LotusJeff’s “elder forums” roll-call turned into a mini case study on why some communities survive platform shifts (phpBB/vBulletin → Discourse, Facebook leakage, and the “Discourse bump”), with migration notes from elmuerte and graphs from Canapin. How Old is Your Forum?
Discourse AI hosted LLM capacity got a major bump across plans, plus model and performance improvements (token limits and speed). Falco posted the new limits table and pointed folks to updated pricing. Unlock All Discourse AI Features with Our Hosted LLM
A “randomly logging everyone out” mystery ended up being a classic Cloudflare-origin IP pitfall: ban one IP and you’ve effectively banned everyone. Falco asked if the Cloudflare template is enabled in app.yml. Our Forum Seems To Be Logging Everyone Out
A staging upgrade to 2026.3.0-latest appeared to stop showing username + real name together; a likely culprit is the “same username/name” suppression behavior + the setting to force both to display. Username + real name not working in 2026.3.0-latest
A subtle permissions/UI question: should about-page hidden groups stay hidden even for members of about page extra groups (e.g. admins)? The current behavior seemed surprising enough to warrant clarification. About page hidden groups and about page extra groups
A Chinese-language ai support question reported tool-calling timeouts (Operation timed out - FinalDestination::HTTP); Falco asked which specific tool was timing out to narrow next steps. Discourse ai 的工具调用超时如何解决？
A practical “recovery cookbook” got added for people migrating uploads from S3 to local disk and ending up with transparent.png: recreate missing uploads records from orphaned files, then rebake. Re-adding missing uploads to the database
Chat settings confusion resurfaced: disabling chat made the chat preferences section disappear (and /preferences/chat redirects away). A prior related report was referenced for comparison. 聊天功能被禁用后，其设置消失。 (see also Once chat is disabled it cannot be enabled any more)
Notifications edge-case: chapoi noted that some “phantom notification” issues can be effectively impossible to solve perfectly due to complexity—while still acknowledging the frustration and discouraging rants. Discourse states i have a notification
Private calendar ergonomics continued to improve: authenticated ICS feed access is already in progress, but the follow-up is making User API Key generation non-technical-user friendly. Authenticated ICS feeds for private calendar events
Discourse dev + LLM workflows: a thread about Claude and Discourse-related development emphasized that models need guardrails and up-to-date docs; chapoi pointed out the dev docs are now back in the core repo. Claude & Discourse-related development. How good is it?
Markdown alternatives: replacing Markdown with Quarkdown was deemed not feasible without effectively extending markdown-it to replicate needed features. Can Markdown be replaced with Quarkdown
Set expectations on markup extensibility: “not possible” to swap out Markdown wholesale; you’d need to extend markdown-it for desired features in Can Markdown be replaced with Quarkdown.
May your Cloudflare bans be un-banned, your uploads rebaked, and your tablet search boxes stop typing in reverse—see you tomorrow, Meta adventurers.
Timelord asked how to merge content from another Discourse without a full backup/restore in “Forum Aquisition”, and itsbhanusharma pointed to the canonical “move topics between instances” approach (read more; reference: read more).
In a Chinese-language support thread about AI translation, nat explained that enabling the “Experimental tag settings page” lets admins edit tag localizations when AI translation also translates tag text (read more).
Engineer_Abdallah explored using Discourse as an articles + courses platform (with images/video/code/files), and chapoi suggested the Topic List Thumbnails theme component to get more visual “front page” presentation (read more; suggested TC: read more).
Eviepayne reported that attachment click counters no longer appear (even when using |attachment), and asked if the previous counter behavior can be restored (read more).
In a long-running “install on a VPS” help thread, the discussion ranged from DIY installs to safer maintenance workflows (including pfaffman’s one-click upgrade dashboard mention) and what to expect from hosted support (read more; hosting/legal process note: read more).
A LinkedIn OAuth setup got unstuck when alanr reminded folks the redirect URL must exactly match what LinkedIn expects (example callback path included) (read more).
A tricky sign-up failure investigation continued: asc linked reproduction to toggling local login, along with errors mentioning missing MaxMind DB files and Discourse ID auth failures (read more).
A fresh regression report claims the new category settings UI can leave “Solved” stuck on: once enabled, it can’t be deselected because the controls move/disappear between settings screens (read more).
Another bug report described the floating search widget reversing character order on certain setups; Falco couldn’t reproduce on Edge/Android/Gboard and suggested testing other keyboards (read more).
#Feature
In the reactions/likes UI discussion, soraiden asked how to expand the “and X more…” list of reactors, and Falco confirmed the team is working on a new UI component to support this cleanly (read more; question context: read more).
The Google Programmable Search Engine / Custom Search API situation appears to have shifted again: Falco noted the relevant Google capability was discontinued and said Discourse is researching alternative providers (and thinking about supporting “native search tools” bundled with major LLM providers) (read more; more context: read more).
#Theme component
A new theme component: “Bilibili Inline Player” was shared as a no-rebuild alternative to the server-side plugin approach, with setup steps and a comparison to the existing OneBox/plugin solution (read more; related plugin thread: read more).
The Banner Featured Links component got a practical compatibility refresh: eisammy swapped deprecated htmlSafe usage for trustHTML, and Arkshine shipped an update/cleanup with a detailed changelog and tests (read more; update notes: read more).
#Plugin
In the official Discourse OpenID Connect (OIDC) plugin thread, Steradiant asked about syncing Discourse groups from OIDC group claims, pointing to an older PR that implemented it and asking whether it could be included (read more).
The Geo Blocking plugin thread clarified Cloudflare specifics: RGJ confirmed it works with Cloudflare (with proper setup) and corrected a misunderstanding about what CF-IPCountry contains, while noting the plugin uses Discourse’s internal MaxMind DB (read more; question: read more; referenced Cloudflare guide: read more).
#Using Discourse
In a reference thread on filtering topic lists, cmdntd asked whether /filter can be used within a category context to keep the left-side navigation (cat menu / sidebar) in place (read more).
On AI Sentiment backfilling, satonotdead asked about populating sentiment further back than the default window, and Falco clarified that the last 60 days backfill is automatic once enabled (and the thread continues with debugging questions) (read more; original question: read more).
Confirmed the team is building a better UI to show the full list of reactions beyond “and X more…” (read more).
Investigated the reversed-character input in the floating search widget and asked for keyboard-specific reproduction details (read more).
Explained that Google discontinued a key Programmable Search behavior and shared that Discourse is researching alternatives (including possible LLM-native web search tooling support) (read more).
Clarified AI Sentiment behavior: enabling it automatically backfills the last 60 days (read more).
nat provided the solution for AI translation translating tags: enable the Experimental tag settings page and edit localizations there (read more).
chapoi helped connect “Discourse as articles/courses” needs to existing UI building blocks by recommending Topic List Thumbnails (read more), and also questioned whether a “missing counts” report was truly theme-caused by checking the Ghost theme preview behavior (read more).
If today’s search box starts typing backwards, remember Canapin’s wisdom: stick to palindromes and you’ll still get the right query (read more).
祁同伟 reported that when the composer has too many buttons, the later buttons become inaccessible; the thread explored horizontal scrolling affordances, gradient hints, and whether the scroll arrow should appear on touch devices (or only “narrow screens / coarse pointers”) in 编辑器按钮较多时，靠后的按钮不可见 — including the “arrow hidden on touch” detail at read more and the safe-mode observation at read more.
The same conversation pointed to a process note: staff-attention DMs often stay open and can be used to continue a moderation request without starting a new public thread, referencing A post in “A way to monitor user uploaded files” requires staff attention as an example of where that workflow surfaced.
ActivityPub implementers compared logs and confirmed repeatable behavior around handle validation / lookup flows (notably /webfinger/handle/validate followed by actor lookup), adding real-world diagnostics to the long-running ActivityPub Plugin thread.
DiscourseAI users troubleshooting Sentiment found a classic self-hosting pitfall: missing internal IPs in allowed internal hosts. The thread then moved into whether a deeper historical backfill is feasible and safe in Problems setting up Sentiment, with staff pointing back to the canonical setup guide Self-Hosting Sentiment and Emotion for DiscourseAI and clarifying questions at read more.
