Existing Patrons in a Login Loop : please help a non-techie Creator?

Hello.

My existing Patrons have trouble accessing protected content on my Wordpress site. They login to access the content using the specific page URL and when they login, they are sent to my homepage. They then need to go back to find the specific page URL and click on it again. They then need to repeat the process + click REFRESH to access the page. This seems somewhat laborious maybe I have something wrong in my setup?

I made a video to demonstrate the process to them: https://vimeo.com/juliegibbonscreates/review/351766208/0279014a23

Please help - thanks!

I couldnt reproduce this on a test installation.

Its possible that you may have plugins which interfere with WP’s redirects. You can try disabling all plugins but Patreon WordPress and then testing it. If redirect works fine, enabling plugins one by one while testing will help you catch which plugin has the issue if one has it.

Thanks. I need the plug-ins on my website (which I’ve been using for years as the mainstay for my business - via Wishlist Member) so am not going to disable them. Do you know if there is likely to be a conflict with Wishlist Member plugin? This problem is causing me to reassess using Patreon protected content on my main site …

You dont need to permanently disable any plugin. You just need to detect which plugin is causing the conflict.

You can doing this by disabling then enabling each plugin. Or you can disable all others and enable them one by one.

Once you detect the plugin conflict, then you can debug and fix it.

Thanks.

I’ve put the Patreon Plugin on a brand new, clean Wordpress site, to avoid potential plugin conflicts.

When a Patron tries to open a protected page for the very first time (no Wordpress user created yet) they are shown this page:

When they click Unlock with Patreon, they are delivered the following page:

Because they are already Patrons, this is confusing. Why can’t existing Patrons simply be presented with a Login page rather than a SignUp page?

Anyway, even if they select Login from the top right-hand corner and Log in, they are presented with the Join page:

This is very confusing, because they are already a Patron. There is no obvious path to view the requested page.

If they manually enter the original page URL they were trying to visit, they are then presented with this page:

They should click “Allow” (this is very unclear!) and finally they can see the protected page content.

(This has also created them as a Wordpress user on the site and login is easier from here.)

Is this how it should work?

I would expect that the process should be:

1.Unlock with Patreon
2. Enter their Patreon username + password
3. Agree to the OAuth login (where can that text be changed?)
4. Then view the Protected Page.

The Join page is misleading because they have already logged in to Patreon, and are visiting the protected page because as existing Patrons they have been provided with this URL. All of my visitors will already be Patrons.

Thanks for your help.

This is quite odd. Can you link a gated page so i can examine why is it leading to signup instead of login as it normally does?

Here is the protected page I’ve been referring to :

https://www.juliegibbons.com/patreon/mandalas-with-meaning-module-one/

Let me know what else you need.

Thanks

For me, while already logged into Patreon, it normally goes to the pledge/unlock flow.

Can you give a step by step of that flow, because here it operates as described before - and that doesn’t make sense for someone who is already a Patron.

Only Patrons will have access to these pages, so asking them to pledge again even when they’re logged into Patreon and have an active pledge does not make sense.

There is definitely a couple of extra steps/loops that occur here and I am testing with someone else on a different device for whom the same happens.

It works as intended for me in the below format:

  • I click on the unlock button
  • I am taken to specific pledge flow which asks me to pledge from exact same tier required for the post

In case i was asked to login, its supposed to log me in and bring me back to pledge screen. When i pledge, im supposed to go back to your gated content, now accessible.

Unfortunately if users choose to register at that point the flow does not return the user to the gated content.

It seems we are at cross-purposes.

I am referring to the flow for an existing Patron.

When they are asked to login, after they login, they are taken to the pledge page, rather than the gated page.

Obviously, from there they do not wish to pledge again.

The only obvious step for them to take is to go back and re-enter the URL for the gated page.

This now takes them to the OAuth page and eventually they see the gated page.

Surely as an existing Patron they should not be presented with the Pledge page?

Please note - I am talking about the experience for an existing Patron (someone who has already pledged at a previous point in time.)

Thanks

Yes, i was able to reproduce this problem.

It happens because Patreon does not redirect to the unlock flow if you need to login before. Same for registering.

I will be bringing this to attention. At the moment, there isnt a solution for this since it needs to be handled at Patreon as opposed to the plugin.

Is this issue still occurring?