Chat disabled for a user can't be enabled

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a self-hosted Discourse community migrated from phpBB, tkforbes encountered an issue where chat was disabled for some users despite appearing enabled in preferences. After investigating, tkforbes discovered that affected users were at the ‘new user’ trust level, and enabling chat required promoting them to ‘basic user’. lindsey suggested checking the chat allowed groups setting, which helped identify the root cause. The issue was resolved by adjusting trust levels, and lindsey noted the topic would be closed soon unless further help was needed. Screenshots showed the Discourse version (3.4.0.beta3-dev) and chat-disabled UI indicators, confirming the behavior. The problem likely originated from phpBB migration settings, though no explicit migration flag was mentioned. Trust level restrictions, not group permissions, were the actual barrier. This case highlights how Discourse’s trust system can silently restrict features like chat, even when user preferences appear correct. Users at lower trust levels may need manual promotion to access chat, especially after migrations where trust levels aren’t automatically adjusted. The resolution underscores the importance of reviewing trust levels alongside group permissions when troubleshooting chat access issues.

1

My Discourse community is based on a recent migration from phpBB. There are over 1000 user accounts.

This is a self-hosted docker standard installation.

The image displays the dashboard for a community health update, showing the "Version" as "3.4.0.beta3-dev". (Captioned by AI)
The image displays the dashboard for a community health update, showing the "Version" as "3.4.0.beta3-dev". (Captioned by AI)994×355 25.2 KB

I recently wanted to send a chat message to a member but was prevented because of this chat disabled message (for the green circle).

Screenshot from 2024-10-24 09-05-50
Screenshot from 2024-10-24 09-05-50625×235 12.5 KB

Only some of the user accounts (but a significant number) have chat disabled. Perhaps this state was set in phpBB and migrated.

Without having made any change. when I look at the preference for an account of interest, I see that chat is marked as enabled.

Screenshot from 2024-10-24 09-11-21
Screenshot from 2024-10-24 09-11-21994×355 32.5 KB

If I cycle the state between disabled/save/enable/save, there is no difference in the behaviour - I am still unable to communicate by chat.

2

Can you check your chat allowed groups setting? It may be the case that this setting is restricting chat to just a few groups.

3

Thanks for that direction. I discovered that the disabled accounts are at ‘new user’ trust level. My problem was fixed once I promoted the account to 'basic user’.

4

Glad that did the trick! I’m going to set this topic to close in a couple days, but please feel free to reach back out if there’s anything else to do here.