Link expired when trying approve new user

The approval routine is the same one used when users self-validate through a link in their email. An admin seeing the message is unintended. What the message really means is the nonce included in the request is invalid, not something that means anything to most users.

Regardless of the actual cause, the question remains what to do to resolve the issue. I suspect one of your plugins or your theme is inadvertently interfering. To isolate which one, deactivate all plugins and switch to one of the Twenty* default themes. User approval should now work without trouble. Restore your normal theme, then plugins, one at a time, testing approval after each. When the problem recurs, the last module activated is the cause. Take up the issue through its dedicated support channel.

Okay, thanks for that. You know testing the operatin of your site re new user registrations seems to require coming up with a new username/email address every time you have ‘another go at it’ which I find a bit of a drag and a problem.

Is there really an easier way?

I switched to 20 19 after deactivating all plugins. The deactivation didn’t help. So I switched. Got a different screen for activate new users and only my most recent attempt was there. One I made this morning. Yesterday’s two failed attempts didn’t show in pending at all.

So I clicked activate ( or approve or whatever it is) and it worked fine. Thanks a lot. ?? I’ll now switch back to 2017 and try installing plugins as you suggest.

Thanks again. I guess that’s a sort of standard basic methodology for trouble shooting?

Yeah, new email addresses can be a sticking point. You should be able to delete the prospective test user, then be able to reuse their name and email. Success depends on how you’ve configured new user registration.

If for some reason deleting the user doesn’t help, some email accounts let you place random characters after a certain symbol. For example, Gmail ignores a + and anything after that in the account name. You could add the current time in order to have a unique address every time even if all mail still goes to the same account. For example: User name “test0934” Email “[email protected].

It’s also possible to divert outgoing messages to a static email address regardless of the intended address, but accomplishing this would require some custom coding unless you can find a plugin that does this for you. It involves the “wp_mail” filter and altering the message’s parameters.

I guess that’s a sort of standard basic methodology for trouble shooting?

Correct. Unless there are better clues about what had gone wrong, such as a PHP error message saying what is wrong and where it happened. Unfortunately, such messages often don’t point to the root cause, only where PHP realized there’s a problem. A debug backtrace can help in such situations.

If you’re concerned that deactivating plugins and switching themes will confuse and inconvenience other visitors, use the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin. When you start troubleshooting mode, it’ll immediately deactivate plugins and switch themes for your view only. Other visitors will see your normal fully functional site. And the troubleshooting admin bar item makes it easier to reactivate plugins one at a time instead of needing to go back to the plugins page every time.

Thank you for all that. ?? I will get there eventually. Just found the config option in my user reg plugin where I can edit the message they get. So now it says to email admin. I’ve been wanting that for yonks. Now I will simply only approve those who email me. Simple. ??