New custom role capabilities not saved

[[email protected]]

When configuring capabilities for a new custom role in User Role Editor, SEOPress-related capabilities are not being saved. After confirming the update, the selected capabilities disappear on page reload.

These are my steps:
1. In the WordPress dashboard, I go to Users → User Role Editor.
2. In the “Select Role and change its capabilities” dropdown, I choose my custom role (for example: Marketing Editor).
Once the role is selected, the capabilities list refreshes to show all capabilities available for that role.
3. In the Quick filter field above the list of capabilities, I type a keyword (for example, seopress).
The list then only shows the capabilities that match this keyword.
4. In the filtered list, I tick several capability checkboxes for this role (for example, all seopress_… capabilities such as analytics, advanced, dashboard, etc.).
All these checkboxes are clearly marked as checked in the screenshot before saving.
5. On the right‑hand side, I click the Update button.
A confirmation popup appears with a message similar to “Please confirm permissions update” or equivalent text.
I click Yes in this confirmation popup to proceed with saving the changes.
The confirmation box closes, and there is no visible error message.
From the interface, it looks like the update has been accepted.
At this point, I expect the selected capabilities to be stored for the role.

6. I then either: Refresh the page, or Navigate away and come back to Users → User Role Editor, and then again select the same custom role (e.g. Marketing Editor) from the dropdown and after re‑selecting the role and reapplying the same filter (typing seopress again in the Quick filter), most or all of the capabilities that were previously checked are now unchecked.
The role looks as if the changes were never saved.

Expected result
All previously selected SEOPress capabilities remain checked for the Marketing Editor role (and are effectively applied to the role across all sites).

Actual result
After the page is refreshed and the Marketing Editor role is selected again, most or all SEOPress capabilities that were checked are now unchecked, as if the changes were never saved. The role does not retain the SEOPress permissions.

[Andy Burns]

I can reproduce this, as it is the same as https://www.role-editor.com/forums/topic/multisite-capabilities-reset-when-restricting-access-to-a-plugin/#post-8947

[Andy Burns]

@sam-vanvlieteasyfairs-com can you share you system info to see if there commonalities and conflicts with what we are seeing?

[Vladimir]

SEOPress plugin manages own capabilities itself via own capabilities manager: SEO->Advanced->Security
It executes related code every page load via WordPress ‘init’ action and rewrites seopress capabilities roles distribution from the scratch every time. So Yes, URE updates user role, but SEOPress rewrites it every time according to its own data.

Try to use SEOPress own user role/capabilities manager or switch off SEOPress capabilities manager removing somehow it from WP init hook:
wp-content/plugins/wp-seopress/src/Actions/CustomCapabilities.php, line #40.

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