Bug K 4.0.3: How to enable reCAPTCHA v2 with Crypsis and Blue Eagle

There have been one or two topics discussing the use of the new Google reCAPTCHA.

I have tested Kunena using the instructions contained in the Configuration:


The CAPTCHA does not display with Crypsis unless you also add the same key information into the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin (don't forget to also change to Version 2). This important piece of information is missing from the configuration setting instructions.

Further, it does not matter what settings you use in the Kunena configuration. If you disable the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin or if you do not enter the keys in that plugin then the CAPTCHA is not shown in Crypsis at all! Not only that, unless you fill in the same details in the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin, people can post anything they like in a Crypsis-based forum without having to meet any CAPTCHA challenge because, as I wrote, the CAPTCHA is not displayed.

This means that K 4.0 Crypsis is wholly dependent on the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin while K 4.0 Blue Eagle is dependent on the settings in the Kunena Configuration. It be a whole lot smarter if K 4.0 was dependent on the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin and, in that way, it would not matter if people chose the Blue Eagle version or the Crypsis version, wouldn't it? But I guess that's not going to happen.

For what it's worth, here's my configuration report:

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Kunena menu details:

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ID	Name	Menutype	Link	Path	In trash
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Joomla default template details : protostar | author: Kyle Ledbetter | version: 1.0 | creationdate: Unknown

Kunena default template details : Crypsis | author: Kunena Team | version: 4.0.3 | creationdate: 2015-06-29

Kunena version detailed: Kunena 4.0.3 | 2015-06-29 [ Possagno ]
| Kunena detailed configuration:

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Kunena config settings:
board_offline	0
enablerss	1
threads_per_page	20
messages_per_page	6
messages_per_page_search	15
showhistory	1
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| Kunena integration settings:

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Kunena - AlphaUserPoints Disabled
Kunena - Community Builder Disabled
Kunena - Gravatar Disabled
Kunena - JomSocial Disabled
Kunena - Joomla Enabled: access=1 login=1
Kunena - Kunena Enabled: avatar=1 profile=1
Kunena - UddeIM Disabled

| Joomla! detailed language files installed:

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Joomla! languages installed:
en-GB	English (en-GB)

Third-party components: None

Third-party SEF components: None

Plugins: None

Modules: None

It seems to me to be a wasted opportunity not allowing people to take advantage of the new, clean-look Google reCAPTCHA when most people are use Blue Eagle (or "Blue Eagle-derived" templates) on their sites. Surely, guys, this is not all that difficult to achieve?

The settings is for the backwards compatibility for blue eagle.

Blue eagle: Used the settings from kunena config
Crypsis: Used the default recaptcha joomla plugin


There will be no new features added to Blue Eagle anymore. Only small bugfixes.

810 wrote: The settings is for the backwards compatibility for blue eagle.

Blue eagle: Used the settings from kunena config
Crypsis: Used the default recaptcha joomla plugin

I think you have assumed that people intuitively knew that before they installed K 4.0. What you have just written is the first time I have read these new "instructions".

Most people are not particularly knowledgeable about how Joomla works (let alone how Kunena works). If people see a setting in the Kunena configuration panel, they should feel comfortable knowing that the setting works.

Again, this is another instance where settings in Kunena work one way for Crypsis and an entirely different way for Blue Eagle. The issue here is that there is no user documentation or tips in the various configuration settings to help people know with confidence what those settings actually do.

As a suggestion, if a setting works only for Blue Eagle (and not for Crypsis, or vice-versa), it would help people if that setting was identified with the words "Blue Eagle-only" or "Crypsis-only". I realise this may be difficult to achieve in the short time-span between now and K 4.1, but it's a worthwhile goal.

810 wrote: There will be no new features added to Blue Eagle anymore. Only small bugfixes.

This is neither a request for a new feature nor a suggestion that it is a bugfix. This is a statement that K 4.0 places people in jeopardy that, come the time when K 4.1 is released in less than 3 months from now, people will be left in a kind of limbo, wholly dependent on the one template currently available and supported by the Kunena team and with no other alternative templates available to them.

The point here is that, most people use Blue Eagle (or "Blue Eagle-derived" templates) on their sites and I think you may have forgotten that.

810 wrote: There will be no new features added to Blue Eagle anymore. Only small bugfixes.

sozzled wrote: This is neither a request for a new feature nor a suggestion that it is a bugfix. This is a statement that K 4.0 places people in jeopardy that, come the time when K 4.1 is released in less than 3 months from now, people will be left in a kind of limbo, wholly dependent on the one template currently available and supported by the Kunena team and with no other alternative templates available to them.

The point here is that, most people use Blue Eagle (or "Blue Eagle-derived" templates) on their sites and I think you may have forgotten that.

