Troubleshooting communities

This page collects the problems creators report most often while running a community, each with its cause and the steps that fix it.

My members do not get an email when I publish a post

This is the default, not a fault. A new post reaches every member as an in-app notification under the bell icon; the email about new posts is off until a member turns it on. The Notifications tab in the community editor's Settings controls only the weekly digest, not new-post emails.

You have two ways to get a post into inboxes:

1. Announce the post. Before publishing, turn on Notify all members under the composer toolbar and click Publish. For a post that is already live, open its ⋮ menu and choose Notify all members…. Confirm with Schedule notification; sending starts after 5 minutes and can be stopped with Cancel on the post's banner. An announcement also reaches members who keep new-post emails off.
2. Ask members to turn the emails on. In the community a member clicks their avatar, chooses Profile, opens the Notifications tab and ticks Email in the New posts section, either on the Apply to all channels row or for single channels, and clicks Save.

The full list of notifications and their defaults: Notifications and announcements.

I used Notify all members, but some members got nothing

An announcement is sent once per post and respects each member's own settings, so a few members can be left out on purpose.

Notify all members is disabled while you schedule a post for later. Announce that post after it publishes.

A client paid, but sees "Your access to this community is blocked"

The member's status in the community is Disabled. That happens in two ways: someone switched them off by hand (the Status switch in Edit member, Disable member on their profile, or Remove from community for a person whose access comes from another product), or their access to the product ended and the membership was switched off with it.

When access comes back through a renewal, a new purchase or a manual grant, the membership switches back on by itself. A member who was disabled by hand stays disabled, also after they pay again. To let them in:

1. In the community editor open Members list (/communities/<productId>/editor/members) and click Disabled above the table.
2. Find the member with Search members....
3. Open the ⋮ menu in their row and choose Activate. You see Member activated.
4. Ask the member to reload the community.

If the member's access has ended, activate nothing: open their profile in Customers → All customers (/customers), check the Access tab, and have them renew or grant the access again (Grant access manually). More about statuses: Manage members.

A client bought access, but sees "You are not a member of this community"

The client is signed in with a different email address than the one that holds the access. Each address is a separate client, so a purchase made with a typo, or with Apple Pay or Google Pay (which pass the email stored in the wallet), can sit on an address the client does not use to log in.

1. Ask the client which address they log in with and which one they gave at checkout.
2. In Customers → All customers (/customers) search for both. Open the record that has the purchase; its Access tab lists the community as a row of type Community membership.
3. If only that record exists, move it to the right address: Actions → Change email (Change a client's email address). The login moves with it.
4. If both addresses exist as separate clients, combine them: the three-dot menu at the top of the profile, Merge customers, keeping the address the client logs in with. Community memberships move to the surviving client (Merge or delete a client).
5. Ask the client to log out and log in again on your platform's address.

A member does not see a channel that other members see

A channel a member cannot access is hidden from their channel list, their feed and the post search; they are not told it exists. Open Channels in the community editor (/communities/<productId>/editor/channels) and check the channel against this list:

1. The channel is inactive. A channel with Active switched off carries a Hidden badge and only administrators see it. Open the channel and turn Active on.
2. The channel is limited to roles. A Restricted badge means Access is set to Only selected roles. The member needs at least one of the ticked roles. With several extra roles, one role that has access is enough.
3. The member does not have the role. Open Members list, click the member and read their roles in Member details. Add a role with Edit member, or, when the role should come with a purchase, set Grants role on the right plan in the product's Add-ons & Plans tab (Roles and VIP channels).
4. The group limits access. A group has its own access table that applies to every channel inside it, unless the channel overrides it.
5. The channel has a level gate. In Settings → Gamification, Level-gated channels can require Level 2+ or higher. Members below the level do not see the channel (Gamification).

After a role change the member sees the channel once they reload the page.

New posts do not show at the top of the feed

Pinned posts always come first. The feed puts pinned posts from every channel above all other posts, so a community with a pinned welcome post in each channel opens with a block of old posts, and the new ones start below it.

1. Open the community and scroll the feed past the posts marked with a pin icon; the recent posts follow.
2. On each pinned post you do not need at the top, open the ⋮ menu and choose Un-pin from top. This also removes the pin inside the post's own channel.
3. Check the sort selector above the posts. Recent activity, the default, moves a post up when someone other than its author comments on it; Latest orders posts by the time they were written.

How the feed is ordered: The community feed and search.

I removed members, but they still count as active customers

Remove from community takes away product access only when the access comes from the community product itself. The confirmation window sorts the selected members into groups, and two of them keep their access:

A client counts as an active customer as long as they have access to at least one product. To free the place:

1. Open the client in Customers → All customers (/customers) and go to the Access tab.
2. Find the product that gave them the community and choose Revoke access in the row's three-dot menu. For many people at once, tick them in the list and use Edit selected → Revoke product access (Bulk actions on clients).
3. Check the Active customers meter in Settings → Usage (/settings/usage).

For a member who pays by subscription, end the subscription first: Cancel or revoke a subscription.

I want to turn off private messages between members

Member-to-member messages are a community setting and are on by default.

1. In the community editor open Settings → Access & features (/communities/<productId>/editor/settings/access).
2. Turn off Private messages between members and click Save.

The Message buttons and the message composer disappear for members, and existing conversations stay readable with the notice "Private messages are turned off in this community." Your own conversation with each client is a separate channel with its own switches in the inbox settings: The inbox: direct messages.

If your problem is not on this list, write to the Zanfia team: Get help and contact support.