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Troubleshooting

Fixes for common problems with BuddyPress Hashtags. For general questions, see the FAQ.

Section titled “Hashtags Not Appearing as Links”

Possible causes and solutions:

  1. Content type disabled

    • Check: WB Plugins > BP Hashtags > General
    • Confirm the relevant toggle is on: “Forum hashtags (bbPress)”, “Blog hashtags (posts, pages, comments)”, and so on.

  2. Hashtag too short or too long

    • Check: General tab > Shortest hashtag / Longest hashtag
    • The defaults are 3 and 16. A hashtag outside those limits stays as plain text.

  3. Invalid characters used

    • Remove spaces, periods, exclamation marks, and other punctuation.
    • Only letters, numbers, underscores, and hyphens are recognised (unless International language support is enabled). Purely numeric and emoji hashtags are always ignored.

  4. Word blocked by the profanity filter

    • If “Block inappropriate hashtags” is on and the word matches a BuddyPress Profanity keyword, the # is dropped and the word stays as plain text (it is not replaced with asterisks and is not recorded).
    • Go to the BuddyPress Profanity plugin settings to review the keyword list.

  5. Theme or plugin conflict

    • Switch to a default WordPress theme (Twenty Twenty-Five) temporarily.
    • If hashtags appear with the default theme, the issue is in your theme or another plugin.

  6. Cache

    • Clear any page-caching plugin cache.
    • Clear your browser cache.
    • Test while logged out to rule out session-level caching.

Autocomplete Suggestions Not Appearing

Section titled “Autocomplete Suggestions Not Appearing”

  1. Feature disabled

    • Go to the General tab and confirm “Hashtag suggestions” is on.

  2. BuddyPress not active

    • Hashtag suggestions are a BuddyPress feature. The setting is not shown when BuddyPress is inactive.

  3. JavaScript conflict

    • Open browser developer tools (F12 > Console) and look for errors.
    • Disable other plugins one at a time to identify a conflict.

  4. Browser issue

    • Try a different browser.
    • Disable browser extensions temporarily.

Followed Hashtags Not Showing

Section titled “Followed Hashtags Not Showing”

  1. Feature disabled

    • Go to the General tab and confirm “Let members follow hashtags” is on.

  2. Following is a BuddyPress feature

    • This setting only appears when BuddyPress is active. The “Followed Hashtags” activity sub-tab also needs the BuddyPress Activity component active.

  3. Check the member’s settings

    • Go to Profile > Settings > Follow Hashtags.
    • Confirm the hashtags are listed and actively followed.

  4. Cache

    • Clear the site cache. The followed-hashtags feed may be cached for a few minutes.

A Blocked Word Still Shows a Hashtag

Section titled “A Blocked Word Still Shows a Hashtag”

When “Block inappropriate hashtags” is on, a word on the BuddyPress Profanity keyword list is not turned into a hashtag: the # is removed and the word appears as ordinary text. If a blocked word is still becoming a link:

  1. Confirm the BuddyPress Profanity plugin is active and its keyword list contains the word.
  2. Confirm “Block inappropriate hashtags” is on (it only appears when BuddyPress Profanity is active).
  3. Moderation is not retroactive. A hashtag indexed before you enabled moderation stays in the index until you delete it from the Manage tab.

Widget Not Displaying

Section titled “Widget Not Displaying”

  1. No hashtags in the database

    • Create some content with hashtags first. The widget stays empty until matching hashtags exist.

  2. Widget configuration

    • Verify the widget limit is not set to 0.
    • Make sure the sidebar is active on the page you are checking.

  3. Content type mismatch

    • Check which content type the widget is configured to display (Activity, bbPress, Post, or Page).

Statistics Not Updating

Section titled “Statistics Not Updating”

Statistics are read from the index on each page load. If counts look stale:

  1. Create a test post with a new hashtag and reload the Analytics tab.
  2. Clear any page-caching plugin cache.
  3. If you recently ran “Reset All Hashtag Data”, the counters start from zero.

Delete Not Working

Section titled “Delete Not Working”

  1. Permissions

    • You must be logged in with manage_options (an administrator) to delete hashtags.

  2. Server timeout

    • Bulk-deleting a large number of hashtags may time out on some hosting environments.
    • Delete in smaller batches and reload the page between each batch.
    • Contact your host to increase PHP max_execution_time if timeouts persist.

Getting Support

Section titled “Getting Support”

Before contacting support, collect the following:

  1. WordPress version
  2. BuddyPress and/or bbPress version
  3. Theme name and version
  4. List of active plugins
  5. Description of the issue with steps to reproduce
  6. Screenshots if the issue is visual

Contact: