A moderator, ale_m, encounters an issue when converting a public topic to a private message (PM), receiving the error message “Sorry, you have no access to that topic!.” Despite being a moderator, ale_m is unable to access the PM.
Stephen explains that moderators only have access to PMs they are a part of, and if the moderator wasn’t part of the topic before it was converted, they won’t have access. codinghorror suggests that moderators can ask the user to flag the PM, which would grant them access.
ale_m shares their experience, where they were able to make threads into DMs in the past, but now face this issue. After testing, ale_m finds that the issue does not occur when the post is created recently and the moderator is added to the PM.
justin reproduces the issue and finds that the behavior is inconsistent, especially when the topic has two or more posts. codinghorror agrees that this is the bug.
The discussion suggests that the current behavior is incorrect, and moderators should be granted access to PMs they convert. simon points out that if a moderator converts a public topic to a PM, the original poster won’t receive a notification, and it makes sense for the moderator to be added to the PM.
A potential solution is proposed by codinghorror, which involves adding a prompt for moderators to grant themselves access to the PM when converting a topic with more than one post. justin and riking agree that this prompt is reasonable.
A workaround is suggested by dax, where moderators can reply to the topic before moving it to ensure they are added to the PM. However, schyllberg disagrees, citing that this solution does not always work.
Hi all, I am a moderator of a community page and lately whenever I make a topic a private message, the following thing I see is an error page showing “Sorry, you have no access to that topic!”.
As I said I’m a moderator, so I should be able to access said message. The topic I want to make a private message has usually one user only (i.e. the OP), so that should not be a problem either?
Any idea why this is happening?
If you weren’t part of the topic before it was turned into a message you won’t have access. Only administrators can see message conversations they aren’t members of.
If you need access to the PM you can ask the user to flag it. Moderators have access to flagged PMs while they are flagged.
Sorry, what do you mean with “If you weren’t part of the topic”? The post I made into a DM was originally the first post in a public thread, so I did have access to it 
Sure, but if the message conversation it created didn’t include you (had no posts from you) then you wouldn’t have access. The conversation participants are determined by the posts included in the conversation at the point of conversion.
Ok, I see - what confuses me though is that in the past I was able to make threads into DMs (even if I wasn’t part of them). I still have the conversations in my inbox.
I will test it again keeping your suggestions in mind to see if it happens again. Thanks!
Hey, I tried again and this time it worked (I was able to access the DM).
Some info:
So there must be something else behind it - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
(If it helps, I have noticed that this might only happen when the user has posted twice in the same thread (i.e. two posts in a row), but I’m not 100% sure).
Oh interesting, can you repro this @justin when acting as a moderator?
Yep, was able to repro this.
Edit: I’ll try again 
I am unclear. What you wrote sounds correct to me, if the mod has no replies in the PM, they would not have access after conversion to PM. That is expected.
What is incorrect would be The mod having access even if the mod made no posts in that topic prior to it being converted to a PM. That would be unexpected.
Ah! I inverted the logic here. I’ll see if I can get it to get access.
I was able to reproduce this once by doing the following:
It seems like this may partially be related to the editing grace period expiring or the approval of the post.
Thanks @simon for assisting me in repro’ing this.
That being said, the behavior here feels really inconsistent and unexpected to me.
If a topic has one post by one user, mod is given access to PM when converted.
If a topic has two posts by one or more users, mod is not given access (except for the possible bug case above).
Would it make more sense if a topic is made a PM by a mod to automatically give them access as they’re probably doing this for a reason?
Interesting, so that’s the bug.
Wouldn’t they reply to the topic first if they needed that?
Possibly. The UX oddity in my mind is if I have permissions to make something a PM as a mod, I’m assuming I’m doing this for a reason, likely to continue a conversation privately even if I hadn’t replied. I’m confused then if I hit a “sorry, no can do!” message. Maybe I’m personally misunderstanding the original intent of this feature, too. Either way, the behavior needs to be consistent – either add or block the mod from the PM.
Regardless, mods don’t normally have access to PMs, so automatically adding every mod to a PM that converts is a bit.. much.
I think this might be your bug @techAPJ? Let’s fix the bug first:
That shouldn’t be happening.
If a topic only has one user and a mod converts it to a PM, the topic’s OP will be the only participant in the PM if the mod isn’t added to it. The PM will end up in the OP’s sent messages list, but the OP won’t receive a notification telling them to look for it there.
The situation where I’ve had to convert public topics to PMs is when something gets posted publicly on the forum that should be dealt with internally. If mods are handling this kind of situation it makes sense that they get added to the PM. If mods shouldn’t get added to the PMs, maybe the Make Personal Message action shouldn’t be available to them.
Ah yes, true.
Maybe when there’s only one post, you must add the mod to the PM so the current behavior is already correct? Perhaps there’s nothing necessary to do here @techAPJ.
One thing we could do is add a new PM convert prompt for mods, only when there is more than one post in the topic, that looks something like this:
If you don’t reply to this topic before you convert it to a PM, you won’t have access to it. Grant yourself access?
Yes, grant access No
I think that prompt is reasonable. At least gives mods the option to continue a public topic privately with more than one person if needed.
One small suggestion: that should be a tri-button box, with both “No, create” and “Cancel” options.
Hello!
Our moderators have this issue over at Infinite Flight Community as well. It seems to be super random as it is right now, and feature that enables the moderators to make a topic a PM right now is like asking the 8-ball how it’ll go 