Upgrade IPS from 4.2 to 4.3 - Social Login and Other Updates

[sadams101]

I was wondering if there is anything that will break when I upgrade, for example, I noticed there seems to be a different set of instructions for the social login setup between the two versions--will my social logins like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. break when I upgrade?

Will my sitemap break? I read that I should rebuild my sitemap after upgrading...are there other things I should check, watch out for, fix?

Is there a list of issues/fixes, etc., somewhere that I can access before I run the upgrade?

[sadams101]

So I ran the upgrade, and an important FAQ I had setup as an announcement seems to have vanished? Where did it go?

[Daniel F]

Is it still listed in your ModCP?

[sadams101]

Yes, so what seems to be broken is the system's Announcements widget, which is not longer displaying it on my site. Is this a known bug or issue with the update?

Another issue I'm having is my Google Site Speed results seems to have gone from fast to slow with the new update. Is this a general issue with this update?

[sadams101]

Actually it looks like the Announcements Widget is gone...it no longer exists as a choice in the blocks/widgets.

[opentype]

10 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

Yes, so what seems to be broken is the system's Announcements widget, which is not longer displaying it on my site. Is this a known bug or issue with the update?

Neither. It was just overhauled. You now set the positions from within the announcements without needing the widget. 

10 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

Another issue I'm having is my Google Site Speed results seems to have gone from fast to slow with the new update. Is this a general issue with this update?

No. 

[sadams101]

Thanks for letting me know this, and it would have been nice to know before the update. It would be a great help to put together a list of issues that people may face on major updates like this so that everyone doesn't have to stumble through this and fix things that used to work.

[opentype]

Or just follow the blog …

 

[sadams101]

That link would have been very helpful on Tuesday, when I posted this...thank you!

[sadams101]

Another problem since my upgrade. All Facebook registrations are created with "No name" and a warning that the user will be deleted in 30 minutes! This is crazy. How do I fix this?

Why wouldn't the system just create a display name, or not let them create the account with out it?

This member will be automatically deleted in 52 minutes

Recently created members without a name or emai

This member will be automatically deleted in 52 minutes
Recently created members without a name or email address that have never visited are automatically removed.
This may happen if they signed in with started registering with a social network and didn't complete the registration. If they log in soon, they will be prompted to provide the missing details and then be able to use the account normally, otherwise this account will be deleted soon.

l address that have never visited are automatically removed.
This may happen if they signed in with started registering with a social network and didn't complete the registration. If they log in soon, they will be prompted to provide the missing details and then be able to use the account normally, otherwise this account will be deleted soon.

[MADMAN32395]

1 hour ago, sadams101 said:

Why wouldn't the system just create a display name, or not let them create the account with out it?

means they half finished their account and abandoned it.

[opentype]

it’s also not new. Always been this way. 

[sadams101]

So showing these accounts is a new thing? To me it seems like, at least for some people, there is an issue with the sign up form...and my investigations tell me it is mostly Facebook users who have issues. A simple fix for this would be to have an auto-generated screen name for those who sign up with Facebook or other socials, as the issue seems to be people who forget, or don't know what a screen name is, or that it is required to create their account.  In my case 1/10 accounts are like this, and it seems like a few simple tweaks could allow many of these users to complete the account process easier.

PS - Nearly ALL of these users are completing the email verification process, so I do not believe that they "abandoning" the account creation process. I am certain that they believe that they have created an account, and then it gets deleted because they never set a screen name. Now I know why I get so many emails from people asking me where there account went, or how they can post, etc.

[sadams101]

I may create a plugin to fix what I believe is a real issue. I've monitored this, and believe that I am losing ~20% of all Facebook users who create an account. I verified this by emailing some of the people whose screen names I generated for them. They confirmed that they thought they had set up the account, and did not indicated to me that they had any intention of abandoning their account (for my site this could mean an extra 30-50 accounts a per day). 

Here is the only thing I need to know before spending money on a plugin to correct this: I believe that all users who are in this 60 minute account deletion category are shown as "Members," which means that they did click on the confirmation challenge email, otherwise they would be in the "Guest" group. I want to be 100% sure that these people have confirmed the account using that email, and my understanding of Guest vs. Members is that the switch from Guest to Members takes place when the confirmation email is clicked. Does this sound correct?

