COPPA, or the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, is a law in the United States requiring websites which can potentially collect information from minors under the age of 13 to have written parental consent or some other method of legal guardian acknowledgment, allowing the collection of personally identifiable information from a minor under the age of 13. If you are unsure if this applies to you as someone trying to register or to the website you are trying to register on, contact legal counsel for assistance. Please note that phpBB Limited and the owners of this board cannot provide legal advice and is not a point of contact for legal concerns of any kind, except as outlined in question “Who do I contact about abusive and/or legal matters related to this board?”.
It is possible a board administrator has disabled registration to prevent new visitors from signing up. A board administrator could have also banned your IP address or disallowed the username you are attempting to register. Contact a board administrator for assistance.
First, check your username and password. If they are correct, then one of two things may have happened. If COPPA support is enabled and you specified being under 13 years old during registration, you will have to follow the instructions you received. Some boards will also require new registrations to be activated, either by yourself or by an administrator before you can logon; this information was present during registration. If you were sent an email, follow the instructions. If you did not receive an email, you may have provided an incorrect email address or the email may have been picked up by a spam filer. If you are sure the email address you provided is correct, try contacting an administrator.
There are several reasons why this could occur. First, ensure your username and password are correct. If they are, contact a board administrator to make sure you haven’t been banned. It is also possible the website owner has a configuration error on their end, and they would need to fix it.
Don’t panic! While your password cannot be retrieved, it can easily be reset. Visit the login page and click I forgot my password. Follow the instructions and you should be able to log in again shortly.
If you do not check the Remember me box when you login, the board will only keep you logged in for a preset time. This prevents misuse of your account by anyone else. To stay logged in, check the Remember me box during login. This is not recommended if you access the board from a shared computer, e.g. library, internet cafe, university computer lab, etc. If you do not see this checkbox, it means a board administrator has disabled this feature.
“Delete all board cookies” deletes the cookies created by phpBB which keep you authenticated and logged into the board. Cookies also provide functions such as read tracking if they have been enabled by a board administrator. If you are having login or logout problems, deleting board cookies may help.
If you are a registered user, all your settings are stored in the board database. To alter them, visit your User Control Panel; a link can usually be found by clicking on your username at the top of board pages. This system will allow you to change all your settings and preferences.
Within your User Control Panel, under “Board preferences”, you will find the option Hide your online status. Enable this option and you will only appear to the administrators, moderators and yourself. You will be counted as a hidden user.
If you are sure you have set the timezone correctly and the time is still incorrect, then the time stored on the server clock is incorrect. Please notify an administrator to correct the problem.
Either the administrator has not installed your language or nobody has translated this board into your language. Try asking a board administrator if they can install the language pack you need. If the language pack does not exist, feel free to create a new translation. More information can be found at the phpBB® website.
There are two images which may appear along with a username when viewing posts. One of them may be an image associated with your rank, generally in the form of stars, blocks or dots, indicating how many posts you have made or your status on the board. Another, usually larger, image is known as an avatar and is generally unique or personal to each user.
Within your User Control Panel, under “Profile” you can add an avatar by using one of the four following methods: Gravatar, Gallery, Remote or Upload. It is up to the board administrator to enable avatars and to choose the way in which avatars can be made available. If you are unable to use avatars, contact a board administrator.
Only registered users can send email to other users via the built-in email form, and only if the administrator has enabled this feature. This is to prevent malicious use of the email system by anonymous users.
To post a new topic in a forum, click "New Topic". To post a reply to a topic, click "Post Reply". You may need to register before you can post a message. A list of your permissions in each forum is available at the bottom of the forum and topic screens. Example: You can post new topics, You can post attachments, etc.
To add a signature to a post you must first create one via your User Control Panel. Once created, you can check the Attach a signature box on the posting form to add your signature. You can also add a signature by default to all your posts by checking the appropriate radio button in the User Control Panel. If you do so, you can still prevent a signature being added to individual posts by un-checking the add signature box within the posting form.
Each board administrator has their own set of rules for their site. If you have broken a rule, you may be issued a warning. Please note that this is the board administrator’s decision, and the phpBB Limited has nothing to do with the warnings on the given site. Contact the board administrator if you are unsure about why you were issued a warning.
This allows you to save drafts to be completed and submitted at a later date. To reload a saved draft, visit the User Control Panel.
You can automatically delete private messages from a user by using message rules within your User Control Panel. If you are receiving abusive private messages from a particular user, report the messages to the moderators; they have the power to prevent a user from sending private messages.
We are sorry to hear that. The email form feature of this board includes safeguards to try and track users who send such posts, so email the board administrator with a full copy of the email you received. It is very important that this includes the headers that contain the details of the user that sent the email. The board administrator can then take action.
Your search was probably too vague and included many common terms which are not indexed by phpBB. Be more specific and use the options available within Advanced search.
Your own posts can be retrieved either by clicking the “Show your posts” link within the User Control Panel or by clicking the “Search user’s posts” link via your own profile page or by clicking the “Quick links” menu at the top of the board. To search for your topics, use the Advanced search page and fill in the various options appropriately.
In phpBB 3.0, bookmarking topics worked much like bookmarking in a web browser. You were not alerted when there was an update. As of phpBB 3.1, bookmarking is more like subscribing to a topic. You can be notified when a bookmarked topic is updated. Subscribing, however, will notify you when there is an update to a topic or forum on the board. Notification options for bookmarks and subscriptions can be configured in the User Control Panel, under “Board preferences”.
You can bookmark or subscribe to a specific topic by clicking the appropriate link in the “Topic tools” menu, conveniently located near the top and bottom of a topic discussion.
Replying to a topic with the “Notify me when a reply is posted” option checked will also subscribe you to the topic.
This software (in its unmodified form) is produced, released and is copyright phpBB Limited. It is made available under the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPL-2.0) and may be freely distributed. See About phpBB for more details.
This software was written by and licensed through phpBB Limited. If you believe a feature needs to be added please visit the phpBB Ideas Centre, where you can upvote existing ideas or suggest new features.
Any of the administrators listed on the “The team” page should be an appropriate point of contact for your complaints. If this still gets no response then you should contact the owner of the domain (do a whois lookup) or, if this is running on a free service (e.g. Yahoo!, free.fr, f2s.com, etc.), the management or abuse department of that service. Please note that the phpBB Limited has absolutely no jurisdiction and cannot in any way be held liable over how, where or by whom this board is used. Do not contact the phpBB Limited in relation to any legal (cease and desist, liable, defamatory comment, etc.) matter not directly related to the phpBB.com website or the discrete software of phpBB itself. If you do email phpBB Limited about any third party use of this software then you should expect a terse response or no response at all.
All users of the board can use the “Contact us” form, if the option was enabled by the board administrator.