When I access my site (www.worldartchamionships.com) from the Admin Tool>Visit my site link, everything is fine. But, if I go directly to the URL by typing it in a browser, I am redirected to /protected and am told "The content you are trying to access is only available to members. Sorry." I am using the membership plugin and also have buddypress installed, but have not set any restrictions yet on the access levels.
The current homepage and navigation are not going to ever be member-restricted, they are the public part of the site.
Did you set any level for stranger settings? You need to set a level for your visitor in Membership > Settings > General.
Then only rules of that level will be accessible for the user.
Thanks Ash. I do have one it is set to one of the membership levels, "Supporter" but I really dont want it restricted at all.
So, is the best way to do taht create a new Membership Access Level, say "Public" and set their level to have "postive access" to the main menu?
Yes. Also set the pages for positive rules that you want to keep open for visitors.