Seeking Solution: Authors seeing "You don't currently have access to that stage of the workflow"

[inaya]

Describe the issue or problem
Hello,

I am facing a recurring issue where authors are unable to upload their revised files in OJS. Even though the “Author” role has permissions for all workflow stages in the global settings, they see the following error on their dashboard:

“You don’t currently have access to that stage of the workflow.”

This happens even when the submission is in the “Review” stage and the author is attempting to access the correct round. I have attached a screenshot (WORKFLOW.png) showing exactly what the authors are seeing.

Could you please provide a solution for this? Specifically:

• Is there a way to ensure authors always have access to their assigned submissions?

• Why does the system lock them out even when global permissions are granted?

Any help to resolve this permission issue would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Steps I took leading up to the issue
For example:

1. Go to ‘…’
2. Click on ‘…’
3. Scroll down to ‘…’
4. See error

What application are you using?
, OJS 3.5.0.3

Additional information
Please

add any screenshots, logs or other information we can use to investigate this problem.

[rcgillis]

Hi @inaya,

Are you able to check your PHP error logs (or have your sys admin do it on your behalf?) If you have already checked the role settings, sometimes there is something going on “behind the scenes” - often indicted by errors found in the error log.

-Roger
PKP team

[inaya]

[03-May-2026 14:55:15 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotFoundHttpException in /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/core/PKPRouter.php:205
Stack trace:
#0 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/core/PKPApplication.php(499): PKP\core\PKPRouter->getContext()
#1 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/plugins/PluginRegistry.php(238): PKP\core\PKPApplication->getEnabledProducts()
#2 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/plugins/PluginRegistry.php(127): PKP\plugins\PluginRegistry::loadFromDatabase()
#3 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/plugins/PluginRegistry.php(194): PKP\plugins\PluginRegistry::loadCategory()
#4 [internal function]: PKP\plugins\PluginRegistry::PKP\plugins\{closure}()
#5 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/plugins/PluginRegistry.php(194): array_reduce()
#6 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/scheduledTask/PKPScheduler.php(129): PKP\plugins\PluginRegistry::loadAllPlugins()
#7 /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/core/ScheduleServiceProvider.php(87): PKP\scheduledTask\PKPScheduler->registerPluginSchedules()
#8 [internal function]: PKP\core\ScheduleServiceProvider->PKP\core\{closure}()
#9 {main}
  thrown in /home/scholarp/public_html/lib/pkp/classes/core/PKPRouter.php on line 205

[inaya]

Any solution ?

[asmecher]

Hi @inaya,

You are encountering #12309, which has already been fixed in OJS 3.5.0-4. I’d suggest upgrading to the latest release.

Thanks,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[inaya]

Hi Alec,

Thank you for your response. I understand that this issue is resolved in OJS 3.5.0-4.

However, the manual software upgrade process often feels quite difficult and time-consuming for me to execute. Since I am currently running version 3.5.0-3, is there a specific file edit or a manual patch I can apply to this version instead of performing a full upgrade?

I would appreciate it if you could guide me on which files to modify to fix this particular bug.

[asmecher]

Hi @inaya,

There’s a note about a patch at the bottom of the link above. (But I do recommend keeping up to date; see this video for details on how to make minor upgrades, which are much less involved than something like 3.4.0 to 3.5.0.)

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[inaya]

Dear Alec,

Thank you for the recommendation and the video resource regarding the upgrades.

I would like to clarify that I am currently using a shared hosting environment, which means I do not have access to the terminal or command line. Given this limitation, is it possible to perform these minor upgrades or apply the patch directly through the web browser or the OJS administration interface?

I want to ensure I stay up to date while working within my hosting constraints. I look forward to your guidance.

[inaya]

Any update @asmecher ?

[asmecher]

Hi @inaya,

It’s not necessary to have command line access for minor upgrades; the command line part of the video I linked above was just the way I’m most familiar with working, but the instructions are general and can be performed through e.g. CPanel.

I recommend finding a way to make this work, rather than e.g. patching individual issues. We strongly recommend staying up to date, and if you don’t establish a way to do that in your hosting environment, you’re setting yourself up for trouble later.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[inaya]

@asmecher

Hi @inaya,

It’s not necessary to have command line access for minor upgrades; the command line part of the video I linked above was just the way I’m most familiar with working, but the instructions are general and can be performed through e.g. CPanel.

I recommend finding a way to make this work, rather than e.g. patching individual issues. We strongly recommend staying up to date, and if you don’t establish a way to do that in your hosting environment, you’re setting yourself up for trouble later.

Hi @asmecher

Thank you for clarifying! Since I don’t have command-line access, could you guide me on how to perform the upgrade directly through the browser?

Should I extract the new version files into my hosting environment (like cPanel) and then set installed = Off in the config.inc.php file to trigger the web-based upgrade wizard? I just want to make sure I have the exact steps right before I proceed.

On a side note, I’ve noticed that many users in the OJS community find the upgrade process quite challenging and complex. It would be amazing if the development team could look into simplifying the upgrade mechanism in future releases to make it more user-friendly for those without terminal access.

Looking forward to your guidance!

[asmecher]

Hi @inaya,

@inaya

Should I extract the new version files into my hosting environment (like cPanel) and then set installed = Off in the config.inc.php file to trigger the web-based upgrade wizard? I just want to make sure I have the exact steps right before I proceed.

Yup, that’s the process you’ll need to follow. Just make sure you have a good backup before you start in case you hit any snags.

On a side note, I’ve noticed that many users in the OJS community find the upgrade process quite challenging and complex. It would be amazing if the development team could look into simplifying the upgrade mechanism in future releases to make it more user-friendly for those without terminal access.

Yup, we’re aware of this; I’ve written a little about it e.g. here:

Easy and problem free self-installing OJS software upgrades

Hi @gail, Don’t worry about the feature request format posted above – let’s work through the individual errors you encountered on your other thread and I’ll give a general perspective on upgrades. The difficulty in upgrading is a general problem for our community, and it’s twofold: The community tends not to have the tech resources required, and The upgrades are not as easy as they should be. We’ve talked about upgrades quite a bit during our last dev leads webinars; the next of those is on…

Thanks,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[inaya]