# Chat disabled for a user can't be enabled

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** chat
**Created:** [October 24, 2024, 1:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579 "2024-10-24T13:33:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![tkforbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@tkforbes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tkforbes)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579/1 "2024-10-24T13:33:45Z")

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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)](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/0/6/0/0608060bc55a7cfbfdb8d8ecc40e93f335d12eeb.png)

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](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/c/c/f/ccf8ff444d6ca7b1d2872c93b3e717c13dcfb56a.png)

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](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/e/7/6/e76e52db90a87269992937029f7afbed202ae094.png)

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.

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### Author: ![lindsey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/lindsey/32/318210_2.png) [@lindsey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lindsey)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579/2 "2024-10-24T13:36:45Z")

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

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### Author: ![tkforbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@tkforbes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tkforbes)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579/3 "2024-10-24T13:47:23Z")

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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’_.

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### Author: ![lindsey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/lindsey/32/318210_2.png) [@lindsey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lindsey)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579/4 "2024-10-24T13:49:07Z")

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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.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![lindsey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/lindsey/32/318210_2.png) [@lindsey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lindsey)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/chat-disabled-for-a-user-cant-be-enabled/332579/5 "2024-11-23T13:49:32Z")

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