OJS 3.5.0-1: You don't currently have access to that stage of the workflow

Software Support
1

Describe the issue or problem
Authors get this message at submission, review, copyediting and production stages “You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow.“

Steps I took leading up to the issue
I unchecked author permission, and enabled them again.

What application are you using?
OJS 3.5.0-1

Additional information
Authors can’t see anything during the process once they submit. Keeps telling them “You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow.“

2

Hi @muhdlawal,

Under Settings → Users & Roles → Roles - are the checkboxes selected there to provide the Author role with access to the other aspects of the workflow?

-Roger
PKP Team

4

Yes, all the checkboxes are selected. Everything is active.

5

Hi @muhdlawal,

Hmmm… As a next step I would suggest checking your PHP error logs for errors there - that may provide more clues as to what is occurring.

-Roger
PKP Team

8

I checked the PHP error logs, there is no any new message.

9

Please help. I have no error message in the PHP Logs, and here are the screenshots of my Users and Roles permissions for authors.

OJS2
OJS21234×600 25.1 KB

OJS
OJS514×611 21.3 KB

10

We’re having the same problem with version 3.5.0-2.

Copyeditor doesn’t have an assign button.

11

@simgiallorosso I don’t think these issues are related.

Copyeditor (assistant permission level) does not have access to the assign button in the Participants list. As far as I could see, this is expected and consistent with version 3.3.

12

Can you show a full screenshot of the access issue message? I was not able to reproduce this issue.

13

The error is for submission and other stages “You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow.“

OJS2
OJS21482×716 36.1 KB

OJS1
OJS11468×612 32.6 KB

14

Sorry @muhdlawal I might have led you astray. I believe this might not be an error but an expected access issue. Let me try to break down some things I would need to understand the issue a bit better.

  1. Let’s take a look at the roles this user currently has
  2. Go to User & Roles settings > find the user
  3. Are there other roles other than “Author” attached to this user?
  4. Should look something like this
  5. image
    image927×108 8.16 KB
  6. Let’s take a look at the dashboard you are using to view the submission (if there are more than one role attached to the user)
    1. There can be 3 dashboards (Editor, Author, Reviewer) which can appear on the side navigation at the same time.
    2. Should look like this if the user has been assigned all 3 roles.
      1. image
        image333×154 6.74 KB
  7. If the user is using a role without access to a particular stage then they will receive this message “You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow”
    1. image
    2. An example, this user being assigned to a submission as a section editor without access to submission, review or production stages.
      1. image
        image647×170 10.4 KB

Could you make sure that the user you are viewing the submission with, does not have any other role attched besides the “Author” role and you are using the author dashboard to view the submission? From the screenshots you presented it is hard to tell what entry point the submission is being viewed from and I noticed that many of the roles you shared are missing stage assignments.

15

This was accessed under the Author dashboard.

I think it is better to make it clear that all the registered authors on the portal don’t have access to any stage of the workflow, regardless of their roles. Users registered as authors only, or author and reviewer, every author is getting “You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow.“ at every stage of the workflow.

You can see from the previous screenshot that the checkboxes for authors were all enabled.

16

One last thing before we try to delve deeper as I couldn’t recreate the problem using 3.5.0-1. Can you check the Edit profile > Roles tab to make sure Author role is checked

Should look something like this.

image
image135×112 2.31 KB

Have you upgraded to 3.5.0-1 or is this a fresh install? If so from what version?

17

Yes, under the edit profile, the checkbox for author is enabled.

The 3.5.0-1 was a fresh install via Softaculous. When we noticed the problem, we kept searching looking for solutions, but nothing helped.

When 3.5.0-2 was released, we manually upgraded. Everything works fine except the permission issue.

18

Help please. This permission issue is slowing us.

19

This appears to be similar to the issue (linked below)

My apologies @muhdlawal but I couldn’t recreate the issue you are expierencing. It might be a platform or sever issue. There were some solutions/workarounds might work out for you.