Calypso: Viewer role users not searchable by email on simple sites

[Gustavo-Hilario]

Quick summary

The search feature in Calypso (WordPress.com > My Sites > Users > Search bar at the top) does not return accurate results when searching for viewers by email address or username on Simple Sites. This issue appears to be specific to the "Viewer" role, and it occurs regardless of the site's privacy setting. The problem does not replicate on Atomic sites.

Steps to reproduce

prereq. Set the site to Private status, otherwise the Viewer role is not available.

• Navigate to WordPress.com > My Sites > Users.
• Ensure there are users assigned with the "Viewer" role.
• Use the search bar at the top and attempt to find a Viewer by entering their email address or username.

What you expected to happen

The search feature should return a list of users that match the entered email address or username, including users with the "Viewer" role.

What actually happened

The search does not return any results when searching for Viewers by email address. It seems to be working inconsistently for usernames.

Impact

Some (< 50%)

Available workarounds?

Yes, difficult to implement

Platform (Simple and/or Atomic)

Simple

Logs or notes

The user who reported this issue: 6369117-zen

The issue appears to be specific to the "Viewer" role and is not affected by the site's privacy settings (private or public). It could be a bug within the Calypso user search functionality specifically related to Simple sites. More testing is needed to determine if this is an isolated issue or more widespread.

A video showing how I could reproduce this issue can be found here:

p1685986572045829-slack-C03TY6J1A

[github-actions[bot]]

Support References

This comment is automatically generated. Please do not edit it.

• [ ] 6369117-zen
• [ ] 6426647-zen
• [ ] 6430256-zen
• [ ] 6459939-zen
• [ ] 6466590-zen
• [ ] 6470972-zen
• [ ] 6552527-zen
• [ ] 7434601-zen
• [ ] 7891104-zen
• [ ] 8332165-zen
• [ ] 9034947-zen
• [ ] 9594347-zen

[worldomonation]

@Gustavo-Hilario Quick question, I'm trying to reproduce and triage this issue, but I can't seem to invite a user as "viewer" role for any user account & test site combination I try. What am I missing here?

[cuemarie]

📌 SCRUBBING : RESULT - Replicated / Could Not Replicate / Uncertain

• Tested on Simple – Replicated

📌 FINDINGS/SCREENSHOTS/VIDEO

• Added a user as a Viewer on a test site, accepted the invite, then searched for them in the search bar. They appeared when I searched for parts of the username, but not when I searched for any part of their email address.
• /wp-admin/users.php does not show Viewers on simple sites, so this issue makes it very difficult to find and remove a Viewer from a Simple Site if you only have their email address

Screenshots/Recordings

Simple

Search By Email:

Search By Username:

Atomic

📌 ACTIONS

• Assigned to @Automattic/caribou (I see y'all worked on adding the Viewers to the Team tab in https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/72266 - is this something you could advise on?)

📌 Message to Author

• @worldomonation - the site must be set to Private first, then 'Viewer' is available as a User role

[renata-franco]

I got one #6426647-zd

[filipanoscampos]

User of the ticket Renata shared came back here: 6430256-zd-woothemes They say:

it’s a simple process not rocket science . when I put someone’s name into search it never comes up with their name .. it always says .. nothing found .

They added :

I had a top designer for a famous luxury brand who was happy to be interviewed for my magazine, after the dramas with the invitation, he told me he wasn’t comfortable doing an interview as it appeared to be disorganised, and if I couldn’t get something as simple as the magazine invitation to work, he wasn’t confident that I would do the article research correctly.

This issue is affecting their revenue.

[happychait]

6459939-zen

[renata-franco]

This issue is affecting their revenue.

Yes, I think this is really a problem that should be a priority. The search should work.

[happychait]

This report also exists at P5PDj3-4Em-p2

[wiesenhauss]

The user came back to chat and is still not happy about this: 6466590-zen

[upwardmomentum84]

Reported here: 6470972-zd-woothemes

[cuemarie]

FYI This issue was escalated yesterday by @renata-franco here: p1687859484753489-slack-C02FMH4G8

There's some discussion starting at this point in the thread p1687880667944799/1687859484.753489-slack-C02FMH4G8 about why this is happening and next steps.

