Paid Plans - Hard Fail

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1

Ticket Number:
1681956270

Problem:

The site is not open to the public - it only allows members into the site - they register, are vetted, then are manually approved in the Wix control panel.
So, every member entering the site MUST have a subscription - either a Free Trial, or a paid plan - to access any page on the site. This is set in the page permissions.

Seems to work for most members, including this admin, however:

  • Some paying clients do NOT show up in the Paid Plans control panel.

  • Some users cruising the site like a boss, almost daily, do not show up in the Paid Plans control panel - they have no plan of any kind, even though I know some of them had previously signed up for the Free Trial (because I know them, and recognize their names when they sign up for any plan).

  • The Paid Plans control panel should show their expired Free Trial, but it shows … nothing!

Summary:
So far I have one paying customer who could not access premium content and did NOT show up in the Paid Plans control panel.

Paying user’s paid plan info ONLY shows up when I click on the confirmation email (“A user purchased a Plan …”), but NOT in the Paid-Plans control panel.

So far I found two members who cruise the site like ghostriders without the need for any plan, and without showing up in the Paid Plans control panel, when they were previously showing up there (there are more, I stopped at two to send emails to Wix support and post here).

I read up on the paid plans API.
I added a table under the member’s “My Account” page that shows subscription status.
I tried to write a few lines to read any member’s subscription status, but I don’t see an API for it.
The API only has functions to work with the currently logged in user.

I don’t keep user credentials for security reasons.
I let Wix handle the login creds.
So, I cannot login as the user to troubleshoot paid-plans info and
I cannot look up user subscriptions of users that don’t show up in the Paid-Plans control panel.

Since it’s all seemingly a circus, I’m getting close to:

  • Stop the paid-plans and switch to donations.

  • Go insecure and store all user passwords in a collection (so I can login as the user and troubleshoot) - there are no proper tools from Wix for admin functions.

  • Shut it down and start over with a commercial host - not a hobbyist one.

Ridiculous state of affairs.

Exchanges with Wix tech support so far, oldest to newest:

Bot : To speed up support, please describe the issue in your own words. Press Enter/Return or click Send when you’re ready to submit your ticket. :bulb:You can add screenshots using the attachment icon below.

User typed : MySite.com. Using the Paid-Plans app. Works fine, except one client with last name (client D). Client cannot access premium pages. Client was NOT showing up in control panel under paid-plans “Purchased Plans.” If I clicked on the confirmation email, then it would reveal this paying client. I added a month-long Free Trial sub for the client to trouble shoot. Only after adding the Free Trial did the client show up in the control panel’s “purchased Plans.” I have not heard back from the client to confirm if any of this allows the client to now access the premium pages. All other clients show up in the “Purchased Plans” panel. Something wrong with this record.

Wix Response (template stuff stripped):
“We understand your situation, after the investigation, the Client (client D) has already a purchased your Yearly Subscription where you can see it on the Dashboard > Finances > Transactions. Therefore, the client has full access based on the subscription that he has. We highly suggest to contact the Client to confirm that he can access the pages.”

My response (client can access the site with the Free Trial):

The point is this:

Client (client D) was NOT showing up in the control panel - at all - after buying a yearly subscription.

If I had not remembered the name I may have denied this member the proper benefits.
I remembered the name and looked through the wix emails - and there was client (client D), with a Yearly subscription purchase.
Only when I clicked the link in the Wix email - then (client D)'s record showed up in the control panel.
Otherwise, nothing.

Since I figured that contacting Wix with this issue would be fruitless (confirmed), I figured the only solution would be to delete his account and get him to sign up again.
Then provide a year long “Free Trial.”

I decided the ADD the Free Trial instead, parallel to the Yearly paid-plan - voila, (client D) now showed up in the control panel with the Free Trial and the Yearly Sub.
Ridiculous fault of the paid-plans control panel, or some mean prank.

On this note, I have at least two users who show NO record of any paid-plan purchase, yet they are using the site almost daily.
I’m certain they had a “Free Trial” in the last few months - the yet the control panel for paid-plans shows NOTHING.
Here they are (I’m sure there are many more, I’ll investigate further):

(info, client#1) (info, client#2)

THIS IS URGENT!

2

This seems more of a troubleshooting question about the Paid Plans app than a Corvid question.

You may not find the answers you are seeking for in this forum. The correct channel for assistance would be Wix Support to receive Tech help regarding one of their Apps.

But lets make it Corvid related …

I know you said all of your pages are set to paid members only, but Member Area pages are not compatible with the paid plans app. You will need to add code to each page that is not compatible with the Paid Plans. Look for the currentUser API to view hownto get their current plan. If you want to check who has what plan, then you will have to create an event code so that after a succesful transaction ---- you can insert purchase details into a custom collection AND obtain the userID that purchased it.

Make sure all your app pages, sub pages and other dynamic app pages are all marked as paid member only or have coded permissions.

P.s. If you are already going to have to code all the permissions from scratch, you may want to think about coding the payment provider from scratch also. After all, how well can a ‘free’ app actually perform?

3

Nayeli,

Thanks for your response.
It is most definitely Corvid related as I use the paid plans API to let users know about their subscription status. Further, the issue has to do with page permissions.
You seem to suggest that Wix/Corvid permissions are useless, and that I would have to code my own … more Corvid stuff.

“I know you said all of your pages are set to paid members only, but Member Area pages are not compatible with the paid plans app.”

Let me clarify - all pages require member access, and three of them are premium, requiring a paid plan.

