Akismet won't save settings on fresh Flarum installs (rc.6+)

DLBB

On a fresh Flarum 2.0.0-rc.8 install, saving an Akismet API key fails with:

Oops! Something went wrong. Please reload the page and try again.

Log shows:

TypeError: Flarum\Akismet\Akismet::__construct(): Argument #1 ($apiKey) must be of type string, null given

Findings:

rc.5 and earlier: saves fine.
rc.6+: always fails, but only on a fresh install that's never had a key saved before. An older forum upgraded after Akismet was already configured has no issue.

This showed up around the same time as PR #4884, which changed how Akismet handles the API key — not sure if it's related, just flagging it in case it's useful.

Workarounds:

php flarum migrate does not fix it.
Temporarily downgrading composer.json to "flarum/core": "2.0.0-rc.5", running composer update, and saving the key there works.

Or insert it directly into the DB:

sql
INSERT INTO flarum_settings (`key`, `value`)
VALUES ('flarum-akismet.api_key', 'YOUR_API_KEY')
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE value = 'YOUR_API_KEY';

Then php flarum cache:clear. Admin panel works fine afterward, even back on rc.8.

Environment: Flarum rc.8 (also rc.6, rc.7)

Karl

DLBB please submit it as an issue to GH 🙂

DLBB

Karl Hey Karl, thanks for the suggestion!

Sorry for the trouble, but could you walk me through how this is done? I've never filed a GitHub issue before, and I want to make sure I get it right, lol.

Also, should this go under flarum/frameworkissues since that's where PR #4884 lives, or does Akismet have a separate repo for issues?

Karl

DLBB when you click to submit an issue, theres a ready made template you can utilize that walks you through what you need to provide. And yes, framework is where you put it 🙂

DLBB

Karl Thanks a lot, Karl! I've filed it here: flarum/framework5029 — hoping I set it up correctly.

IanM

DLBB fixed. Until the next release, you can use the dev version (then revert to a tagged version after the release).

composer require flarum/akismet:"2.x-dev"

DLBB

IanM Thanks a lot!