Direct user to Log in Page instead of the 403 error page

Our site is set up so the Home page is public, but all the menu items are for Registered users only. The Home page contains text indicating that to access the site, the user must login first. If they don't yet have an account, the "Create Account" link is right there on the front page for them to use.

However, we still have users who come to the site, land on the Home Page, and then attempt to access a page from the Main Menu BEFORE they have logged in.

When they do this they get the Joomla 403 error message. That message does not specifically tell them what the problem is (that they need to be a registered user who has logged in). What we want is for the user to be directed to the Log In menu instead of going to the 403 error page. So, anytime that the site would have given the user a 403 error page, we want them to go to the Log In screen instead.

There are several sets of instructions online with examples of how to edit Joomla's error.php file (move it first to the templates\TemplateName folder, edit it, etc.) There are examples of what code to put in the file, etc. However, it also appears that starting with Joomla 3.7.1, those previous instructions on editing and customizing error.php no longer apply. I can't find any examples online of editing Joomla 3.8.x's (which we are using), error.php file. I've tried some different edits of that code, but haven't struck on the exact edit that will work to redirect any 403 error to the Joomla Log In menu.

If anyone has successfully accomplished the above and can share the process, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you -

Hi

I can see a few things here :

1. Why don't you set Access Level of the menu items to Registered? By doing that, users won't see the menu items until they logged in, so they won't be able to click on it and won't see the error

2. I never edited that error.php file before, so I don't really know. However, I don't think it's related to Joomla version, it should still work well. Maybe you are editing wrong file (in case you have multiple templates, you will have to edit the file in the right template). Not sure what code you added to the error.php file, I haven't tried but I think something like below should work:
Regards,

Tuan

Anyway, for this kind of question/issue, I think it's better to post it at joomla.stackexchange.com/ or even Joomla facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/joomlanospam/

There should be multiple users there face this issue before and hopefully, they can give you with solution

Tuan

My client wants the menu items to be visible to anyone visiting the home page, but accessible to only those who log in. That's why I would like to handle this with a 403 page re-direct.

Thanks for the code tip I will experiment with that. The code you gave code is a bit different from the code examples others had used in previous Jooma versions (which do not work any longer).

Thanks for the suggestions. There are actually some ongoing discussions related to this topic on several online forums. None had a working solution yet.

I had just wondered if any of the other users of this forum, who maintain Joomla sites, had a working solution to this and could share how they solved it.

If I understand your issue correctly, then the suggested code should work fine. Please try that and update us with the result

Tuan