[opentype]

On 6/4/2018 at 6:30 PM, sadams101 said:

 A simple fix for this would be to have an auto-generated screen name …

That’s already an option. The Facebook name can be used by default if you want to. 

[sadams101]

Ok, great, I found the setting. I hope this solves the issue, because I was losing a lot of accounts. I think this should be the default setting when adding Facebook login. 

[Stuart Silvester]

On ‎6‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 5:30 PM, sadams101 said:

So showing these accounts is a new thing? To me it seems like, at least for some people, there is an issue with the sign up form...and my investigations tell me it is mostly Facebook users who have issues. A simple fix for this would be to have an auto-generated screen name for those who sign up with Facebook or other socials, as the issue seems to be people who forget, or don't know what a screen name is, or that it is required to create their account.  In my case 1/10 accounts are like this, and it seems like a few simple tweaks could allow many of these users to complete the account process easier.

PS - Nearly ALL of these users are completing the email verification process, so I do not believe that they "abandoning" the account creation process. I am certain that they believe that they have created an account, and then it gets deleted because they never set a screen name. Now I know why I get so many emails from people asking me where there account went, or how they can post, etc.

Showing these account is new, yes, but they've always been there in the background.

Accounts that do not have a display name filled in will immediately see the 'complete your account' screen, where they are prompted to choose a display name. This is true for any account that isn't fully complete, regardless of how it was created. This has been this way (and functional) since 4.0.

Accounts registered via a social login such as Facebook will not typically go through email validation, this would only occur if the account is incomplete and they successfully provide the missing account information.

[sadams101]

So if a Facebook user now sees their FB account name as their default screen name when registering on my board, will they be able to change that to anything they want, or does if force them to use their FB screen name? 

I ask because forcing people to use their real names on my board would likely result in even more dropped accounts. I thought the ideal solution would be to have an option to use everything in their email before the @ as the default screen name, as those look a lot more like screen names.

[MADMAN32395]

1 hour ago, sadams101 said:

I ask because forcing people to use their real names on my board would likely result in even more dropped accounts. I thought the ideal solution would be to have an option to use everything in their email before the @ as the default screen name, as those look a lot more like screen names.

while some people will have madman32395@domain.tld others may have John.Doe@domain.tld ; still results in the name being shown making example one a reality regardless. Overall either a forced username or leave it as enduser enters one. 

currently system works as intended.

[sadams101]

I'm trying to improve my board...if the system can be improved, then it should be.

As for using the user part of the email as a screen name option, it would be better than forcing the use of their real name, which is what FB makes people use for Facebook profile names. Well over half of all email addresses do not contain the person's name, so it would offer a valid screen name in most cases that would not contain their actual name.

In any case, the actual question I posed was, during registration with my Facebook login set to use "Facebook profile name",  can a user edit their profile name/screen name, or does this setting force them to use their FB profile name?

[sadams101]

Is there a setting to make the time to delete the Facebook created account longer than 60 minutes for those who've not entered a screen name? 

Also, based on everything I've learned about this, I am considering the creation of a script that will run on a 30 minute cron job that will check for any Social accounts created between 30-60 minutes, but don't have screen names. If no screen name, it would automatically insert their user name in their email as their screen name. By my estimates, this would increase account creation, on my site at least, by ~20-30%. 

 

[sadams101]

The script mentions here works perfectly, and I've now been running it for about 2 weeks (Contact @DawPi if you are interested in trying it). It has increased by account creation rate by 30%, and so far I've not see a single downside (ok, if you count one member asking that their screen name be changed from their real name, I guess I had one issue).

This solution is far better than deleting these accounts, which were created, then they went through the process of authorizing the app in Facebook, and, as I've mentioned, most believed for whatever reason that they did finish creating the account, even though they didn't set a screen name. I did poll about 20 of them and nearly all thought they did finish setting up their account.

Anyone who wants to boost their account creation rate should consider this plugin.

[Mark]

If they haven't provided a display name, the only thing they should be able to see when they are redirected back to the site is the form to provide one. If some users had no display name but thought they were finished, it sounds like something might have been wrong on your site. Have you tried going through it with your own Facebook account?

When everything is working as it should, although the system will remove the record if they never do this, in practice, doing that has no effect to the end user. If they come back to the site and click "Sign in with Facebook" again, a new record is created again and they see the same "Please enter a username" form.