users getting the activation OK, but not getting activated
 

I'm using a hack that puts my users into a primary usergroup based on a custom field. The hack works correctly and inserts them into the correct group. I get the activatin email and click on it and get the "you are activated' message - but for some reason that user still does not have permission to post and when i approve the messages from that user, the title and rank do not show. What do you think is going on?

1. What version of vb are you using?
2. Can you please post the code you are using to make the usergroup change.
3. When you say they are not activated, what do you mean specifically? If the usergroup changes to one with permissions, that means they are activated.
4. Can you provide a link to the forum in question so I can see the problem in action?

1) 3.5.4
2)3) i mean, that user has been put into the correct group, but his posts are moderated and his custom title and rank do not show under his name. i'm not familiar with VB, but I am only assuming this is because he is still in limbo (not activated) and that's why all of these things are happening.
4) www.domainname.com if you are going to try and register, you can only choose "Group" sinec I'm testing that code you wrote for token55. I was going to add the other groups later if this worked.

The problem lies in 3. :)

Check 2 things. In your usergroup manager, check to ensure posts made by that usergroup are not moderated.
In your forum manager check the forum permissions for - follows moderation rules. If that is set to no, then all posts will be moderated. It's a common glitch when creating new usergroups or new forums.

damn, thanks... that was driving me nuts all weekend. Finally done with that hack and can get on with my life! thanks Amy

My pleasure

one question: how can I change all of those groups to 'yes' for 'follows rules' in the DB? I'd hate to do it by hand to over 50 groups.

I honestly don't know the answer to that question.

Permissions are based on bitfields so without some mathematical skills ;-) and knowing which value will do what you can't manually change those in db.

For example canviewforum may be 2, and candownloadattachements may be 4, candeletepost = 8 etc. So you've to sum all of these and put the right number in proper field in your db. I think you should just go through your user permission system in acp so it'll do this for you.