What Members doesn’t do
Members manages roles, capabilities, and who can see content. These come up often, so here’s what to use instead:
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Sell memberships, charge for access, or run subscriptions | MemberPress. It works alongside Members. |
| Protect whole categories, tags, post types, or a URL | MemberPress Rules |
| Stop people opening PDFs and other files by direct link | MemberPress Downloads |
| Sell or deliver online courses | MemberPress Courses |
| Give members profiles, a directory, discussion spaces, or messaging | MemberPress ClubSuite, or BuddyBoss for a full community platform |
| Take a simple payment or donation, without memberships | WP Simple Pay for payments, or Easy Digital Downloads to sell digital products |
| Run an affiliate program | Easy Affiliate |
| Add a registration form, or approve new users | WPForms user registration forms, or MemberPress registration pages |
| Fix welcome or password emails that never arrive | WordPress sends those, not Members. WP Mail SMTP (free) makes your site’s email reliable. |
| Change a user’s role automatically when they buy something, submit a form, or finish a course | Uncanny Automator (free version available) |
| Show different menu items to logged-in users or certain roles | Nav Menu Roles (free) |
| Hide or rearrange dashboard menu items | Admin Menu Editor (free) |
| Send users to different pages after login, by role | LoginWP (free) |
| Add a log in / log out link to a menu | Login or Logout Menu Item (free) |
| Show a “coming soon” page while you build your site | SeedProd (free) |
| Back up your site before big changes | Duplicator (free) |
Per-page editing rights. WordPress capabilities apply to a whole role, not to individual pages, so Members can’t let one user edit only certain pages. The closest built-in option: users can always edit their own posts with edit_posts, without edit_others_posts. See the Capabilities Guide.
Admin menus for other plugins. A plugin decides which capability guards its screens. If it uses a capability a role needs for other things (like manage_options), Members can’t hide just that plugin. See Finding the capability another plugin needs.
Common problems
Everyone is sent to the login page. Private Site is on. Turn it off under Members → Settings → Private Site, or make specific pages public.
A logged-in user still sees the error message.
- They don’t have any of the roles ticked on that page. A visitor needs at least one of them; roles aren’t ranked.
- On multisite, they need a role on that site. See Multisite.
- A page cache is showing an old copy. See Caching.
Protected content shows to logged-out visitors.
- Check that the page has roles ticked, and that Enable Permissions is on under Members → Settings.
- Your page builder or theme may not use
the_content. See Page builders and themes. - Remember what isn’t protected: titles, files, and custom fields. See What Content Permissions doesn’t protect.
- Clear your page cache, then test in a private browser window.
The error message appears several times on a page. Your theme runs the_content in more than one place. See Page builders and themes.
A calendar, post list, or app shows nothing to logged-out visitors. One of the REST API settings is hiding content from them. See Content Permissions: The REST API and Private Site: The REST API option.
A new role can’t log in, or lands on the home page after login. The role is missing read. See the Capabilities Guide.
Role changes keep reverting. Another plugin is resetting the role. See Role Management.
A plugin’s menu disappeared for Administrators. Grant the Administrator role the plugin’s capabilities under Members → Roles. If “Add New” disappeared for posts or pages, see Core Create Caps.
The role checkboxes on the user screen look broken. See Multiple User Roles.
I locked myself out. Use the Administrator Rescue Link, then Reset Roles if you need to.
A fatal error mentions a missing Members file after an update. The update didn’t finish copying files, or a security scanner on your host quarantined a file. Delete Members from the Plugins screen and install it again; your roles and settings are kept. If the error stays, ask your host to clear PHP’s OPcache.
A security scan says Members has a vulnerability. Make sure you’re on the latest version, which includes all security fixes. Scanners sometimes match the wrong plugin, so check that the report names Members by Caseproof (slug members).
I want to stop the review request. Tick Disable Review Prompt under Members → Settings → Miscellaneous.
Still stuck?
Ask in the Members support forum. Include your WordPress and Members versions, what you expected, what happened instead, and any error messages.