In that same upload issue, logs suggested plugin/theme interactions, and merefield advised removing a noisy third-party plugin to stabilize the build in Getting error while uploading theme (after the error-log excerpt surfaced at read more).
A request came in to embed videos from Bunny Stream, but Discourse only rendered a generic link preview; the thread asks what’s required for onebox/embed support in Allow Embedded Video from Bunny CDN stream service.
A lively AI-admin anecdote: using Claude Code + SSH to revive and migrate a “dead” vBulletin forum sparked discussion about how coding agents are changing admin workflows in Claude Code - Resurected Dead vBulletin from 2016.
The OpenAI Codex CLI + MCP setup thread saw a follow-up post deleted by its author, leaving the main configuration discussion as the primary reference point in Discourse MCP Setup in OpenAI Codex CLI.
awesomerobot dug into mobile/touch behavior around horizontally scrollable composer toolbars, first suspecting theme CSS interference and recommending safe mode checks in 编辑器按钮较多时，靠后的按钮不可见, then explaining that Discourse intentionally hides the scroll arrow on touch devices (and questioning whether that should change) at read more.
renato added a nuanced UX refinement: instead of “touch device detection,” the arrow-display logic might be better keyed off screen width or the presence of a “fine pointer,” since touch-enabled laptops complicate the current heuristic in 编辑器按钮较多时，靠后的按钮不可见. renato also confirmed an anchor-link issue appears fixed after a merged core PR and scheduled the report to close in Anchor links not working within Discourse - but work from outside the topic.
If yesterday taught meta anything, it’s that between resurrecting ancient vBulletin installs and chasing missing UI arrows, the real “scroll” was the troubleshooting we did along the way.
das-g’s footer sponsor component started rendering template directives literally after updates; chapoi traced it to modernization work and deprecated patterns like registerConnectorClass, pointing toward plugin outlets (e.g. above-footer) and newer theme structures (read more). Background pointers referenced in-thread include modern outlet patterns (read more) and theme docs (read more, read more).
Continuing that migration thread, das-g asked how to correctly reference theme assets (images/fonts) from Glimmer/strict-mode templates without hitting scope errors (e.g. helper resolution failures), with a nudge toward settings.theme_uploads... usage (read more). The discussion explicitly ties back to the broken footer work (read more) and the long-running assets guide it builds on (read more).
Naming conventions for Discourse theme component repos got some practical proposals: while nothing is enforced, patterns like discourse- prefixes and community conventions like discourse-tc- surfaced as a way to quickly distinguish components vs themes vs plugins (read more).
A small but impactful docs fix: das-g flagged broken links in the longstanding “Theme Developer Quick Reference Guide,” and tshenry patched them promptly (read more).
Localization workflow clarity: when a PR needs translations, the guidance was that contributors handle English and automation/community translation processes take care of the rest (read more).
Discourse made it much easier to create Q&A-style Support categories by turning on sensible defaults for the solved experience during category creation (notably “Allow topic owner and staff to mark a reply as the solution”) (read more). In related bug news, there’s also an acknowledged issue where some admins are unable to disable solved once enabled in a category—martin indicated a fix is in progress (read more). (For baseline context, the Solved plugin reference is here: read more.)
Category composition got another quality-of-life enhancement: you can now set title placeholders per category, and it’s been confirmed as “in core” (with commit references in-thread) (read more). This dovetails with prior asks about category-specific title prompts (read more).
A creative (and uncomfortable) scenario: a site owner reported their forum being accessible via someone else’s URL/proxy, and the pragmatic takeaway was that you can’t fully prevent public mirroring without making the site private—focus on account monitoring and privacy controls when needed (read more).
Cloudflare operational notes got two angles today: real-world configuration updates were added to the Cloudflare best-practices guide (including reminders like ensuring the Cloudflare template is in app.yml) (read more), and a separate “everyone is getting logged out” report tied the symptoms to Cloudflare/IP visibility and moderation actions (e.g. banning what looks like a shared IP) (read more).
A “core bug” turned out to be a theme interaction: a report that “Username + real name” display wasn’t working on 2026.3.0-latest was resolved by using safe mode to identify a theme setting (“Remove name suppression on posts”) as the culprit (read more).
Sidebar link normalization appears to be breaking certain external URLs: if an external URL contains the site’s own hostname inside a query parameter, the hostname may be stripped, breaking redirect-style flows (with a workaround involving URL-encoding / direct DB write) (read more).
Embedding video from Bunny Stream was solved with the straightforward approach: allow the provider’s iframe host via the allowed iframes setting, using Bunny’s embed URL format (read more).
#Plugin
The activitypub plugin thread continued diagnosing an actor-discovery mismatch: pmusaraj could find @announcements@meta.discourse.org elsewhere, while the reporter on 2026.3.0-latest could not—prompting version/config comparisons (read more).
#Site feedback
Meta’s own category re-organization work surfaced a UX gotcha: “index” links may be visually present but effectively unclickable because the whole box captures the click, preventing link interaction—mcwumbly confirmed the behavior and outlined why it happens (read more).
Discourse published a reflection on internal culture and craft: writing as a core practice for clearer thinking, stronger collaboration, and better decision-making—now mirrored on Meta as a companion discussion topic (read more).
pmusaraj continued troubleshooting in the experimental activitypub plugin thread by asking for version details and comparing actor discovery behavior across instances (ActivityPub Plugin); and also pushed forward diagnosis on Discourse ID signup failures by asking for credential regeneration and a review of auth-related settings (New users can’t sign up, 404 errors in console).
In the last 24 hours, Meta saw 97 new posts across 13 new topics, spanning everything from account-security workflows to docs navigation experiments (e.g. read more, read more, read more).
“How do you move changes from dev to prod?” (and what not to do): A practical thread on deployment mindset for Docker installs, with Falco pointing folks back to plugin/theme workflows and merefield emphasizing backups aren’t a dev→prod transport in What’s yall’s work-flow like?.
Admin UI breakage after upgrading to v3.5.3: A report (in Chinese) showing missing admin modules + safe-mode observations, with a reminder that v3.5.3 is out of support in 升级至v3.5.3之后管理员页面出现异常.
Per-user “always approve posts” moderation:haydenjames asked for a built-in way to force approval for specific users; Moin suggested a dynamic-groups approach as a workaround strategy in Force post approval for specific users only? (with pointers to review triggers here and dynamic group logic here).
Upload limits: nginx config resets + Docker best practice:Andro hit confusing “512m maximum allowed” failures even for a 30MB PDF, then realized container edits revert; merefield pointed to updating app.yml correctly in Maxmum upload size.
Replacing Discourse search with SearchUnify: A short “is this possible?” integration question in SearchUnify Search bar.
Moderation queue wording confusion (“Is this post something else or spam?”):peternlewis flagged an awkward yes/no prompt and asked for clearer action labeling, with follow-up examples of other queue weirdness in “Is this post something else or spam?”.
What should the homepage be for doc categories (index vs latest vs overview)?mcwumbly proposed routing doc-category clicks to an index/overview, while manuel raised deeper scanning/navigation issues with the current sidebar layout in What should the homepage be for doc categories?.
#Site feedback
Meta category organization + docs index duplication:manuel noted that index topics can appear in multiple places (sidebar generation, pinned topic list, description links) and suggested simplifying, while mcwumbly compared pin behavior and called it a docs-plugin usability gap in Updating how categories are organized on Meta.
#Plugin
Experimental plugin: “Suggested Edits” (Wikipedia-style contributions with reviewer control):sam announced Discourse Suggested Edits as an experimental plugin designed for granular review/acceptance of changes without granting full edit rights in Discourse Suggested Edits.
#Feature
Authenticated ICS feeds for private calendar events (merged) + client compatibility debugging:Falco merged authenticated feeds and then investigated why Google Calendar/Outlook might show no events despite valid VEVENTs, including mention of a fix for old recurring events in Authenticated ICS feeds for private calendar events.
