Something is wrong
Find the symptom, follow the link.
| What you are seeing | Where to look |
|---|---|
| A member cannot read members-only content | Plugin troubleshooting |
| Raw shortcode text on a public page | Plugin troubleshooting |
| The pricing page shows old prices | Tools and buttons |
| WordPress cannot reach FMS | Connect to FMS |
| A team invoice is stuck on Confirming or Queued, or shows Retrying or Needs a developer | Team invoices |
| A team admin never got the confirmation email | Outgoing email |
| The admin portal is blank or half-loaded after an update | Questions people ask |
| A button you need is missing, or a message says "Your role (…) can't do this" | Who can do what. Ask an owner to change your role. |
| A screen says "This screen isn't part of your role" | Who can do what. Ask an owner to change your role. |
| Sign-in says "This account has been switched off" | Someone leaves. Ask an owner to switch you back on. |
| Sign-in says "This account still has the setup password" | The account still uses the password from the first install, which anyone could look up. An owner sets a temporary password, see Someone forgot their password. With no other owner, the technical team runs staff-reset. |
| Sign-in says "Too many sign-in attempts" | Change your email or password. Wait the seconds it says, then try once. On a browser you have signed in from before, wrong guesses from elsewhere do not hold you up. |
| A donor, gift buyer or joining member sees "Please wait a moment" | Too many card attempts from one connection. Nothing was charged. They wait a minute and try again. Membership checkout has had this limit since 25 October 2026. |
| A donor, gift buyer or joining member sees "We couldn't confirm your payment yet" | Their bank check finished but FMS was busy. The payment may have gone through. They wait a minute and press Check again, not pay again. Look for it on Donations, Gifts or the member page before refunding anything. |
| Someone says the FMS join page sends them to the website | That is expected. Joining for free needs a website account. See Questions people ask. |
| You forgot your console password | Someone forgot their password. Ask an owner. |
| Sign-in asks for a code and you have no phone | Press Use a recovery code instead and type one of your recovery codes, then set up a new phone. No codes left? An owner resets it, see Someone lost their phone. |
| Sign-in says "That code is not right" | Type the newest code the app shows. Each code works once. If every code fails, check that the phone sets its clock automatically. See Two-step sign-in. |
| The console says "Set up two-step sign-in first" | Every account needs it. Follow the setup screen, see Set it up. It takes about a minute. |
| Claude's sign-in page says to set up two-step sign-in in the FMS console first | Sign in to the console and set it up, see Set it up. Then connect Claude again. |
| A member can't sign in to the website, or sees a "data conflict" | When the website refuses someone's sign-in |
| A member is asked to confirm a payment | Confirm payment banner |
| Gift emails are not going out | Gift emails |
| A cancellation or refund has not shown up | Cancel or refund |
| Newsletters do not match what someone paid for | Consolidation |
| A Consolidation check says "Another check is running" | Only one check runs at a time. Wait for it to finish, or press Cancel on it. See Checks that run in the background. |
| A Consolidation result or report says INCOMPLETE | It could not read everything, for example a few members Mailchimp would not return. Do not read it as clean. Run it again later. See Consolidation. |
| A Consolidation check says FMS restarted while it was running | Press Run check again. It starts from the top. |
| The Stripe import shows Paused or Stalled | Connections |
| The bulk import preview lists unmatched Stripe customers | Step 2: Data |
| Something red on the Dashboard or Health | Health |
| A growing dead-letter count | Dead letters |
| Revenue looks wrong | Reports |
Before you escalate
Collect these three things. They answer most of the questions you would be asked anyway.
- Which environment the badge said you were in
- The exact message on screen, as a screenshot
- Roughly when it happened, and what you did just before
What not to do
Do not restart anything, and do not run a restore
A restore replaces the entire database. Health going red is almost never a reason for one.
Do not repeatedly press a button that failed. If it queued work, pressing again queues more.
Do not apply a Consolidation fix you have not previewed.
Who to tell
Thomas. Include the three things above. If members are actively affected, say so in the first line so it is obvious it is urgent.