Today on meta.discourse.org…
A roundup of the last 24 hours on Meta - from invisible red lines to stereo mic quirks, there was plenty to discuss.
Key Stats
In the last 24 hours, the community generated 34 new posts across 17 new topics, collecting 29 likes along the way. The most active contributors (by posts and likes) were:
| User | Posts | Likes |
|---|---|---|
| Ed_S | 2 | 5 |
| Lilly | 1 | 3 |
| Nat | 1 | 3 |
| MDNJ | 3 | 2 |
| NateDhaliwal | 3 | 2 |
| Nathank | 2 | 2 |
| SkyeDragon | 2 | 2 |
| Chrisr | 1 | 2 |
| RGJ | 1 | 2 |
| Burke | 4 | 1 |
These numbers reflect only the threads captured in this digest, so the full picture may be even livelier.
Interesting Topics
ux
- Ed_S spotted that the red “last visit” line is nearly invisible in dark mode on an iPhone, making it hard to find new content (read more). In a related thread, they theorised that the line may vanish entirely when there are no new posts and the marker moves to the top of the list - a rare but real edge case.
Support
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NateDhaliwal noticed that status.discourse.org still listed the legacy “Starter” plan instead of “Free”. RGJ pointed out that legacy plans can still exist, and Nat confirmed the status page has been updated to include “Free” alongside “Starter”.
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Two read-only mode alarms rang: Kesa_Sayed reported their site stuck in read-only mode with a 500 error when trying to disable it, and Heather_Phillips asked why her site suddenly became read-only. Chrisr explained it was scheduled maintenance, and Tgxworld confirmed the same, apologising for the inconvenience.
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Burke asked whether user_badge webhook payloads could include
usernamealongsideuser_idto avoid an extra admin-only API call (read more). Putty suggested routing through Discourse Workflows, while Itsbhanusharma argued it’s just one API call away; Burke pushed back in this reply with a least-privilege argument. -
Welsh_Selkie hit a frustrating snag with the Custom Wizard plugin: dropdowns that pull options from user fields only display a single option, not the full list (read more). The thread includes detailed screenshots and a list of troubleshooting steps already tried.
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In the ongoing “Git hang” saga, Agemo posted a follow-up linking to a new, more detailed thread about their self-hosted instance.
#Feature
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The long-running “sudo mode” for admins discussion continued: Nathank expressed a desire for a low-friction way to experience the site as a regular user while retaining admin powers (read more). NateDhaliwal suggested an impersonation-style banner with a countdown and exit button, and Jonathan5 wanted the ability to select trust levels and groups.
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Ethsim2 shared a thorough update on the PR for creating individual event topics for recurring events (read more). They discussed using an
after_codehook to backport the upstream patch, but still favour merging the successor behaviour directly into the bundled Events plugin. -
MDNJ provided feedback on the Horizon theme with the Topic Thumbnails component, noting that the post excerpt disappears and the full-width mobile image can be visually ambiguous (read more). Satonotdead acknowledged the notes and promised to look into them.
#Theme component
- Lilly confirmed that the Twitter Native Embed component works as expected on her site (read more). Meanwhile, Terraboss has released an experimental fork that fixes several issues, including removing the duplicate link above tweets, improving dark mode, and handling bare X links.
#Announcements
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SkyeDragon gave detailed feedback on the new Discord-style voice and video rooms (voice), specifically that stereo mics are not downmixed to mono, which can leave listeners with audio in only one ear (read more). Falco noted that downmixing depends on the audio quality setting and suggested trying a lower bitrate.
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MDNJ reported that the new email code signup feature fails when an invite code is set - the email is never sent, with no error message (read more). Despite that, they praised the signup method as more secure than generic passwords.
#Plugin
- MDNJ also raised a formatting inconsistency in the Discourse Events plugin, where date/time notation mixes 12-hour and 24-hour clocks and the day/month order varies between cards, popups, and excerpts (read more). Changing the “display local time” setting made no difference.
#Self-hosting
- Agemo detailed a new “Git hang” / “Oops error” issue affecting admin and staff accounts, complete with a full backtrace pointing to
CurrentUserSerializer#has_new_upcoming_changes(read more). The error appears related to timezone parsing of an invalid value.
development
- Nathank flagged a broken upcoming-events block in the demo theme, noting that it works on meta.discourse.org but broke in the demo after a core change (read more). He pinged Manuel for guidance.
Activity by the Team Group
- Nat responded to a status page report by updating it to include the “Free” plan alongside the legacy “Starter” (post).
- Chrisr reassured a concerned site admin that scheduled maintenance was underway and pointed to status.discourse.org for updates (post).
- NateDhaliwal linked to a maintenance notice to explain a read-only state (post) and also contributed to the “sudo mode” feature discussion (post).
- Tgxworld confirmed that the sudden read-only mode was actually planned maintenance and apologised for the inconvenience (post).
- Burke started a detailed discussion on webhook payloads, pushing back on suggestions to use an admin key due to least-privilege concerns (post, follow-up).
- Nathank shared his view on a low-friction admin “regular mode” (post) and later requested a fix for the broken upcoming-events block in the demo theme (post).
- Lilly verified that the Twitter embed component works as expected, providing a screenshot for reference (post).
- Falco offered a workaround for the voice room stereo-mic issue, suggesting a lower audio quality setting (post).
From invisible red lines to stereo mic mishaps, it was a day of keen observations and helpful fixes. May your forums stay out of read-only mode and your red lines always be visible!