New user signup failures + “can’t alloc thread” Sidekiq errors: A debugging thread where safe-mode behavior, plugin/theme elimination, and resource constraints (1GB droplet + swap considerations) came up in New users can’t sign up, 404 errors in console.
supermathie helped triage the same signup thread by verifying Discourse ID signups worked on their end and pointing out that “can’t alloc thread” suggests system-level constraints in New users can’t sign up, 404 errors in console.
Sign-off: After a day of suggested edits, hacked-account hardening, and calendar-feed detective work, Meta’s vibe is clear: ship the fix, refine the UX, and keep the puppies safe.
david announced a new, mostly backwards-compatible build system for plugin JavaScript, aligning plugins with the modern theme build pipeline and enabling faster rebuilds, better caching, and native ES modules (read more). This also ties into efforts to ship more precompiled assets for self-hosters (read more).
A moderation-review wording/flow issue: the prompt “Is this post something else or spam?” confused people because “X or Y” is logically always “yes”; awesomerobot suggested switching to more generic copy when multiple flag types are combined (read more). Related: visual oddities in moderator actions were cross-referenced to an older report (read more) and to a long-running lowercase-conversion translation problem (read more).
“Dismiss” that doesn’t dismiss: darkpixlz reported that the HTTPS / reverse-proxy advice banner reappears even after dismissal, prompting discussion of whether “dismiss” is intended as a permanent hide vs. a “fix underlying issue” nudge (read more). Moin linked the broader explanation of current notice behavior and the idea of adding “snooze” in the future (read more).
RTL polish: a new report notes the reply icon variant isn’t switching properly in the profile menu for RTL languages like Arabic/Persian, despite other UI areas using an RTL-correct icon (read more).
Locale-aware title cleanup: a quick question about whether title_remove_extraneous_space should be disabled by default concluded with Moin pointing out it’s already locale-overridden (enabled for English, disabled for non-English defaults) (read more). Background: the original behavior discussion lives here (read more) and the setting details were referenced here (read more).
A long-running UI glitch where the page “jumps” after opening a user card got more data: Arkshine reproduced it and suggested the chat plugin’s CSS might be contributing (read more). The thread also re-covered troubleshooting via safe mode to isolate customizations (read more).
Mobile/tablet rendering: the large gap below tables on tablets got a fix queued—chapoi pointed to a change for permanent visibility (read more) and later confirmed a targeted fix landed (read more).
Chat admin/settings reliability: in a Chinese-language report, chat settings disappear after chat is disabled; j.jaffeux indicated a fix would ship shortly and asked for confirmation if still broken (read more).
Another chat UX fix proposal: a patch thread continues work on iOS/iPadOS scrolling issues and member-list layout overflow, with j.jaffeux planning to test and chapoi leaving implementation feedback (read more, read more).
#Self-hosting
Upgrade woes after moving to 2026.1.1: a self-hosted admin reported admin pages breaking after upgrading, but the deployment details revealed a Kubernetes + “web_only” approach; replies clarified what’s supported and suggested typical rebuild steps, while noting the k8s approach is outside standard support paths (read more, read more).
#Announcements
Free plan beta clarification: mattdm asked whether the Free tier allows “public site + some private categories,” and pmusaraj clarified Free sites can be entirely public or entirely private, but can’t mix with additional private categories (beyond the seeded Staff category) (read more).
“Where can I try Chat?”: a new user asked for examples of Discourse Chat “in the wild”; Moin recommended trying it on the sandbox and explained options to experiment via hosted trials/free plan (read more) referencing the Free plan beta topic (read more).
#Feature
Email templates refinement: a feature request proposes an option so notification emails can display just the subcategory name (when present) instead of always showing “Category/Subcategory” (read more).
Likes/reactions visibility: a new request argues that when a post has many likes, it’s no longer possible to see the full list of users; the suggestion is to allow another click to fully expand the list (read more). This was also merged into the broader, older feature conversation about exposing all reactions/likes (read more).
AI + automation ideas continue: a new ai request asks whether Discourse would ship an official OpenClaw “skill” to let an authenticated user instruct an agent to perform forum actions (including reposting authorized content into categories with tags) (read more). For context, there’s already an “OpenClaw plugin for Discourse integration” thread exploring adjacent workflows (read more).
david introduced a new plugin JS build system with caching, ES module output, and a path toward bundling precompiled code for popular plugins (read more), explicitly tying into the precompiled-assets direction for self-hosters (read more).
awesomerobot jumped into the review-queue UX confusion around “Is this post something else or spam?”, identified a “standalone yes button” as a bug, and proposed more generic phrasing when multiple flag types are combined (read more, read more).
chapoi had a busy day across UI and bugfixes: they investigated the tablet table-builder gap and linked/landed fixes (read more, read more), reviewed a proposed iOS/iPadOS chat scrolling fix with some follow-up comments (read more), and helped debug a 500 error when splitting/merging topics by asking for browser-console clues and edge cases like solutions in the posts (read more).
pmusaraj clarified Discourse’s Free plan beta limitations around private categories on otherwise public sites (read more) and wrapped up a support thread by advising that “disabled” plugins may still run code—suggesting complete removal from app.yml while isolating login issues (read more).
davidb confirmed a bug fix for marking a reply as the solution after a merge, linking to the commit and noting it was already deployed to the affected site (read more).
j.jaffeux addressed multiple Chat-related items: they gave an imminent-fix ETA for chat settings disappearing when chat is disabled (read more), acknowledged a patch thread and planned testing for iOS/iPadOS scrolling/member-list overflow fixes (read more), and clarified that pinned chat messages are not destroyed (read more).
martin noted progress on a bug where admins were unable to disable “solved” after enabling it for categories (read more) and responded to feedback on the “support category” creation flow—agreeing to adjust confusing wording and avoid forced-lowercase strings that break translations (read more).
sam helped triage a report of 500 errors when splitting topics, requesting logs and clarifying whether the instance was hosted or self-hosted to guide next steps (read more, read more).
mcwumbly did some housekeeping by closing a feature request as a duplicate and pointing to the canonical thread on visibility of who has access to restricted categories (read more, read more).
If today’s threads taught anything, it’s that Meta users are as persistent as that “dismissed” reverse-proxy warning that keeps coming back (read more).
lindsey published Current Projects – March 2026, highlighting shipped work like the now-official Blog Post Styling component and hosted Discourse AI credit limit increases (plus continued work on AI Agents) — with a translation workflow question raised by Moin about whether the component should land in Crowdin or via PRs read more. (Related: Blog Post Stylingread more)
The “Easily create Support categories using the discourse-solved plugin” announcement thread continued with UI/text formatting and i18n nuance, as Moin suggested using existing lowercase translation keys to avoid breaking style guidance read more. (Related formatting guidance: read more)
In the dev-news thread on the new plugin build system, david confirmed the new compiler is now enabled by default on latest, marking a meaningful shift for plugin developers and build pipelines read more.
A self-hosting-oriented question popped up in the long-running RFC on Discourse versioning strategy, asking what the actualapp.yml configuration should look like when pinning an ESR/release branch read more.
A spate of upload failures (422 with a generic “upload failed” error) was reported when trying to upload a GIF; nat acknowledged the issue and then confirmed it was fixed shortly after read more. (Anecdotal “took several attempts” corroboration: read more)
A report on ActivityPub + Mastodon OAuth failing with The requested scope is invalid, unknown, or malformed suggests a compatibility/config mismatch in the authorization step, with a video reproduction included read more.
iPad/iOS Chat UI stability continued improving: a patch thread reported further fixes for Chat settings/member list scrolling and overflow issues, with additional iPadOS testing noted read more.
A German locale UI issue was flagged where “Click to upload…” text overflows the placeholder; zogstrip pointed to a PR that will introduce a more robust layout (likely via wrapping/line breaks) read more.
Discourse ID’s referring-site branding visibility was called out as too subtle at the moment users are deciding whether they’re in the right place; pmusaraj requested mockups to explore clearer hierarchy between Discourse ID and the originating site read more. (Related “flow friction” follow-up: read more)
Another RTL polish item: the reply icon under profile for RTL languages was acknowledged and queued for fix via PR, continuing the steady RTL UI refinement stream read more.