“… but Member Area pages are not compatible with the paid plans app .”

Whoa, that’s news to me.
Can you tell me where this is documented?
Also, what is the point of paid-plans, then?

This applies to Wix and Corvid:

469×516 14.7 KB

Are you telling me these permissions are useless?

The whole idea of using the paid-plans app (and API) was to avoid having to do massive coding regarding permissions and paid plans.

" P.s. If you are already going to have to code all the permissions from scratch, you may want to think about coding the payment provider from scratch also. After all, how well can a ‘free’ app actually perform? "

The payment provider is Wix - it was the most convenient option.
Are you suggesting the “free” paid plans app is crap?

What would you suggest to use - to process payments?
Do you really write all your permissions from scratch?

4

PS: Your forum profile has a typo, I think:
" Offering consulation and project planning for Clients,"
Pretty sure you meant to use “consultation.”
Cheers.

5

Ahh, found it. Thank you.

6

Sounds like you may have not set up the correct page permissions or explained the problem wrong.

First you mentioned that every member entering the site must have a subscription to access any page, but now you are saying that you only marked 3 pages with the ‘paid plans’ settings. This may be why members ‘cruise’ your site without actually paying?

Meaning, if you did not setup permissions for the rest of your pages on your entire site — then the site member will never be prompted to upgrade to one of your subscriptions. Unless you have a different logic coded onto your site to ensure you prompt users to upgrade to a subscription — this will result in you seeing a few members without plans via your Wix Dashboard.

The ‘My Account’ page and other Member Area pages do not have the same permission structure as the screenshot you provided, meaning, no, you cannot set the ‘My Account’ page as paid members only via the page permissions section because it does not exist. Meaning, any code that may exist on that page should be restructured to: get current user, get current plans, if results are greater than 0, then do something, otherwise you may receive an error if you are expecting results to return true each time.

If you have Corvid related code that you need assistance with, please post a screenshot and/or link to your code so the community can assist, otherwise, this does not seem to be a Corvid related problem and you should seek help through the correct channels for better results. It is very possible that fixing a few page permissions, and writing a little of code for the rest of the pages that do not have Paid Plans page permissions could quickly solve most of your problems.

724×535 52 KB

7

Nayeli,

Sorry, I did not communicate that correctly.
Let me try again:

  • Site is not open to the public.

  • Registrations are approved manually.

  • Once they’re a member, they can cruise free pages (permissions: members only).

  • Premium pages have the permissions in the picture below - they require a paid-plan. The user is directed (by Wix) to the paid-plans page with some Wix lightbox explaining the deals, etc.

  • Wix paid-plans then handles the purchase of paid or free (trial) plan.

469×516 14.7 KB

All that works when I test it, and seems to work for most users.
Except for the three I pointed out.

Thank you for your advise!
Wrote a few lines of code, and it seems to enforce paid subscriptions.
Was way easier than I thought.
I still dread writing my own paid-plans and payment processing, though.

I’m still perturbed that Wix/Corvid permissions seem completely useless:

  • Paid -plans users cannot view premium and do NOT show up in the paid-plans control panel - and

  • complete ghostriders (members with no plan of any kind, paid or free) surf the site like they own it.
    The exact opposite of how it is supposed to work.
    All because I assumed that paid-plans was what it advertised.
    Just bizarre!
    Cheers.

8

Will tell you a secret :wink:

I have been providing the SAME feedback to the Paid Plans team and they still do not seem to understand WHY the permissions are needed on the Members Pages area.

Funny thing is … they USED to have it! As soon as the Paid Plans App was released this function actually existed. Then a few weeks later ---- they removed it. Fast forward a couple years later … and here we are.

Anyway, 80% of my clients do not use the Paid Plans app because it is easier to code custom permissions & better control of the payments via a payment processor such as Stripe. (Like, cancel, change, purchase multiple, update billing, enter coupons or discounts, etc)

Well, glad you got it worked out.

9

I am passing this on to the Paid Plans team for comment.

10

The members area is a convoluted mess.
Users that want to change their account email - have to make a new account (after I delete the current one). It feels soooo 1990s, at the dawn of the internet.

Users will get an email from Wix paid-plans “Your Free Trial is about to expire.”
I learned from my users that they would go the MyAccount page to check on their subscription - except that there’s no such info available.

I’m surprised that such a module was not included with paid-plans API.
Wrote my own code to add subscription info at the bottom of the MyAccount page, where users typically would look for it:

951×164 10.7 KB

11

Anything?
Bueller …?!

List of grievances is growing.

  • Paid-plans hard fail.

  • Wix traffic analytics showing 0 last week, for about a week, vs Google traffic with valid numbers (ticket resolved, working again as of yesterday).

  • Home page fails to load on first attempt about 33% of the time (!) , starting last week. Console reveals multiple error 403 that belong to Wix. Loads after clicking “browser refresh” … (no ticket yet, hoping against hope that maybe it will go back to “normal”).

  • There are more, I just can’t see straight right now, I’m that dismayed by the avalanche of fails.

Usually it’s just one big fail every few weeks, right now it seems to be the “Covid Special” - big and smalls fails flowing freely and taking down my little web app.

12

Yepp, i can cofirm this…

Wix traffic analytics showing 0 last week, for about a week, vs Google traffic with valid numbers (ticket resolved, working again as of yesterday).

13

I have additional users that:

  • actually do show in the paid-plans control panel

  • have a valid subscription

  • cannot access premium content

Added info to the ticket.
Still no response.

14

Any luck? Im having pretty much the same problem?