Opened 9 months ago
#8781 new defect (bug)
Username consisting entirely of special characters causes profile links to break
| Reported by: |
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Owned by: | |
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| Milestone: | Awaiting Review | Priority: | normal |
| Severity: | normal | Version: | |
| Component: | (not sure) | Keywords: | |
| Cc: |
Description
Hi,
When registering a username which consists only of special characters (example @-@-), the registration proceeds and the user account can be activated. However, the profile link is non-existent, so the user cannot do anything with their account through the web interface when logged in (their account links will 404). Other users and admins (from the web frontend) cannot access the new profile either, because they'll end up going to /members/ when they click on the profile.
This is also reflected in the output of the REST API. For example, some plugins are not exposed via the REST API. To get around this limitation, our app uses the user profile link (as provided by the REST API members endpoint) to open a web browser and redirect them to the website. This allows users to access specific functions, such as exporting their profile data. However, they are not able to access these functions because the link is invalid.
Perhaps, in this situation, making it a requirement to have at least one letter or number in the username field would prevent this? Or even having it so no special characters are allowed? We also note that the View User link (top bar) when viewing an account with a username like this (e.g. @-@-) in the admin backend is also blank (/author/). We do know there is a link between BuddyPress and WordPress regarding usernames, but we are unsure of the extent of this.
Thanks.