A microcopy oddity was spotted in Discourse AI Agent messaging: “Default llm” appearing redundantly before “Default LLM” in an error string, raising questions about string composition or translation keys read more.
A broader moderation-workflow UX debate continued around the flagging prompt “Is this post something else or spam?” with feedback that yes/no patterns and “Approve” labeling can be confusing when the moderator intent is “spam → delete/block” read more.
#Site_feedback
A request to expand try.discourse.org so people can test admin/mod tooling (and concerns about the instance not “clean resetting”) drew pushback: community members emphasized why public admin access is unsafe, and suggested alternatives like spinning up free/trial instances instead read more. (Prior art: “try.discourse.org as moderator/admin” read more; free plan beta invite read more)
Meta category organization discussion briefly reignited the long-running confusion around pinned/unpin site settings, with calls to improve descriptions and/or consolidate options so the user-default vs global settings are clearer read more. (Related: pinned settings usability thread read more; “official groups posts” reference point read more)
A searchability gap was reported: the Guidelines/FAQ don’t appear in search, even for unique phrases, prompting discussion about /guidelines being a static page and/or category restrictions preventing indexing read more.
A discoverability complaint: where to find “Releases” now that releases have a dedicated site, with suggestions to add links in more obvious places (footer, tag descriptions, or “New to Discourse” onboarding) read more. (Pointers: January 2026 releases read more; introducing releases.discourse.orgread more; “New to Discourse” hub read more)
A least-privilege API snag: the Discourse MCP server fails validation with scoped “granular access” API keys because it can’t read about.json, raising a question of what endpoints should be required/allowed for MCP integrations read more.
A new install enabling discourse-subscriptions hit “Error loading route” immediately; troubleshooting began by requesting logs/console output, while reminding that Stripe + webhooks + plugin settings need to be completed first read more. (Related canonical setup guide: read more; ongoing payment-method error concerns: read more)
lindsey kicked off the March roadmap update in #Announcements, outlining what shipped and what’s in progress (including AI changes and feature naming updates) in Current Projects – March 2026.
mcwumbly added practical context to the pinned-topic mystery (possibly due to historical “read → auto-unpin” behavior), helping validate the most plausible explanation in Updating how categories are organized on Meta.
Yesterday’s Meta mood: chasing down a vanishing GIF upload bug while also squeezing long German strings into tighter UI boxes—classic “polish the edges” day (upload fix, German layout tweak).
The day skewed heavily technical: plugin build changes continued to ripple through real-world installs and dev environments (see ongoing discussion in read more and the devcontainer compilation thread read more).
Interesting Topics
#Announcements
Discourse shipped calendar subscription URLs so users can subscribe to ICS feeds (bookmarked reminders, and plugin-powered event feeds) from Preferences → Calendar (read more). Related: this builds on the calendar-and-event ecosystem including the official plugin topic (read more) and an “events not creating” gotcha that turned out to be about putting the event markup on the first line (read more).
In Current Projects – March 2026, lindsey noted they’re investigating the best path for translations (Crowdin vs PR workflow), and promised a follow-up (read more).
A plugin author hit a “Duplicate export” compile error after upgrading to 2026.3.0-latest, and david linked a core fix that resolved it (read more). The report was explicitly tied back to the new plugin build pipeline discussion (read more).
Discourse is formally deprecating .js.es6 file extensions in themes/plugins, with removal planned after the next ESR—migration is simply renaming to .js (read more).
Discourse also deprecated .hbs templates in themes/plugins, nudging authors to adopt .gjs for future performance improvements; david clarified that 2026.7 should still support hbs, with drop likely around 2026.8.0-latest (read more). For hands-on migration guidance, the team pointed people at the automation how-to (read more).
In a French-language dev question, gilles asked how to get Rich Text to “interpret HTML” when inserting content via API; Falco advised sending Markdown instead, since only a small subset of HTML is accepted (read more).
#Nested Replies Testing
The experimental nested replies plugin got UI clarity improvements for “deep context view” (after ~10 levels, continuing in a dedicated thread page), with bolder styling to make the mode obvious; Falco confirmed the visual cue reads clearly (read more). Related ongoing feedback continues in the main test thread (including preference persistence questions) (read more).
A dev workflow issue: a PR proposes compiling missing Rollup plugin bundles on demand in development to prevent enabled plugins (like Chat) from silently failing when manifests are stale; david traced one cause to compilation timeouts and bumped timeouts to help slower environments (read more). This stayed closely tied to the broader Rollup transition for plugins (read more).
A Chinese-language bug report described a confusing edge case where permanently deleting a post within 5 minutes triggers a “wait 5 minutes” message, then returns with the post unexpectedly restored to an undeleted state, requiring deletion again (read more).
A self-host admin asked for programmatic update notifications (email or file touch) instead of relying on the web UI; david pointed to built-in “new version emails” behavior (requires SMTP + contact email) (read more). This question overlapped with ongoing community confusion about channels/versioning/docs (read more) and “where did releases go?” site UX feedback (read more).
Sidebar/homepage navigation came up again: a site owner wanted the hamburger/sidebar open with categories on “landing”; replies covered default sidebar configuration and how /categories can be used or set as homepage (read more). The canonical configuration guide was also referenced (read more).
Hosted customers asked why the admin dashboard shows “last month” stats instead of “this month so far”; discussion suggests “last month” is rolling, and can be verified against /admin/reports/emails counts (read more).
A hosted patreon install reported Patreon sync gaps and unexpectedly small group membership, with sync apparently stalled and manual “sync now” button doing nothing; the report includes Cloudflare-like failures in logs and questions about rate limits (read more). It pairs naturally with renewed pressure to move the Patreon plugin to API v2 (read more).
Two separate reports converged on the same culprit: the F NAV mobile navigation tabs theme component appears to crash/disrupt Android behavior on latest Discourse; the component maintainer shipped a fix and asked users to update (read more), and the broader “Android app is broken” thread points back to the same component (read more).
#Data & reporting
A user requested Discourse’s Data Processing Agreement (DPA) and clarity on how contact data is stored, protected, retained, and shared; replies pointed to the public privacy/legal pages and noted older privacy threads may be outdated (read more), with the legacy privacy discussion referenced for context (read more).
Delivered/linked fixes for plugin build breakage (“Duplicate export”) after 2026.3.0-latest (read more) and acknowledged the report in the Rollup build system thread (read more).
Posted two major dev announcements: deprecating .js.es6 (read more) and deprecating .hbs with timeline clarification (read more).
Debugged devcontainer plugin compilation problems, identifying timeouts and proposing higher limits to improve slower environments (read more).
Answered how to get email notifications for new versions via built-in settings + SMTP/contact email (read more).
Responded to performance worries that were speculatively linked to the new plugin build system, and reminded admins they can temporarily disable it for testing (ROLLUP_PLUGIN_COMPILER=0) (read more).
Acted on site feedback asking “where’s the link to releases?”, adding links in more visible places (including the Releases category banner) (read more).
Continued the “content gardening hub” experiment by enabling an automation to auto-close #fixed-tagged topics after 3 days in key categories (a human-friendly buffer for regressions) (read more).
Followed up in “Current Projects” about investigating translation workflow options and promised more info soon (read more).
Discourse spent the day shipping calendar feeds, tightening up nested replies, and politely telling old file extensions it’s time to pack their bags—while the daily-summary bot briefly dozed off and left the rest of us to pick up the clipboard (read more).
In the last 24 hours, Meta saw 71 new posts across 14 new topics, with conversation clustering around AI-assisted translation UX, calendar subscription exports, and a handful of upgrade/regression reports (e.g. read more, read more, read more).
Shauny proposed a smoother “translate” UX for individual posts (especially on mobile) and asked whether translations could be saved/cached to avoid repeated AI API calls in Translate post with AI and save translation; Moin pointed to the closely-related prior request about storing translations as content localization in Saving translations by AI Helper as content localization, while Falco noted that Discourse’s automatic translation toggle was built to address the “manual invoke” and “repeated cost” problems (read more).
