Super administrator removed by regular administrator

[Levina]

The scenario:

Two staff members on a forum.

Staff member #1 and co-founder of the site is the license holder but is a regular administrator as he doesn't know the system.

Staff member #2 and co-founder of the site is the only super administrator as he knows the system better than anyone.

A fight ensues over something.

Then the super admin is removed. And the regular admin is now a super administrator.

How is this possible? AFAIK administrators can only be added or removed by a super administrator.
The regular admin/license holder did have access to the User/User Groups in the ACP. Could he have done it somehow, messing with permissions there?

Is it possible that he opened a ticket with Xenforo? Although that seems unlikely to me as this was clearly an internal forum management issue, no? So I can't believe they would interfere, not knowing what transpired and who's right, who's wrong. Unless in case of staff problems they always side with the license holder?

I'm just really puzzled here and would much appreciate some insight in to what could have happened. Thanks.

 

[Paul B]

The regular admin/license holder did have access to the User/User Groups in the ACP. Could he have done it somehow, messing with permissions there?

No.

The only way to do so in the ACP is with a super admin account.

One other way is by directly editing the database.
An add-on could also do it but I'm not aware of one which would do that.

Is it possible that he opened a ticket with Xenforo? Although that seems unlikely to me as this was clearly an internal forum management issue, no? So I can't believe they would interfere, not knowing what transpired and who's right, who's wrong. Unless in case of staff problems they always side with the license holder?

We wouldn't make any changes of that nature via an unsolicited ticket not associated with a customer account.

 

[Levina]

No.

Okay. That's good to know.

The only way to do so in the ACP is with a super admin account.

But the super admin was the only super admin. And was removed. That's what I don't get. How did they get around that?

One other way is by directly editing the database.

The forum is on XF cloud, so there's just the ACP.

An add-on could do it but I'm not aware of one which would do that.

No add-ons could have been installed as the regular admin had no access to that panel. He also didn't have access to the Appearance panel, so also no access to templates.

We wouldn't make any changes of that nature via an unsolicited ticket not associated with a customer account.

But that's just it. The regular administrator who is now a super administrator is the official XF account holder. Which is why I thought that maybe he received help from Xenforo to reinstall him?

In any case, the removed super administrator who has opened many a ticket here, can now no longer login to the XF customer account for help or an explanation as somehow the inlog credentials were also changed, so end of story now.

 

[Paul B]

The regular administrator who is now a super administrator is the official XF account holder.

As it's their account and site, if they asked us to alter the database to promote the account, then we would have no reason not to do so.

 

[Russ]

Are you positive they were never a super admin? If it's their license, they would have probably been the first account on the forum and would be setup as a super admin from the start.

 

[Levina]

As it's their account and site, if they asked us to alter the database to promote the account, then we would have no reason not to do so.

Well, that's that then.

Of course the one who was thrown out was I. It's quite sad. Without me there would be no forum as I initiated it (it's on record). It was my idea. I recruited the team. Because most of our members would be American, we decided that a US based site would be best, and that wasn't me as I am in Europe. I learned a hard lesson here.

Are you positive they were never a super admin? If it's their license, they would have probably been the first account on the forum and would be setup as a super admin from the start.

Yes, I'm positive. That first account was never used. It was made a regular administrator too after a while, as we all had access to it and mistakes were made by admins who had no idea what they were doing. It seemed prudent to reduce permissions for it.

 

[Paul B]

We can't get involved in disputes between third parties but you're not the first co-owner to be pushed out by the one who controls the hosting account, and you won't be the last.

 

[Levina]

Thanks, Paul. Yeah, we started as good friends and thought it would stay that way. But the truth is we didn't know each other at all and the co-ownership in the end meant nothing as it was never made official.

I'm thinking of starting my own forum now. It probably won't go anywhere. But at least it would be mine. And I loved the work. I love Xenforo. It's so amazingly easy to work with. And I learned so much, even some coding.

So you might see me back again...