First, it may seem a little silly to say this, but it has happened – make sure you log out of the admin before you test. If you are logged in as admin, you will be able to click through to view the post (with the exception of role and membership restriction). To know if you are logged in, we suggest using the WP-Members login widget, included in the installation.
For posts, be sure you either apply the “read more” tag or enable the plugin’s auto-excerpt feature (found in the plugin’s main options). The blocking only takes place on single posts. Without this tag or a set excerpt, a full post will display on your home page or on an archive/category page.
There is an individual setting at the post level to “hide” content. Any content marked as “hidden” will be removed from the Loop completely if the user is not logged in. The difference in these settings is that blocked content will be excerpted, hidden content will be completely removed.
Check your settings for both posts and pages. The default installation is to block posts by default but not pages. If you’ve installed the plugin and intend to block pages, you will need to set that in the plugin’s options.
Content other than single post/pages
The plugin does not block archives, search results, category lists, or other summaries from view as these are not technically “pages.” Instead, these templates display a list of post excerpts truncated at the “read more” tag or by the auto-excerpt function. If you want to block these completely from view, you will need to set up a redirect away from those templates or customize the way your template displays the Loop based on user login state. Alternatively, you can simply mark content as “hidden.” This also is true for creating a “blog page.” Even if you have the plugin set to block pages, WordPress still treats its “blog page” as a summary of posts and not a “page.”
Also, please note that certain plugins (and themes) not only use Custom Post Types (which are not automatically handled by the plugin) and may possibly use custom post meta outside WP’s main Loop. This means that there are certain situations that may require special handling. This includes certain event calendars, forums, LMS plugins, and WooCommerce. It does not mean that these are incompatible with WP-Members, but simply that blocking certain pieces of content may not fall directly within the plugin’s core process.
Working with builder plugins/themes
Depending upon how a builder utilizes content, the plugin’s default method of handling WP’s $content variable may not result in restricted content. In many cases, the default plugin handler is fine because the filter used to handle content blocking has been adjusted in when it fires to accommodate some of the most popular builders. However, builder plugin/themes are still the “wild west” with no standardization – they all handle things their own way. If you’re using a builder and have issues with content blocking, refer to this article for simple ways to handle it.
For a broader discussion of this topic, please see the post “How the Plugin Handles Blocking Content“. The “Initial Setup” video is also helpful in understanding how the plugin works.