Steradiant requested parity between OAuth2 and OIDC by adding an option to disable email verification when using OpenID Connect in Allow to disable email verification when using oidc (similar in spirit to existing “verified email” controls for other auth paths).
A small but positive “this is easier now” datapoint: newkid reported improved day-to-day admin usability with the streamlined category flow in Simplified category setup.
ActivityPub/anonymous-mode interaction raised privacy expectations: Jagster observed federated posts going out both as anon and as the real identity in Federation doesn’t respect anonymous mode, prompting questions about expected behavior vs. bug/regression.
Dashboard labeling/expectations came up again: “Last month” was interpreted as calendar-month vs rolling-30-days, and the thread converged on clearer wording and date range cues in How do I get the dashboard to show this months info? (with analogy to rolling windows elsewhere in the UI: read more).
A small composer UI regression: tags (and votes) appear visually “too low” in the “Your topic is similar to…” popup; Moin narrowed it to a specific CSS margin rule in Tags are too low in similar topic pop up.
A Chinese-language bug thread continues: after enabling chat again, it still doesn’t appear on the site for one reporter; the thread includes troubleshooting suggestions (safe mode + keeping official plugins enabled) in 聊天功能被禁用后，其设置消失。.
Rich-text editor parity came up in a concrete way: mdoggydog’s update to a composer toolbar component highlighted mismatches in applyList/applySurround behavior, and renato responded that full abstraction parity isn’t the goal—complex operations should use ProseMirror commands via extensions—in Composer Button Bonanza (team perspective: read more).
(Bonus “ecosystem watch” thread that’s still developing: the new plugin build system can break admin paths until rollout is disabled; the workaround ROLLUP_PLUGIN_COMPILER=0 helped in Custom Wizard Plugin with context from Introducing a new build system for plugins.)
Clarified that Discourse’s automatic translations were explicitly designed to solve the “manual translate UX + repeated API cost” problem in Translate post with AI and save translation.
j.jaffeux engaged on a chat regression report, pushing back on whether the described behavior is possible and helping triage the situation in 聊天功能被禁用后，其设置消失。.
renato weighed in on rich-text editor integration expectations, explaining why some textarea-era abstraction APIs won’t have 1:1 parity and pointing developers toward ProseMirror extension commands in Composer Button Bonanza.
That’s a wrap—may your calendar links stay neatly subscribable, your “Translate” button be one tap away, and your upgrade dashboard always refresh on the first try!
Richie reported that after upgrading to 2026.3.0-latest.1, the admin UI claimed all theme components were failing with “Error cloning git repository”—even though manual “Check for updates” succeeds; sam floated re-adding components and possible GitHub rate limiting as angles to investigate (read more, team reply: read more).
New site provisioning via id.discourse.com/create-site appeared to stall at “Almost there…”, then showed “provisioned too many sites in the past hour”; one workaround suggestion was simply trying another browser (read more, workaround note: read more).
A report on activitypub described federation posts using the original language content, but links showing up in English, which felt like a behavioral regression for multilingual setups using AI translations (read more).
Self-hosted admins continued comparing notes on iOS/PWA push notifications, including cases where badges appear but notifications don’t, and how troubleshooting can be tricky (especially around device-specific behavior) (read more).
A new thread explored interest in releasing an open source Discourse mobile app template; discussion quickly turned to what a native app adds beyond mobile web APIs (read more, motivation pushback: read more). Related prior attempts were also referenced for context: Forumate iOS client (read more) and Fig iOS client (read more).
#Theme component
Feedback on the G-Translate theme component highlighted practical UX integration issues (e.g., button placement conflicting with fixed-position navigation components) and translation edge cases when content is already in another language (read more).
#Announcements
The new calendar subscription URLs feature sparked follow-up questions about filtering feeds (e.g., by group/community) and whether previously generated URLs should remain visible without forcing regeneration; Falco clarified expected behavior and tradeoffs (read more, follow-up: read more). Related: an older-but-active report noted rate limiting on the /discourse-post-event/events.ics export and a pragmatic webcal:// + after= workaround (read more).
The “Easily create Support categories using the discourse-solved plugin” announcement thread got a concrete update: martin pointed to fixes landing via a core PR (read more).
A developer debugging a plugin that inserts YouTube links into posts found the output stayed as raw text instead of rendering as a onebox—until they realized they’d missed applying the appropriate onebox class (resolved with a quick self-follow-up) (read more, resolution: read more).
In the “new versioning strategy” RFC thread (dev-news), a user reported knock-on effects when running a specific branch: the UI couldn’t detect available upgrades, blocking web-based update workflows (read more).
A small-but-recurring annoyance: after an update, the dashboard sometimes shows the old version, prompting a suggestion that a “please refresh” banner might reduce confusion while still respecting caching optimizations (read more).
On activitypub, a Mastodon connection issue prompted sam to flag a likely OAuth scope/security change and loop in internal experts for ideas (read more).
A confusing flow was highlighted where clicking “New Post” triggers a discard confirmation modal if the user already has a post pending approval; sam agreed the overall “pending approval” UX can feel hostile and needs an end-to-end rethink (read more).
#Self-hosting
A self-hoster raised alarms about Discourse potentially leaking origin host IPs when fetching remote resources for previews/embeds (undermining Cloudflare-only exposure), reviving long-running proxying discussions and asking for safer defaults (read more). Background/related: “link previews through a proxy server” (read more).
Group inbox migration came up: one admin considered how to move group PM inbox threads to another instance, weighing manual copy vs. API approaches, with an idea to temporarily convert PMs to topics and back (with caveats) (read more, migration idea: read more).
sam weighed in on the hard-to-reproduce theme update/git error reports, suggesting environmental causes (URL drift, rate limiting) and pragmatic remediation like removing/re-adding components (read more).
sam flagged a likely OAuth/security scope change behind a Mastodon federation connection failure in the activitypub space, looping in internal stakeholders for input (read more).
sam also called out the broader UX problem around pending approvals and the confusing discard modal, outlining key questions Discourse should answer for end users throughout that workflow (read more).
sam followed up on the calendar ICS export/rate limiting investigation, asking whether anything is still broken and needs fixing (useful for turning “workarounds” into actionable bug reports) (read more).
Falco responded to calendar subscription URL enhancement requests, challenging assumptions about group-filtered feeds and clarifying that URLs can be copied once, reused across clients, and regenerated when needed (read more).
martin posted an update confirming fixes related to streamlined support category setup with solved, pointing to a merged/ongoing core PR as the source of truth (read more).
If yesterday taught us anything, it’s this: may your theme repos always clone successfully, and may your calendar feeds stay comfortably under the rate limit.
NateDhaliwal spotted a formatting glitch where topic-voting topics with zero votes could show an odd trailing comma after the last tags entry; awesomerobot pushed an adjustment and confirmed it’s now fixed (read more).
Sites reported that “new version” emails weren’t being sent, with logs pointing to a failing CallDiscourseHub job and a Redis argument type error; david traced the regression to a Redis gem update and linked the fix work (read more).
A small but visible UI polish issue—tags sitting too low in the similar-topics popup—got a straightforward fix queued up by awesomerobot (read more).
A possible regression in DiscoTOC positioning: “Contents” and “Timeline” buttons appear to float unexpectedly depending on viewport sizing, with reports pointing back to the main DiscoTOC thread for context (read more).
Staff accounts missing Associated Accounts management turned out to be a known interaction with 2FA requirements; Moin connected the dots and referenced the existing guidance (read more).
Admins on 2026.3.0-latest.1 saw theme updates fail with “Error cloning git repository…”, with suspicion falling on GitHub rate limits/outages given recent status history (read more).
A “how do I recreate this UI?” question: adding custom links beneath the welcome banner was answered with a pointer to the dedicated theme component that provides exactly that layout (read more).
ActivityPub troubleshooting continued: attempts to connect to certain Discourse instances failed with client verification errors, and early investigation suggested something specific to the meta actor behavior (read more).
#Self-hosting
A privacy-focused self-hosting thread asked how to stop Discourse leaking host IPs when fetching external resources/previews; replies explored proxy strategies (e.g. Tinyproxy + env vars) but also highlighted the practical maintenance trade-offs (read more).
Auto-update habits came back up: a self-hoster asked whether cron-based unattended updates are “still the way” in 2026, balancing fast security patching against the risk of breaking production (read more).
#Theme-component
A new component, AI summary in the topic header, landed to surface the Discourse AI summarize action in more prominent UI locations (sidebar/title area depending on device), effectively shipping an answer to earlier placement feedback (read more).
The Quote Callouts component got feedback about alias/title behavior in the editor list, and a fix was shipped to reduce confusion when titles are defined (read more).
#Feature
A feature request proposed a single-button workflow to update only themes/components (separately from core updates), driven by the friction of many-click upgrades and occasional rate limits when doing lots of component updates (read more).
#Data-&-reporting
A new Data Explorer recipe shared a SQL query for listing event invitees with email addresses, positioning it as a faster on-screen alternative to the built-in zipped RSVP export and noting dependencies on the Calendar (and Event) plugin (read more).
awesomerobot shipped multiple UX fixes and clarifications: a formatting tweak for topic-voting + tags rendering (read more), clearer messaging to distinguish semantic/AI search results from exact matches (read more), and a fix for tag alignment in the similar-topics UI (read more).
david investigated and explained several upgrade/admin pain points: he traced the long-standing “no new version emails” issue to a Redis gem change and pointed to the corrective PR (read more), weighed in on GitHub outage/rate-limit plausibility behind failed theme git clones (read more), and advised a site owner to remove/verify a questionable plugin causing resolver warnings post-update (read more). He also guided a dev-news question by clarifying the .gjs migration commands should be run in a local dev environment (read more), and shared a mitigation PR for Custom Wizard’s compiler transition (read more).
zogstrip delivered a cluster of “this will be fixed by…” responses, each linking to upstream patches: enforcing required: true for upload fields in form templates (read more), restoring post URLs in ICS exports for calendar/event flows (read more), and fixing a permanently-delete edge case where posts could appear restored (read more).
pmusaraj continued deep ActivityPub debugging: he identified Mastodon’s scope → scopes parameter change and drove a fix through to meta (read more; read more), while also investigating Discourse-to-Discourse connection failures that appeared actor-specific (read more).
sam refreshed and cleaned up the long-running “Searching for content effectively” documentation, deleting stale discussion and inviting folks to flag anything that now looks incorrect (read more).
If yesterday taught us anything, it’s this: may your Redis jobs behave, your ActivityPub “scopes” stay properly plural, and your commas never wander off the end of a tag list.
A question about mail-receiver TLS when the receiver domain differs from the forum domain — read more
A lively bikeshed on whether “Guidelines” sounds like “Rules” (and what “FAQ” should imply) — read more
Reports layout spacing concerns for empty dashboard reports — read more
Hidden flagged content visibility in “raw” URLs, and a suspected change source — read more
A fork/PR limbo update for PDF previews (mobile + PDF.js enhancements) — read more
Self-hosted push notifications “started working again” after revisiting configuration — read more
“Auto updates via cronjob” gets a cautionary take: convenience vs downtime risk — read more
A small but important doc cleanup on composer popup messages — read more
A merged fix for an “Update Discourse” sidebar entry appearing incorrectly — read more
Interesting Topics
#Extras
Eilgnaw introduced Dexo, a native iOS Discourse client with multi-forum support, HTML rendering, and secure User API Key auth — read more
#Plugin
A long-running Custom Wizard thread got a concrete win: david confirmed a fix merged and asked for verification; follow-up confirmed it’s functional again — read more
R23D_Printing released Discourse Member Application, a plugin that adds a public /apply form and an approval flow that issues invites after review (aimed at private/invite-only communities) — read more
#Theme-Component
The Prefilled composer link generator component hit deprecation warnings due to the .hbs changes; a PR was requested and later merged (with a note that tag-insertion is currently broken due to earlier tag-related changes) — read more
Classic About Statistics also surfaced deprecation warnings tied to the .hbs changes, prompting a request for PR review/approval — read more
Inline PDF Previews gained momentum via a community fork: mobile support, PDF.js rendering, zoom/navigation, and better handling for migrated PDFs were highlighted — read more
A “move banner image to the very top” question turned into a practical CSS answer: use .d-header .wrap for styling the header background, plus a pointer to the official “custom CSS changes” guide — read more
Free plan provisioning hit a throttle: “You have provisioned too many sites in the past hour” blocked creation, and staff began investigating by requesting details of the domain field — read more
A new free-plan admin couldn’t find authentication settings; the thread clarified that on the free plan, login is managed via Discourse ID (social login flow) — read more
An inherited site with confusing DiscourseConnect overrides led to a key realization: if DiscourseConnect isn’t enabled, the override settings are essentially noise — read more
Dev container onboarding friction (email confirmation blocking first login) prompted a reminder that bin/rails admin:create exists; plus a handy note that MailHog can capture outbound email locally without “real” SMTP — read more
“If you do need email access in your dev environment, you can also run mailhog… visit localhost:8025…” — source
The .hbs template deprecation continues to ripple through themes/components, with requests to update guidance and references as people encounter outdated instructions — read more
A thoughtful proposal argued Anonymous Mode is too hidden (avatar menu only), suggesting composer-level entry points and a clearer “you are anonymous” indicator while active — read more
A serious workflow bug: clicking “New Post” when you already have a post pending approval triggers a discard modal and appears to block posting across categories; investigation also noted pending items showing up as drafts incorrectly — read more
A subscriptions renewal issue was reported with Stripe’s PaymentIntent complaining about a missing payment method, raising questions about how to clean up stale provider state for long-time supporters — read more
david confirmed a Custom Wizard fix was merged and asked for verification steps to be re-run — read more
awesomerobot shared a practical dev tip: use MailHog to view emails locally at localhost:8025 (no external SMTP required) — read more — and also updated documentation to clarify banner topics must live in a public category (with unlisting as an option) — read more
sam performed doc maintenance by updating the Composer Popup Messages Guide (removing items) — read more — and helped restore/undelete wiki content temporarily in a “searching effectively” guide thread to unblock further edits — read more
HAWK acknowledged a free-plan provisioning throttle report (“too many sites in the past hour”) and escalated it for review — read more
pedro followed up on the same free-plan provisioning issue, requesting the exact value entered in the “Community Domain” field to help diagnose — read more
lindsey expanded a bug report showing that a discard confirmation modal can effectively prevent posting when any post is pending approval, and highlighted that the UX is confusing even when content isn’t truly lost — read more
zogstrip responded to a bug report about the left sidebar incorrectly showing an “Update Discourse” option, pointing to a proposed fix PR for review — read more
martin confirmed the above fix was merged and thanked the reporter — read more
chapoi acknowledged an unintended automation side-effect in the collaborative gardening experiment and planned an adjustment — read more
gerhard confirmed a translation/context issue should now be fixed — read more
Yesterday’s theme: between launching shiny new apps and unblocking dev workflows with MailHog, Meta managed to both ship and debug at full speed—classic Discourse.
Ed_S raised concerns that v2026.3.0-latest.1 (with “33 security fixes”) felt like a stealth release, and asked for release posts to return to Announcements; Falco pointed to background context and david acknowledged the email-notifications issue and said the team is discussing Meta pointers to release info (read more, read more, read more).
A new free site hit provisioning rate limits (“You have provisioned too many sites in the past hour”), and mat_pich_7894 confirmed it was resolved by using a different Community Domain value (read more).
A newly created community couldn’t enable Discourse ID / find the right authentication settings; rishabh investigated and noted unusual volumes of auth-related setting changes in site logs (read more, read more).
Video upload constraints came up again—specifically that it would help to distinguish image vs video sizing limits, since they can differ by an order of magnitude (read more).