[renata-franco]

FYI This issue was escalated yesterday by @renata-franco here: p1687859484753489-slack-C02FMH4G8

There's some discussion starting at this point in the thread p1687880667944799/1687859484.753489-slack-C02FMH4G8 about why this is happening and next steps.

Thank you!!!!

[filipanoscampos]

6552527-zd-woothemes

This user sells magazine subscriptions on their site, so this is a very important feature. They are also the reason for this support integrity report pcmoY8-b3-p2#comment-776 which makes this even more pressing.

[worldomonation]

@filipanoscampos According to the Slack thread from https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/77814#issuecomment-1609938966 there is a project to replace the /people/subscribers page entirely with something new - that was 2023/07/03.

I accessed Sidebar > Users > Subscribers and am seeing the new feature. Could you verify you see a new feature and whether this works for the user you mention?

[cuemarie]

I can confirm on my Simple site that Users > Subscribers now shows the ability to search for subscribers by name, username or email...

Searching by email yields the expected results.

📌 ACTIONS

• Closing as Resolved

[filipanoscampos]

So, I think I know why there is some confusion. They are viewers, not subscribers.

Searching for the viewer via email:

And username:

Yet, they are active users on the site, here:

[cuemarie]

@filipanoscampos thank you for clarifying! I think this:

This user sells magazine subscriptions on their site, so this is a very important feature.

Led to the assumption that they were selling subscriptions via our Newsletter subscriptions, but I am familiar with this user and I'm sure they're doing this in a more complicated way :)

So the subscriber update does not resolve this, however this PR could: https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/79028

📌 ACTIONS

• Reopening as this is not yet resolved

[edwinho89]

Workaround:

Users and HE can manually access viewer page by obtaining its <User_RC>, where we can remove and invite as viewer again.

https://wordpress.com/people/viewers/domain.com/<User_RC>

[eduardozulian]

Flagging this for 7434601-zen as well. In this case, the user has 500+ viewers, but I can't even search for their usernames which makes searching for either email or login impossible.

There are two emails listed in the ticket above if needed for testing.

[jp-imagines]

Another report in 7891104-zd-a8c. On this site at least, Viewers don't show up at all at /people/team/, though the user count at the top is correct. Visiting /people/viewers shows the full count of users and an otherwise empty page. Searching for either username or email brings up no results, so it is impossible for this site owner to see or manage their list of viewers.

Update (April 2): Checked this site again today, and their Viewers are now displaying in the list. Searching for usernames works as well. Not sure what changed. 🤔

[synora]

Another report in 8332165-zd. The workaround mentioned at https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/77814#issuecomment-1791996765 allows us to see the Viewer's info.

[supernovia]

9034947-zd-a8c

[ouikhuan]

Adding the investigation here: p1737131898154069/1687859484.753489-slack-C02FMH4G8

[supernovia]

I'm re-opening this as we're seeing another case in this ticket: 9594347-zd-a8c

See also p1743440762955269-slack-C03TY6J1A

As before, we're able to workaround it by finding the user by ID and removing/re-adding them, but this isn't ideal.

[dragstor]

Another one: 9828104-zen

[nukak2024]

Another case here: 9894439-zd-a8c

[coreyhall93]

I'm re-opening this as we're seeing another case in this ticket: 9594347-zd-a8c

See also p1743440762955269-slack-C03TY6J1A

As before, we're able to workaround it by finding the user by ID and removing/re-adding them, but this isn't ideal.

Same user, same issue: 10088028-zd

[lancewillett]

Closed as "works as intended."

Here is the workaround:

1. Navigate to Settings -> General.
2. Scroll down to "Admin Interface Style".
3. Select "Classic style".
4. Navigate to Users -> All Users.
5. Search by email should work.

We understand that folks might not be happy to switch Calypso to wp-admin as their default interfact. However, wp-admin is now our default interface for this operation and it's a reasonable workaround.

[filipanoscampos]

Hi @lancewillett ,

I'm afraid that the Viewer role isn't visible in "Classic Style". Here is an example from a test site.

Please note the Viewer user in Default:

And how it looks in Classic Style:

The Viewer is, ironically, nowhere to be seen.

This has already been reported here and here.

[lancewillett]

@filipanoscampos The suggested workaround is to search by email address, not browsing by role type.