WordPress troubleshooting

In this help doc, we describe common problems you may encounter when using the Memberful WordPress Plugin and how to solve them.

In this help doc:

• The Memberful plugin isn’t protecting my content.
• My members can’t access my protected content.
• My member was redirected to a WordPress form.
• I’m getting this error: Memberful_oauth_error.
• I’m getting this error: Could not create the Memberful mapping table.
• I’m getting this error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected.

The Memberful plugin isn’t protecting my content

Make sure that your theme and page builder are compatible with Memberful.

My members can’t access my protected content

We sign members in at a custom URL. Unfortunately, some hosting providers will ignore cookies set by our custom URL so that we won't sign members in. Please contact your hosting provider and ask them to add a custom cache exception for Memberful (i.e. exclude any URLs containing the memberful_endpoint string).

• If you're hosting with Flywheel, ask them to whitelist ?memberful_endpoint and add memberful_endpoint as a cookie-keeping path.
• If you're hosting with SiteGround, you can add the custom cache exception via the SG Optimizer plugin.

• If you're hosting with Pair, you'll need to disable Varnish caching which can only be done if you have a VPS-level account or an Apache-based server.
• If you're hosting with HostPresto, ask them to bypass Varnish caching on URLs with the query string memberful_endpoint and configure Varnish to allow URLs with the query string memberful_endpoint to set cookies.
• If you're hosting with Pantheon, you'll need to disable caching on specific pages. Make sure to update the regex patterns they list so that they match the pages you don't want to cache.

$regex_path_patterns = array(
  '#memberful_endpoint#',
);

Hosting with Bluehost, Dreamhost, GoDaddy, or EasyWP by Namecheap? Please contact us.

My member was redirected to a WordPress form

After integrating with Memberful, we recommend that you delete your users from WordPress. (We will recreate the users.) If you don't delete the users, we will ask them to sign in with their existing WordPress credentials via the WordPress form so we can sync their WordPress / Memberful accounts.

Memberful oauth error

We had a problem signing you in, please try again later or contact the site admin. memberful_oauth_error

If a member reports the error above, it means we couldn't communicate with your WordPress site. Disconnect / reconnect the plugin and then contact us if that doesn’t resolve the issue.

Could not create the Memberful mapping table

Could not create the Memberful mapping table

If you get the error above, it means when you cleaned up your WordPress database, you didn't remove Memberful's mapping table. To resolve this error, manually delete table wp_memberful_mapping from your database (assuming that your database table prefix is wp_) and reactivate the plugin. You can even use a plugin like Garbage Collector to help you track it down. Alternatively, you can ask your hosting provider for help.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?' in /home1/craftmba/public_html/tractionable/wp-content/plugins/memberful-wp/src/shortcodes.php on line 132

If you get the error above, your server is likely using an unsupported version of PHP (the language Wordpress runs on). Our latest plugin update uses a feature that was added to PHP in version 7 (over 4 years ago), and older versions no longer get security updates. For this reason, PHP creators, and Wordpress, consider them "end of life" and unsafe to use.

To resolve this error, ask your hosting provider to update you to a recent version of PHP. This will get the plugin working and secure your site. If this isn't possible, you can manually download an older version of the Memberful plugin. (Version 10.5.2 should work.)