Editors can't access menu items

Try turning on logging in Admin Menu Editor. It can help figure out problems like this.

To do that, click the “Settings” button on the menu editor page (it’s next to the page heading), scroll down to the bottom and check the box that says “Show menu access checks…”. This will make the plugin display a bunch of debugging logs on every admin page. Log in as an editor and try accessing the menu in question. What does the log say?

(Even if you can’t see/click the menu as an Editor, you can copy its URL while logged in as an Administrator, then log in as an Editor and try to open that URL.)

Thanks for the quick reply!

I’ve enabled logging, and then tried to access the specific settings page by just jumping to the URL (since the menu is of course hidden). The log seems slightly contradictory?

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this admin page.

Admin Menu Editor security log
Current URL: "https://mywebsite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=wp-cart-for-digital-products%2Fwp_eStore1.php"
The current menu item is "WP eStore", menu template ID: ">wp-cart-for-digital-products/wp_eStore1.php"
===============================================================================
Figuring out what capability the user will need to access this item...
Checking "WP eStore" permissions:
+ Custom permissions for user "USERNAME": ALLOW.
= Result: ALLOW
-----
Skipping a "add_users" capability check because we've already determined that the current user should have access.
No "extra capability" set.
Final capability setting: add_users
===============================================================================
The current user does not have the "add_users" capability.
DENY access.

I then checked the Capabilities set by User Role Editor, and while the Add Users box is checked for editors to try and match the necessary criteria, editors still can’t do anything on the ../wp-admin/user-new.php page, so that’s somehow not working. Of course, Admin Menu Editor used to allow editors to see the eStore plugin on its own, so hopefully we don’t have to start going too far with adding new roles here.

Thanks for your help!

Yes, that log looks suspicious. The user should have the capability, but for some reason the final capability check still fails.

Aside from the menu editor and User Role Editor, what other plugins are you running? Could one of them be changing user capabilities? In theory, a plugin can hook into capability checks and make it look like a user doesn’t have a capability even though they do.

(Admin Menu Editor Pro itself sometimes uses this approach to give the necessary capabilities to specific users. However, other plugins could override that and remove the capabilities again.)

I am also having a similar issue for my Editor account. I need to allow access to “Advanced post slider” so i set it to: Required Capability = Editor. but it does not show up at all.

Required capability: manage_options. User DOES NOT have this capability.
Extra capability: editor. User HAS this capability.
Final capability setting: do_not_allow
==========================================================
The current user does not have the “do_not_allow” capability.
DENY access.

I FIND THIS INTERESTING…. both of these plugins are set to Editor Capability.
Master Slider – this one shows up in the menu and works fine.
Advanced post slider – this one does not show up in menu
I tried to access both of these directly using the URL.

When logged in as Editor…
Both of these links works for accessing Master Slider plugin:
1. https://sbcqualitycounts.com/wp-admin/?page=masterslider
2. https://sbcqualitycounts.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=masterslider

BUT when I Enter the similar links to edit the Advanced post slider
1. https://sbcqualitycounts.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=advps-slideshow
You do not have sufficient permissions to access this admin page.
Required capability: manage_options. User DOES NOT have this capability.
Extra capability: editor. User HAS this capability.

2. https://sbcqualitycounts.com/wp-admin/?page=advps-slideshow
All I get is this error: Cannot load advps-slideshow.

I also disabled ALL Plugins except for the two in question:
Advanced post slider
Admin Menu Editor

I am willing to purchase the PRO version if this will resolve this issue.

In your particular case, it’s a limitation of the free version. This version can’t give a role access to a menu that it normally wouldn’t be able to see. It can only restrict access.

On the other hand, with the Pro version you can allow Editor access to items like Advanced Post Slider. It’s also easier configure: just click a role and tick the checkbox next to the menu item(s) that you want to allow.

(I’m not so sure about the slideshow plugin since the error is different in that case.)

Finally, the “required capability” field doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t replace existing capability requirements; usually it would be impossible to do that without editing plugin source code. Instead, think of it as a an additional filter on top of the existing menu permissions.

For example, lets say that by default only users with the manage_options capability can access a menu. If you set the required capability to “editor”, the result is that only users who have both the manage_options capability and the Editor role will be able to access it. In effect, nobody can access it.

I’m having a very similar issue:

Whereby the “Editor” role has the capability of “upload_files” – so they can see the MEDIA menu (in admin dashboard mode) – but when they click on the MEDIA menu, it just redirects them to index.php (dashboard home).

The “upload_files” capability should allow this user to access the upload.php (media library).

I have reset all the menu’s in AME, tried un-installing the plugin, but the problem still persists.

My setup: AME pro + WP Multisite v4.5.4

Any help would be great.
Thanks – Brett.

Forgot to add:
I also tried the “reset URL” method, which doesn’t do anything in my case.