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Troubleshooting Common Issues

Issue: Auto-friendships are not being created on registration

Section titled “Issue: Auto-friendships are not being created on registration”

Symptoms: New users register but no friendships are created automatically.

Causes and solutions:

  1. BuddyPress Friends component is off. Go to Settings → BuddyPress → Components and verify Friend Connections is enabled. Without this, no friendships can be created.

  2. No welcome group is configured. Go to WB Plugins → Auto Friends → Auto-Friendship. You must have at least one role or member type ticked, or at least one Global Friend added. The Overview tab shows a warning if nothing is configured yet.

  3. Member Types mode selected but no member type is assigned. If you are using Member Types mode, confirm that new users are actually assigned a qualifying member type. Member type assignment often happens via a separate plugin or registration field - auto-friendship only fires when a matching member type is set.

  4. WordPress cron is broken. The plugin schedules friendship creation via wp_schedule_single_event. If cron is broken on your server, events never fire. To test: add define( 'ALTERNATE_WP_CRON', true ); to wp-config.php temporarily, then register a test user.

Issue: Friendships created on registration but not when roles change

Section titled “Issue: Friendships created on registration but not when roles change”

Symptoms: New registrations auto-friend correctly, but changing a user’s role in the WordPress admin does not trigger new friendships.

Cause: Dynamic processing schedules a cron event when a role changes. If cron is not running, those events never fire.

Solution:

  1. Confirm WordPress cron is working (see previous issue).
  2. Confirm you have at least one role ticked in the Auto-Friendship tab. If the welcome group is empty, there is nothing to create.
  3. If cron runs but the event never fires, check that no security plugin is blocking the bautof_create_friendships_event action.

Issue: The Friend Lists tab does not appear on member profiles

Section titled “Issue: The Friend Lists tab does not appear on member profiles”

Symptoms: The Friend Lists sub-tab is missing under the Friends section.

Causes and solutions:

  1. Feature is disabled. Go to WB Plugins → Auto Friends → Friend Lists and confirm Show the Friend Lists tab on member profiles is checked.

  2. Member does not have access. Check the Who Gets the Feature setting. If restricted to specific roles or member types, confirm the member holds a qualifying role or type.

  3. Member is viewing someone else’s profile. Friend Lists only appear on a member’s own profile. The tab does not appear when viewing another member’s profile.

Issue: Manual processing stops before completing

Section titled “Issue: Manual processing stops before completing”

Symptoms: You click the processing button and the operation ends quickly without creating all expected friendships.

Cause: The server hit the PHP memory limit (85% threshold), triggering an automatic stop.

Solution:

  1. Increase the PHP memory limit in wp-config.php: 
    define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
  2. Run manual processing again. The plugin does not resume from where it stopped - it reruns the sweep, but already-created friendships are skipped because bautof_force_friendship() detects the is_friend state and takes no action.
  3. On very large sites (50,000+ users), contact your host about increasing memory or consider running the sweep during off-peak hours.

Issue: Pending friend requests are not being accepted automatically

Section titled “Issue: Pending friend requests are not being accepted automatically”

Symptoms: Users have pending friend requests with each other and the plugin does not confirm them.

Cause: Prior to version 1.8.1, pending requests were silently skipped. The bautof_force_friendship() function introduced in 1.8.1 handles pending states correctly by promoting them to confirmed.

Solution: Update to version 1.8.1 or later. After updating, run manual processing from the Overview tab to promote all pending requests to confirmed friendships.

Issue: The plugin deactivated itself after activation

Section titled “Issue: The plugin deactivated itself after activation”

Symptoms: A red admin notice appears saying the plugin requires BuddyPress (or the Friends component), and the plugin is no longer active.

Solution:

  1. Install and activate BuddyPress (or BuddyBoss Platform).
  2. Go to Settings → BuddyPress → Components and enable Friend Connections.
  3. Reactivate the plugin. It now passes the requirement check.

Debug mode

Section titled “Debug mode”

Enable WordPress debug logging to get more information:

// Add to wp-config.php
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

Check the log at: wp-content/debug.log

The plugin logs:

  • Memory threshold warnings during batch processing
  • Total friendships processed after a manual sync completes
  • Cleanup actions when roles or member types are removed
  • Friendship creation start and end (when WP_DEBUG is true)

Emergency stop

Section titled “Emergency stop”

If a manual processing operation appears stuck, you can stop all processing:

The plugin provides an emergency stop URL (accessible only to administrators). It is generated with a nonce and linked from the Overview tab when a stuck sync is detected. Visiting the URL clears all processing transients and cancels all pending cron events.

You can also construct the URL manually:

/wp-admin/admin.php?page=buddypress_auto_friends&bautof_emergency_stop=1&_wpnonce=NONCE

The _wpnonce value must come from wp_create_nonce( 'bautof_emergency_stop' ).

Still need help?

Section titled “Still need help?”

Include this information when contacting support:

  • WordPress version
  • BuddyPress version (or BuddyBoss Platform version)
  • Plugin version (visible on the License tab)
  • PHP version
  • Error messages from debug.log
  • Steps to reproduce the issue