I would be 99% certain that you have a JavaScript error that is trashing the AJAX calls and causing some failures. That would be a classic result of such an error. Either your WP theme or another plugin you are using will be causing the error.

You can check that with your web browser console: See this FAQ for a simple and quick guide: http://simple-press.dev/documentation/codex/faq/how-to/how-to-use-your-web-browser-console/

Thank you however the link you provided appears to be invalid.  Could you please resend?

Update.  I changed the .dev to .com and the link worked.

Whoops. Sorry…

https://simple-press.com/documentation/codex/faq/how-to/how-to-use-your-web-browser-console/

I went through the process you defined and I received these 2 errors:

Uncaught ReferenceError: jQuery is not defined(anonymous function) @ index.php?sp_ahah=profile&sfnonce=562c251715&tab=options&user=1&rand=1275679291:2

Uncaught ReferenceError: jQuery is not defined(anonymous function) @ index.php?sp_ahah=profile&sfnonce=562c251715&tab=options&user=1&rand=1275679291:20

That’s interesting…

can I have a link to your forum page?

Found the conflict.  It is the W3 Total Cache plugin.  As soon as I deactivated, the forum profile pages had more detail and clicking on the options button took me to the actual options.  When I reactivated, it kicked me out of the theme again.

Forum is http://kidneystones.care/forum/

I am assuming it must be one of the settings in W3 Total Cache that is causing the problem.

Narrowed it down a step further.  Turns out to be the browser caching.  When I turn it off, profile and option pages work perfectly.

There is no area in the W3TC options to exclude a page from browser caching.

I have searched through this forum for any solutions and have not been able to find any.  I would hate to have to keep browser caching turned off.

No problem with browser caching – at least nobody else has a problem with browser caching 🙂

First things first. Have you excluded the forum page from W3 Total Cache? And this needs to be done on al aspects of W3TC that you have active…

It is the browser caching.  When I turn browser caching off, profile and option pages work perfectly.  As soon as I turn it back on, the profile page goes haywire again. There is no area in the browser caching options to exclude a page.

You don’t have to.
Firstly you still need to answer the W3TC question as this is actually important.
Secondly – rather than turn browser caching off have you simply cleared it out? If you turn it off and on again then it will still have the cached item it had before.