Troubleshooting

Work top to bottom: most “no suggestions” reports come down to the master toggle, an empty field configuration, or a logged-out viewer.

No suggestions appear on any surface

• Enable Profile Matching is off. Turn it on at WB Plugins > BP Friend & Follow > General. Every widget, block, and shortcode returns nothing while it is off.
• No matching fields are configured. Add at least one field in the Profile Match Settings section on the General tab. Nothing is scored until one field exists.
• The viewer is not logged in. All suggestion surfaces require a logged-in member.
• Profiles are empty. The engine can only score xProfile fields that have values. Confirm the viewer, and other members, have filled in the fields you configured.

Cards show 0% or nothing scores above the threshold

• The chosen fields are free text. Text and textarea fields rarely match on exact strings. Prefer choice-based fields (checkbox, multi-select, select, radio). See General - Profile Matching.
• Universal Match Score is 0 and there is no field overlap. Raise the baseline, or confirm members share values on the configured fields.
• The widget minimum match percentage or the directory high-match threshold is set too high. Lower it.

Follow suggestions show the same people as friend suggestions

No follow provider is active. Install and activate the BuddyPress Follow plugin, or enable BuddyBoss activity follow. Without one, the follow pool falls back to friend suggestions by design.

Dismissed members keep reappearing

• A dismissed member reappears after the hide dismissed duration (default 30 days). This is expected. Increase it on the UX settings if members return too soon.
• If a dismissal never sticks, clear the suggestion cache with the Clear cache action on the Advanced tab, and make sure you are on 1.7.6 or later, where dismissal persistence across widgets, the block, shortcodes, and digest emails was unified.

Emails are not sending

• Enable Email Notifications is off on the Notifications tab.
• The member’s frequency is set to Never. Check their BuddyPress notification settings.
• The BuddyPress Settings component is inactive. Per-member email preferences require it.
• WP-Cron is not running on the site, so digests never fire. Confirm cron is working.
• A template is broken. Use Reinstall Email Templates on the Advanced tab to restore the defaults. Note this overwrites any custom edits made in the BuddyPress email editor.

New members do not receive the welcome email

The welcome email is scheduled a configurable number of minutes after registration (default 30) to give the engine time to calculate initial scores. Since 1.7.4, members with an empty profile still receive it, with a note that personalized suggestions will appear once they complete their profile. Confirm WP-Cron is running and the New Member Welcome option is on.

The Swiper widget controls do not respond

This was fixed in 1.7.6 for sites running jQuery 3. Update the plugin to the latest version.

The block preview shows “Please log in to see friend suggestions”

Expected in the editor: the block’s server-side render preview runs without a full front-end session in some configurations. The block renders correctly for logged-in visitors on the front end.

The block or a shortcode renders nothing on the front end

Confirm the viewer is logged in, Enable Profile Matching is on, and at least one xProfile field is configured for matching.

The plugin deactivated itself

The plugin requires BuddyPress and the xProfile component. If either is deactivated while the plugin is active, it silently deactivates itself to protect the site. Re-enable BuddyPress and the Extended Profiles component, then reactivate the plugin.

I cannot find the settings page

Settings live under WB Plugins > BP Friend & Follow, a shared Wbcom menu, not under the BuddyPress menu. You can also click Settings next to the plugin on the Plugins screen.