "view page" there was NEVER any problem viewing/submitting, it was only when viewing and filling out the form from within Wordpress when the difficulties began.

I made so many changes and tries that I don't know which one solved it, but this is what I did:

• I clutched for straws making sure all FILESYSTEM permission were correct
• I followed different hints searching the net for similar problems, many did not help
• The website sits behind cloudflare, so I added an exclusion rule for caching for the forms in cloudflare
• whenever I save/change a form I clear the civicrm cache
• I have not restarted my local WP cache, the plugin is still disabled, this was one of the first things I turned off.
• I make clones of a form at regular intervals to be able to go back to one that worked - this saved me hours repeating.

It seems cache related, but what do I know - I am new to CiviCRM.

But there was another problem, whenever I clicked on SUBMIT it would take the submission, in the FORMBUILDER main page it would show me an increase of the number in submissions but the newly submitted data would not be visible when listing all contacts.

Only after adding a number of permissions for the anonymous user in "WordPress Access Control" (add contacts, CiviCRM: access CiviCRM backend and API, CiviCRM: access AJAX API, CiviCRM: access contact reference fields) would the data appear in the civicrm database.

All of this should be included as hints for formbuilder/wordpress submissions.

See my second answer for a solution.

@petednz-fuzion @coleman

Answer 3

I'm having the same issue. For me the page is showing, but I only have the title and the civicrm logo. AND a lot of jQuery errors in page: https://lajoiedevivre.net/civi/test1234/ I started another question here: Is it normal that public pages made in FormBuilder are not showing? What gives me headaches is that it works perfectly on WPmaster now, but it didn't and it doesn't work on my websites, as on my raspberry home server.

Edit: This worked for me: https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/a/41787/17344 (Différer jQuery et jQuery Migrate in WP Divi Theme options )