bbPress – change order of certain topics with MySQL

2018-07-18 WE

Problem/ Question:
There are situations, when you need to change topic position in the list of other topics in the forum.  Where bbPress (WordPress plugin) stores the values to sort topics display order?

Plan of action:
– Determine topic ID
– Update bbPress  topic freshness recorded somewhere in MySQL

Solution:

-01-  To determine topic ID open topic and note topic ID in the upper left corner.  In this example topic ID is 5626:

-02- Check current freshness value in post_meta table:

SELECT * FROM wp_postmeta  WHERE post_id = 5626 and  meta_key = ‘_bbp_last_active_time’

-03- Update freshness field value per your requirements:

UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = ‘2018-06-28 16:52:06’
WHERE post_id = 5626 and  meta_key = ‘_bbp_last_active_time’ AND meta_value = ‘2018-07-16 16:52:06’

Refresh your forum page and observe that your topic now gained a new place in the list of topics.