In the long-running “whispers bumping” discussion (whispers), zogstrip confirmed inconsistent bump behavior and pointed to an upcoming fix—sparking debate about whether whispers should bump for broader audiences or only for staff/trackers (read more).
X/Twitter oneboxes (onebox) were called out as both broken and impossible to prevent; zogstrip linked a fix in progress (read more).
“Set Topic Timer may result in catastrophic failure” (topic-timers): zogstrip apologized and linked a PR to address multiple hidden bugs in the feature (read more).
A composer UX trap: a discard-confirmation modal appears when clicking “New Post” if a post is pending approval; zogstrip shared that a fix is in the works and asked martin for review (read more).
Digest emails still including topics from ignored users: zogstrip confirmed a fix is coming via PR (read more).
Watched words for automatic tagging (watched-wordstags) got a status update from nat noting the fix shipped a while ago and encouraging folks to update (read more).
#Community Building
The “Discourse as comment platform” thread got a very concrete datapoint: Falco announced the Discourse blog comments were swapped to the new embedded-topic system, with theme-component iteration planned before anything heads into core (read more).
#Announcements
Reporting Improvements confusion: zogstrip clarified that “Reporting improvements” is a simple on/off toggle (Everyone/No one) rather than group-scoped, and martin added that the team plans to adjust wording so “Everyone” is less weird for admin-only features (read more, read more).
Carousel mode sizing expectations: chapoi confirmed the carousel has a fixed height to avoid jarring resizing between slides, and that customization requires CSS (read more).
Inline <script type="text/discourse-plugin"> era officially ended: david announced support for the old inline script tags has been removed in the latest Discourse version and linked the removal PR (read more).
Theme/plugin dev heads-up: .hbs deprecation guidance was reinforced—david updated docs to better connect the .hbs deprecation steps and noted that ask.discourse.com can help with small conversions (read more, read more).
Translation tooling throughput: Moin asked how frequently the “find more context” tool updates; gerhard explained that a background job is backfilling AI-generated string context and temporarily impacts some features (read more, read more).
#Self-Hosting
Mail-receiver + Cloudflare proxying + TLS: LotusJeff documented a Cloudflare-oriented setup and why inbound SMTP effectively requires separating the forum host from a DNS-only mail subdomain; Simon_Manning refined/withdrew part of an earlier TLS identity assertion and ultimately praised the approach (notably the certbot renewal hook pattern) (read more, read more, read more).
Falco engaged on release visibility and security-fix timing—sharing external context and acknowledging the feedback loop around where release info should appear on Meta (read more).
Separately, Falco announced that Discourse’s blog comments have moved to embedded Discourse topics, and discussed theme-level fixes (forced light mode, padding polish) as the experience is refined (read more, read more).
david responded candidly about the long-missed email issue and confirmed the team is discussing better Meta-level pointers to the centralized release system (read more).
On the dev side, david marked the completion of removing inline script-tag templates from core (read more) and updated .hbs deprecation guidance, including adding a note about using ask.discourse.com for assistance (read more, read more).
zogstrip had a particularly fix-heavy day across multiple bug threads: whispers bump consistency (whispers) (read more), broken/unstoppable x.com oneboxes (onebox) (read more), catastrophic edge cases in topic timers (topic-timers) (read more), the “discard confirmation” composer annoyance when approvals are pending (read more), and digest emails still surfacing ignored users’ topics (read more). zogstrip also clarified that the “Reporting improvements” Upcoming Change toggle is intentionally not group-scoped, and why “Everyone/No one” is expected there (read more).
martin followed up on the reporting toggle UX, noting an upcoming adjustment so admin-only controls don’t misleadingly read as “Everyone” (read more).
chapoi answered a Carousel Mode question, confirming fixed-height behavior and steering customization toward CSS (read more).
gerhard explained temporary limitations in the translation-context tool due to a background backfill job for AI-generated string context (read more).
nat posted a quick status update that the watched-words auto-tagging fix has already shipped, encouraging upgrades for anyone still affected (read more).
rishabh investigated a Free-plan authentication/Discourse ID enablement issue, noting it didn’t appear widespread and asking what settings were being changed when the problem occurred (read more, read more).
That’s a wrap: yesterday managed to combine 33 security fixes, a fresh wave of bug-fix PR links, and a real “Discourse-as-comments” rollout—so keep one eye on your update button and the other on those embedded topics.
Moin announced a new SiteSetting “icon” type, and the discussion quickly turned to whether type: icon could also work inside theme component object schemas (raised by Lilly) in read more. Related: the theme settings “objects” schema pattern in read more, and a follow-up on icon dropdown usability in read more.
A new dev question: how to implement avatar decorations/overlays driven by custom user fields (e.g., avatar_decoration_url) via CSS/theme components, in read more.
Ethsim2 asked about migrating replies between topics across different Discourse forums, referencing prior Ruby tooling like LightboxImageParser and struggling with images/spreadsheets not moving cleanly in read more.
david shared that he’d be presenting Discourse’s new plugin build system at Ember Europe (and invited remote attendees) in read more.
A regression/compatibility report: the Chat plugin fails to compile under the rollup plugin compiler default, throwing _assert is not a function, with a clean self-hosted rebuild and third-party plugins disabled in read more.
rokejulianlockhart reported that Horizon (and Meta) renders tables without <thead> as if they had a header divider, which looks wrong when <th> is inside <tbody>—discussion and repro HTML in read more.
A delightfully specific one: the champagne emoji is labeled “Champagne” on hover but can’t be found via :champagne: (only via :cork:). Falco suggested removing the misleading alias entry in read more.
On Meta, 2FA input fields were left-aligned (while the rest of the login content is centered) when the user logs in via email link. awesomerobot reproduced/triaged and pointed to a fix PR in read more.
#Self-hosting
A DiscourseID setup gotcha: DiscourseID refused to enable because the site’s Redirect URI must be HTTPS, but force_https was disabled due to CSRF issues under a reverse proxy. supermathie and Falco both pushed the core point: fix proxy headers / HTTPS assumptions properly (not just “it works in the browser”) in read more. Related DiscourseID history: redirect URI collisions now handled in read more, and an alternate-email question in read more.
A self-hosting upgrade workflow question: after the new versioning changes, switching app.yml to version: esr still appeared to install latest. The report + details are in read more.
Incoming email infrastructure: discussion continued on running mail-receiver safely with Cloudflare—highlighting the risk of exposing the forum origin IP (bypassing WAF/DDoS protections) and considering running mail-receiver separately without the launcher doing a full Discourse install in read more.
On the free hosted plan, Naoshi wanted an “Announcements” category that’s read-only for creating new topics (but still replyable). Moin suggested using topic approval as an effective workaround—approve none unless staff-created—in read more.
About page group display: a site wanted to show only “active” moderators while keeping trainees/founders in staff-access groups. The thread explored about_page_hidden_groups and even using dynamic group population to hide “not-active” moderators in read more. Related plugin mentioned: dynamic groups in read more.
Topic list filtering: a request to filter for category X OR tag Y (not AND) using /filter highlighted a limitation—no boolean OR support today in advanced search/topic list filter—so a feature request was suggested in read more. Background docs cited: searching effectively in read more and filter syntax in read more.
#Feature
Calendar UX request: add .ics iCal attachments in notification emails for event topics, so email clients can offer native “Accept/Decline” without needing to click through Discourse. Falco pointed to calendar subscription URLs, and noted event links were recently added to ICS sync output in read more. Related: subscription URLs in read more.
Pushed the “fix the reverse proxy/HTTPS” stance for DiscourseID enablement in read more.
Identified the root cause of the missing :champagne: shortcode (and suggested the exact code line to remove) in read more.
Helped redirect the calendar-in-email discussion toward existing subscription tooling (and noted event links were added to ICS earlier in the week) in read more.
Hit a real-world blocker while upgrading the Patreon integration (Patreon’s client registration form submit button stayed disabled), preventing a merge until Patreon shipped a fix in read more.
supermathie focused on DiscourseID + HTTPS correctness:
Explained why DiscourseID requires an HTTPS redirect URI and that the instance must correctly signal HTTPS via proxy headers (or enable force_https) in read more.
