sukinova reported an unexpected hour of Read Only mode on their Discourse forum, which was not initiated by any admin. Forum members speculated about restricted access, referencing a guide stating only admins can trigger it. ondrej suggested that if hosted by Discourse, maintenance might be the cause — though admins should be notified — and asked who “they” referred to; sukinova clarified it was a forum member. After checking staff action logs, sukinova confirmed no admin actions were recorded. JammyDodger noted that server maintenance or issues can trigger Read Only mode and offered to investigate if hosted by Discourse. pfaffman added that high traffic could also force the site into Read Only mode to prevent server overload. The community is seeking clarity on whether this was due to external maintenance, server stress, or an unlogged admin action.
My Forum recently had an hour of being put into Read Only mode which was unexpected and nothing to do with the Forum Admin team, and there’s now been some discussion on my Forum around read-only mode, with some members thinking that we’re restricting access to the Forum without notifying people, which isn’t the case.
They’ve shared this document which seems to show that only Forum admin can put the Forum in read only mode, but I know for sure that none of our Admin are using this function at all.
Is it possible that Discourse are doing this as part of any maintenance? Is there another reason why Read Mode would be activated without the Forum Admin doing so?
I’m fairly new to the platform so I’d be so grateful for any advice.
If you are hosted by Discourse this could be possible (example). But I would assume they would let the admin know when it was going to take place. If not then I’m not sure what would cause it since only admins can enable/disable it.
I’ve checked our admins and only two of us have been active for some time, and I know it’s not my colleague, so I’m keen to understand what’s going on!
Jenny