most odd…  no other such reports and we use the admin bar here between two admins and one moderator…   I just tested each of the first three approval things you brought up and all worked fine…

and if an admin or moderator turns off the admin bar, it seems to go away… at least in testing this evening…  unless it is something weird with multisite – which I dont currently have available…

yes, the old options which confused folks and really didnt work as designed or desired, have been removed…

I will have to try to set up a multisite environment time permitting and see if things are different…

I will get Andy to try in the morning too and see if its same for him…

Mr Papa said

I will have to try to set up a multisite environment…

I’ll save you some time and PM you with moderator credentials and some links to posts awaiting moderation on our dev install. That is, if you don’t mind logging in and giving the admin queue a whirl to troubleshoot the behavior I explained above. I’ll certainly understand if this is beyond the call of duty here.

Thanks in advance for all your help and hard as usual!

PS: Not sure if it’s related, or which site is generating the following error since I have these forums and my test site open, but the Firefox error console just reported …

Error: spabupdate is not defined
Source File: https://simple-press.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/forum/resources/jscript/sp-forum.js?ver=3.3.1
Line: 1

Edit: Duh, I just noticed the URL for the source of this error. Obviously unrelated to the issue I’m having!

we will try to take a look this weekend…

In trying to troubleshoot this issue further, I attempted to remove admin capabilities from one of my user accounts and make him a moderator. While that user no longer appears in the Manage Admins panel, he is still listed as an Admin in the Forum info at the bottom of forum pages. And although he appears in the Moderators usergroup (Is Moderator=Yes) with a rank of Moderator, he has no moderator capabilities…

If the user is a WP Admin, will he always be an SPF Admin by default? If so, this still wouldn’t explain the moderator status not being extended.

I have not modified settings for the account info I sent Steve.

oh crap!  Think we forgot about this one…

sorry…  have added to our watch list so we dont forget this time…

No, wp admins do not get to be sp admins by default… they have to be added in forum – admins – manage admins…  only exception is multisite super admins…

Mr Papa said
No, wp admins do not get to be sp admins by default… only exception is multisite super admins…

That could explain why the user account I tried to remove from admins and make a moderator remained an administrator.

It does not, however, explain the issues I’m still having with the moderator account for which I sent credentials that cannot approve posts from the admin queue. That user is not a super admin.

Reaching for straws, I have taken the following steps to no avail:

• PHP MyAdmin: Optimized db tables
• SPF Housekeeping: Reset the Auths cache
• SPF Housekeeping: clean up expired WP Transients
• Activated Default theme (Customized Default theme has very minor css edits and new icons)
• Deactivated all SPF plugins except Admin Bar

Not sure what other steps I could take to figure out what’s going on… please note that prior to the upgrade we had the following settings in SPF 4.5.1 for the Admin Queue:

• Use the Admins New Post Queue: ON
• Include Posts by Moderators in list: ON
• Force Queue Removal From Admins Bar Only: OFF
• Allow Moderators to Remove New Posts from Admins Unread queue: OFF

Just wondering if any of these legacy settings may be mucking up the works. These are the current settings on the live site, and with 7 moderators I don’t want to upgrade until this is resolved. I’ve now asked some of our moderators to try and replicate the issue on the test site and will report back.

Thanks again for your time!

this weekend is looking hard as we are getting ready to relaunch our site on saturday, but do want to look into…  this is not a problem anyone else is having so need to figure out what is unique to your stuff…

as admin, can you go to forum – toolbox – data inspector…  and under control data, check the spThisUser item…

then visit the forum as this moderator and see what is reported…   and see if the moderator flag is true…

Mr Papa said
as admin, can you go to forum – toolbox – data inspector…  and under control data, check the spThisUser item…

OK. But here’s the rub, only an admin has toolbox capability and “only the person who has set the inspection on will be shown the results”…

So, I made the moderator an admin, then logged in with that account, turned on spThisUser and visted the forum  [moderator] => 1

I presume this means the flag is true. There is also a long [auths] array with many variables that all seem to => 1

Interesting twist: When logged in as this moderator who was now an admin, I noticed he Admin Bar was missing so I went to the WP profile and it had been turned off. After turning it back on and visiting the forums, the user was able to use the queue without any issues, but only because this user was made an admin.

After removing Admin status of the user his name still appeared in the list of admins at bottom but no queue appeared. Upon visiting the WP profile there was no Forums admin menu. Logged back in as Admin to discover the user was no longer a moderator. After making him a moderator again, he is no longer listed as an admin and can use the queue as expected!

Ugh, what a can of worms I appear to have opened. In the meantime another existing moderator confirmed failure of the admin queue exactly as I described. I’ll attempt the convoluted workaround to see if it fixes the issue for that user, but I’d hate to have to do this for all our moderators on the live site upon upgrade.

I certainly understand priorities and don’t expect you to spend time chasing down bugs on our install. But I won’t be upgrading our live site until we figure this out, so if it must wait, so be it. Thanks again.

OK, I just had another moderator confirm the odd behavior and a rather convoluted workaround…

If I make the moderator and admin, remove him from the admin list, and then make him a moderator again, only then will the admin queue will work properly for that moderator. The only issue then is that the moderator must visit heir WP profile to turn the admin bar back on.

If I don’t discover any other unexpected anomalies before you have the chance to consider what might be causing this issue, I may just proceed with the upgrade on our live site and use the workaround I describe. I’m just leery of anything else that like this that might rear it’s ugly head…like how the Members search page only lists the Moderators group when viewed by a moderator, even when clicking all Members. (v.451 search page on live site shows all groups.) Shall I start a new topic?

the members list is controlled by a switch…  if you limit the users to only viewing usergroups they are a member of, they wont see moderators because they are not one…

just edit your sp theme to say you dont want that limit…  find this template tag:

        if (sp_has_member_groups(‘usergroup’, ‘id’, ‘asc’, 15, true)) {

in the spMembersView.php template file…  and change it to:

        if (sp_has_member_groups(‘usergroup’, ‘id’, ‘asc’, 15, false)) {

and then members will see all usergroups…  that used to be an option in the admin, but with most old options, they are now controlled by your sp theme…

we do have a ticket to consider making moderator usergroups like the admins and always show but that causes issues for sites with private forums and private usergroups with different moderators for each private forum…  so a bit more involved than simple change…

Mr Papa said
just edit your sp theme to say you dont want that limit…

Thanks for that! Thought it might have been related to the moderator madness I experienced.

+1 for showing all all members to mods.

well, I didnt say showing all members to mods…  I said showing mods to all members… 

same issue though that I mentioned about private stuff works conversely for what you said…

i a having the same issue,

there is nothing any option ,where we can the see the queued posts for approval.and moderator can approve.

i have also turned on spThisUser and visted the forum then moderator value is true.

[moderator] => 1

please help,

It would be useful if you kept your questions on this matter in the same thread.

If you want your moderator to be able to use the admin bar and postbag then HE will need to go to the forum admin > Admin > Your Admin Options and turn it on. This is a personal setting.