Clarified that force_https is about Discourse’s assumptions, not binding Discourse to port 443, in read more.
david continued the release/process communication loop:
Promoted a talk on the new plugin build system at Ember Europe in read more.
Followed up on the “security fixes / release visibility” discussion and linked the backdated release posts (February monthly + March intermediate releases) in read more, specifically pointing to read more and read more.
awesomerobot quickly reproduced and narrowed a UI oddity:
Confirmed the 2FA alignment bug appears tied to the email login flow, and linked an in-progress fix PR in read more.
pmusaraj closed loops on DiscourseID support edge cases:
Noted Discourse has been updated so DiscourseID can generate new keys when the same redirect URI is re-used (preventing a past “redirect URI already exists” failure mode) in read more.
Asked for screenshots while investigating a report about DiscourseID alternate emails not being recognized on a free tier site in read more.
Explained the sticky category heading container is a side-effect of keeping navigation visible, and wasn’t sure it’s cleanly fixable given layout constraints in read more.
Yesterday, Meta managed to be both extra bubbly (emoji alias drama) and extra practical (reverse proxy reality checks)—may your redirects be HTTPS and your champagne always searchable.
A discussion on whether an open-source “forum app for Discourse” makes sense quickly converged on the value of multi-instance aggregation—and the reminder that Discourse Hub already exists—in Releasing a Open Source Forum App for Discourse (read more).
#Praise
eisammy celebrated two years of their community (plus a couple of fun side projects like a radio and GIF component), with a warm community response in Celebrating 2 years of my Instance.
#Plugin
The Discourse Daily Challenges plugin hit real-world migration friction: eisammy surfaced missing DB columns and UnknownAttributeError, and R23D_Printing walked through rebuilds, a manual column add, and then shipped an update that resolved things in Discourse Daily Challenges (it works!).
A classic admin question—“can I hide the big red broken component banner?”—was firmly steered toward fixing the component, not hiding the warning, with darkpixlz providing the practical explanation and david underscoring the risk in Getting rid of the big red banner, how?. The underlying theme component was patched shortly after in Chat Sidebar.
Notification confusion cropped up again: ice.d wasn’t seeing the usual alerts, and manuel pointed to per-topic notification levels (“Watching”) and global tracking settings in Why won’t meta notify me?.
A small-but-real workflow gap was flagged: the system DM text says “reply to this message” after a revision request, but replying appears to go nowhere (no mod/admin loop) in “reply to this message” goes nowhere?.
A site reported that “all plugins stopped functioning” (including Docker Manager), and early evidence pointed at CDN/CORS script loading failures; darkpixlz suggested isolating via CORS testing and then tracking down the CDN cause in All plugins not functioning. (The reporter referenced a potentially-related dev issue here: read more.)
manuel helped troubleshoot missing notifications by pointing to per-topic notification levels and global tracking preferences in Why won’t meta notify me?.
That’s it for today—now excuse us while we sip celebratory “champagne emoji” and dance like Chandler because the RSS feed is live and the big red banner got fixed the right way.
Team activity (Discourse Team): awesomerobot, supermathie, and davidb all weighed in with debugging and polish-minded follow-ups — notably on HEIC/composer issues, API access ergonomics, and hashtag autocomplete fixes (read more, read more, read more).
bck055 asked how to customize the sidebar to look like a “Docs-style” navigation, and the community pointed toward the Discourse Doc Categories plugin as the likely source of that UI (read more; plugin reference: read more).
A potentially broken or misunderstood setting: use_name_for_username_suggestions appears to have no effect on the normal signup form, with confirmations from others and links to related prior behavior changes around username suggestions (read more; related: read more, read more).
In a solved thread about real-name onboarding, Jesse_Starks wanted to hide or normalize the username field at signup; ToddZ suggested using signup instructions via site text, and discussed the (imperfect-but-practical) CSS approach to visually hide the input (read more; solution: read more; CSS reference: read more).
For #TAG#mcp: an API user with granular access couldn’t read about.json, and the thread moved toward improving both access expectations and the clarity of error messaging for invalid credentials (read more; follow-up: read more).
“Tiny category image” styling continues to be thorny: users noted images being squashed into squares, and the discussion emphasized CSS workarounds if the default behavior doesn’t change (read more; follow-up: read more).
A frustrating report described lost paragraphs / unexpectedly huge posts tied to uploading HEIC images; investigation focused on reliably reproducing the problem by pairing large text input with the same uploads (read more).
In hashtag/search UX: autocomplete was overriding the first choice when combining category+tag or tag+tag queries, and a fix was proposed in a PR-linked reply (read more).
#Community_Building
A forum owner asked whether their community was “organized enough,” prompting detailed feedback on tag strategy vs. categories, homepage choice (Latest vs Categories), and ways to better showcase image-heavy areas using theme components like Topic List Previews (read more; Theme component: read more).
Another “please review my forum” thread highlighted mobile header/CSS rough edges and encouraged experimenting with theme options rather than settling for an “out of the box” generic feel (read more; continuing advice: read more).
#Self-hosting
A self-hosted instance saw “all plugins not functioning” (tagged cdn), with the site owner planning weekend tests and follow-up diagnostics (read more).
In a thread about deploying older Discourse versions (and the realities of downgrades), troubleshooting zeroed in on YAML formatting/indentation—specifically whether version was correctly nested under params (read more; key suggestion: read more).
Meta’s branded redesign discussion kept rolling: readability/contrast concerns on dark theme palettes were raised, with direct comparisons between themes and a request for better legibility of linked text (read more; tags: meta-theme-feedbackmeta-redesign-2026).
On releases.discourse.org feedback, ferdnyc documented multiple WCAG contrast failures (with specific ratios and affected UI elements), arguing for an accessibility review and concrete variable/color changes (read more; extended audit notes: read more).
#Plugin
A new admin-focused plugin proposal, Discourse Plugin Cleaner, aims to audit and safely remove “orphaned” database residue left behind by uninstalled plugins—explicitly emphasizing an audit-first, no-auto-delete posture (read more; install guide reference: read more).
Discourse Daily Challenges shipped v1.4.0 with “ChallengeBot” (optional) adding DM-based check-in confirmations, reminders, and mention-triggered personal stats commands—nudging engagement without noisy public replies (read more).
More notable drive-bys (still active in the last day)
These didn’t make the “top 15” list above, but they did see meaningful activity:
A formatting-toolbar plugin update was pushed, with follow-up discussion about long-term maintenance and whether AI can help keep community plugins healthy (read more; discussion follow-up: read more).
The MD Topic List Mobile component got a “still holding up” status check-in from its author (read more).
Tag Intersection Navigator received maintenance + a practical new feature to restore banner notifications while browsing intersections (read more).
Landing Pages Plugin users reported an admin notice about code needing updates (discourse.resolver-resolutions) (read more).
A small celebration marked “2 years of my instance” in #Praise (read more).
A Discourse ID / SSO thread reported that adding a secondary email now works again (marked solved) (read more).
A French #Feature note flagged missing controls when chat is expanded (can’t switch channels or close without resizing) (read more).
A Chinese #Feature/#ai discussion explored whether an official “openclaw skill” is needed—or whether scoped credentials can solve the workflow without a dedicated skill (read more).
awesomerobot responded to a tricky composer/upload report, asking for reproducible steps and error details to help isolate what’s happening when HEIC uploads coincide with text loss/format issues (read more).
awesomerobot also weighed in on whether a granular API key should be allowed to read about.json, noting it “seems reasonable” and moving toward an implementation change discussed in-thread (read more).
supermathie followed up on the same API-access thread, highlighting a possibly misleading “invalid API username/key” error message and suggesting there’s room to improve the UX of that failure mode (read more).
davidb posted that a fix for hashtag autocomplete overriding the first choice should land once merged, linking the thread to an actionable resolution path (read more).
Yesterday, Meta was basically a triathlon of contrast audits, signup UX mysteries, and HEIC-induced chaos — may your links be readable, your username suggestions actually suggest, and your uploads keep every paragraph intact.
