The discussion revolves around how existing Discourse users can link their Patreon accounts, particularly when 2FA is enabled. dylanh724 notes that Patreon instructions require new account registration, raising questions about linking for existing users, especially those using alternative logins like Facebook. Stephen explains that Discourse cannot recognize patrons without an explicit association. dylanh724 discovers the ‘associated accounts’ section is missing, despite having Patreon enabled in site settings. JimPas confirms the need to enable Patreon in the admin settings. dylanh724 identifies that 2FA suppresses the ‘associated accounts’ section, a known issue since 2018 review.discourse.org/t/feature-allow-connecting-associated-accounts-when-two-factor-is-enabled-6754/698. This creates a conflict between security (2FA) and functionality (Patreon linking). dylanh724 highlights the visual difference between new and existing users, questioning why Patreon isn’t offered as a linking option for existing users, unlike social accounts.
All the instructions on both Discourse and Patreon’s site instructs end-users to claim benefits by registering a new account via Patreon. What about veteran/existing end-users, or those that register via an alt login type (Facebook, etc)?
PS - can we add this answer to the Patreon setup docs, too?
How does Discourse know a user is a Patron if they never linked the account in some form?
It can’t, you would need to make the association. Presumably it works the same way as other social accounts in the users profile?
Have you enabled Patreon in your site settings in admin/site_settings/category/plugins and entered your details?
Yep - we actually have multiple logins, including Patreon, but none of these “associated accounts” appear in profile:
Wait, I found the reason (not solution) here:
It’s suppressed when 2FA is enabled. --@Falco
…but this means that activating 2FA, which is highly recommended, kills off essential features to make Patreon (or any connection) work?
TL;DR: 2FA kills off “associated accounts” section, including Patreon?
Apparently, this feature got approved in 2018, but does not seem to be working (unless there’s some setting I checked to hide it, but I cannot find such):
To add, this is what new users see to register:
However, this is all that shows up to a user that doesn’t have 2FA:
Only FB? Discord may have been a 3rd-party plugin (I can’t recall - why this associated account link would be off-topic), but Patreon is the official plugin – how come there’s not a Patreon connect link for existing accounts?
