I had noticed a strange problem in Friendica. For one user, the groups widget was no longer displayed in the sidebar. Even though the user followed several groups, those groups had current posts, and groups was included in the widgetorder setting.

Other users on the same instance saw the widget correctly. Only this one user did not.

The Cause

After some searching, I found the culprit. It was due to a custom widgetorder setting in the pconfig table. In the RC version, this custom order is not correctly merged with the groups widget. The widget remains invisible, even though all the data is present and the configuration is actually correct.

The solution is simple. I have to delete the widgetorder entry. Friendica then falls back to the default widget order, and the groups widget appears again.

The Instructions for the Fix

The solution steps using the example of a user named HansFranz with uid 42.

Step 1 Identify the Affected User

First you need to find out the uid of the affected user in the database.

SELECT `uid`, `username`, `nickname`
FROM `user`
WHERE `nickname` = 'HansFranz' OR `username` = 'HansFranz';

In my example, the uid is 42.

Step 2 Check the Current widgetorder Entry

Now you look at what is currently in the widgetorder.

SELECT `v` AS widgetorder
FROM `pconfig`
WHERE `uid` = 42
  AND `cat` = 'feature'
  AND `k` = 'widgetorder';

In the problem case, the output looks like this.

["circles","groups","pages","channels","archive","networks","accounts","searches","folders","nosharer","trending_tags"]

Although groups is included, the widget is not displayed. That is the bug.

Step 3 Delete the widgetorder Entry

Now you delete the entry.

DELETE FROM `pconfig`
WHERE `uid` = 42
  AND `cat` = 'feature'
  AND `k` = 'widgetorder';

Step 4 Clear the Cache

After that, you clear the cache on the server with:

./bin/console cache clear

Step 5 Verify That the Entry Has Been Removed

To check, query it once more.

SELECT * FROM `pconfig`
WHERE `uid` = 42
  AND `cat` = 'feature'
  AND `k` = 'widgetorder';

The expected result is an empty result set with 0 rows.

Step 6 Test

Now you log out as HansFranz and log in again. The groups widget should now appear in the sidebar. Just like with users without a custom widgetorder.

Summary

The affected version in my case was Friendica 2026.08-rc. The symptom is an invisible groups widget, even though groups is present in the widgetorder and groups exist. The cause lies in the custom widgetorder in the pconfig table, which is processed incorrectly in the RC version. The solution is to delete the widgetorder entry. Then clear the cache and log in again.

Download

Friendica is one of the greatest projects of the Fediverse and is available as open-source software.