Add user to group in Joomla not working - joomla

Question

I am trying to add a user to a group. I can run this PHP code without any errors, but the user group is still not changed.
<?php
define('_JEXEC', 1);
define('JPATH_BASE', realpath(dirname(__FILE__)));
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .'/includes/defines.php' );
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .'/includes/framework.php' );
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .'/libraries/joomla/factory.php' );
$userId = 358;
$groupId = 11;
echo JUserHelper::addUserToGroup($userId, $groupId);
?>

Answer 1

I run in the same issue with payment callback. I found that user groups save in the database correctly, but are not refreshed in Juser object (becouse You add user to group in different session). When user interacts on a page groups are restored.
Another think that i found is that changing groups in administrator panel works the same way if user is logged in.
To deal with it I made system plugin and in onAfterInitialise function i do:
//get user
$me = JFactory::getUser();
//check if user is logged in
if($me->id){
//get groups
$groups = JUserHelper::getUserGroups($me->id);
//check if current user object has right groups
if($me->groups != $groups){
//if not update groups and clear session access levels
$me->groups = $groups;
$me->set('_authLevels', null);
}
}
Hope it will help.

Answer 2

Possible "Easy" Solution:
The code is correct and it should put your $userId and $groupId in the db to be precise in #__user_usergroup_map .
Btw consider that this method is rising an error if you use a wrong groupId but it's not raising any error if you insert a wrong $userId and for wrong I mean that it doesn't exist.
So there are canches that the user with $userId = 358; doesn't exist.
Update - Hard Debugging:
Ok in this case I suggest you to digg in the code of the helper.
The file is :
libraries/joomla/user/helper.php
On line 33 You have JUserHelper::addUserToGroup.
This is the code:
public static function addUserToGroup($userId, $groupId)
{
// Get the user object.
$user = new JUser((int) $userId);
// Add the user to the group if necessary.
if (!in_array($groupId, $user->groups))
{
// Get the title of the group.
$db = JFactory::getDbo();
$query = $db->getQuery(true)
->select($db->quoteName('title'))
->from($db->quoteName('#__usergroups'))
->where($db->quoteName('id') . ' = ' . (int) $groupId);
$db->setQuery($query);
$title = $db->loadResult();
// If the group does not exist, return an exception.
if (!$title)
{
throw new RuntimeException('Access Usergroup Invalid');
}
// Add the group data to the user object.
$user->groups[$title] = $groupId;
// Store the user object.
$user->save();
}
if (session_id())
{
// Set the group data for any preloaded user objects.
$temp = JFactory::getUser((int) $userId);
$temp->groups = $user->groups;
// Set the group data for the user object in the session.
$temp = JFactory::getUser();
if ($temp->id == $userId)
{
$temp->groups = $user->groups;
}
}
return true;
}
The bit that save the group is $user->save();.
Try to var_dump() till there and see where is the issue.

Answer 3

Author already halfish solved this problem so this answer may help to others. It took me hours of debugging with Eclipse and XDebug to find the issue. This error was very tricky because addUserToGroup() was returning true for me and user object was as well with successful changes, but they were not saved in database. The problem was that onUserBeforeSave() method in my plugin was throwing exception whenever addUserToGroup() was trying to save a user. So check your implementation of onUserBeforeSave() if you touched it. If not you must install Eclipse with XDebug and try to debug what is your exact problem.