There was formerly the template default_ex. Also this template was used by the most users. And nevertheless came Kunena 1.6 with Blue Eagle.

Thanks, rich, but today's circumstances are very different. 6 years ago, when K 1.5 and J! 1.5 were in "mainstream use", the team prepared people for the challenges ahead and allowed people 12 months to adjust to those changes. The team also brought template developers along with the project. This has not happened this time.

Can we get back on-topic, please?

To summarise:

1) There is no documentation to explain the difference in K 4.0 configuration and category settings, some of which work with only Blue Eagle, some of which work only with Crypsis and one or two that do not seem to work at all.

2) There is no documentation to explain how the CAPTCHA settings are supposed to work, except for the two lines written in msg #2 of this topic.

3) This is not a question about adding a new feature to Blue Eagle. This is an issue about why the existing setting does not work with the changes made by Google. This is similar to other issues that have came up before, for example, when eBay changed the API and the development team made good on adapting Kunena to work with it. The CAPTCHA issue is not a new "feature" because Google changed the CAPTCHA API back in December 2014, Joomla followed soon after, and K 3.0.7 and K 3.0.8 have been released since then.

People have, until recently, felt comfortable that Kunena had kept up with what occurs in Joomla.

I think it would have been better to have factored this in before releasing K 3.0.7 and K 3.0.8 earlier this year and certainly before the K 4.0 that was released afterwards.

sozzled wrote: Thanks, rich, but today's circumstances are very different. 6 years ago, when K 1.5 and J! 1.5 were in "mainstream use", the team prepared people for the challenges ahead and allowed people 12 months to adjust to those changes. The team also brought template developers along with the project. This has not happened this time.

Can we get back on-topic, please?

To summarise:

1) There is no documentation to explain the difference in K 4.0 configuration and category settings, some of which work with only Blue Eagle, some of which work only with Crypsis and one or two that do not seem to work at all.

Not only with blue eagle but with third parties template which don't use HMVC

sozzled wrote: I think it would have been better to have factored this in before releasing K 3.0.7 and K 3.0.8 earlier this year and certainly before the K 4.0 that was released afterwards.

To keep compatibility with third parties template, it would have produce the same issue...

I do not understand what you are talking about. We are discussing the fundamental point that the Kunena configuration and category manager settings do not work in the same way with the two currently supported templates for K 4.0.

I think it is pointless discussing irrelevancies like "new features", things that may have happened 6 years ago, or "third-party" templates. This discussion is again going off-topic and fails to address the problem. The reality is that 9 out of 10 people today do not use Crypsis. The realiity is that people hope to obtain meaningful answers to their questions. The reality is that people are extremely worried because they do not, or cannot, use Crypsis.

Returning to the topic,

Until the developers admit that the failure to address a longstanding issue - an issue that began more than 6 months ago when Google changed their CAPTCHA API (and Joomla V 3.4 implemented reCAPTCHA V2) - this discussion will get nowhere.

I will try to find where Blue Eagle uses the reCAPTCHA settings and I will publish my findings in due course.

810 wrote: The [configuration] settings [for reCAPTCHA] are for the backwards compatibility for Blue Eagle.

This is not an entirely true statement.

I have been testing CAPTCHA issue further and it seems that the issue extends beyond the Kunena forum component. The component configuration settings also determine how the Kunena Discuss plugin works as well.

As we see, in the topic New reCaptcha? ,

xillibit wrote: ... in the future Kunena will support for captcha the Joomla! plugins directly instead to have his own code for that.

That statement was made on 3 March this year, three months before the release of K 4.0. There has been no further word on that subject since then. As we can see, from the topic I have just referred to, the discussion about Google's reCAPTCHA v2 is not new.

I want to make two points:

1) There is no explanation in the Kunena Configuration settings about how the CAPTCHA keys are supposed to work, why they need to be entered there (and not, instead, in the Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin settings), and the fact that these settings have (a) no effect on Crypsis, (b) only affect Blue Eagle and (c) are required for the Kunena Discuss module.

2) The behaviour between the Kunena component is inconsistent with other Joomla extensions (including the Joomla user registration component) that people use on their websites. The Kunena component uses Joomla Captcha - ReCaptcha plugin settings (and this statement is only half-true); the Kunena Discuss module uses the Kunena Configuration settings.

I see that the Wiki has been updated with some information about how to use reCAPTCHA with the K 4.0 component.

Unfortunately, these instructions do not apply to the Kunena Discuss plugin that still uses Google's reCAPTCHA v1 (even if people are using the Crypsis template in the forum).

A new release of kunena discuss plugin is planned with only the support of Joomla! recaptcha.