Smart Actions are not appearing in any Forest Admin collections (QRCode, ServiceProvider, Hotel) despite being properly defined in both routes and actions files. The Smart Actions tab shows “No Smart Action - This collection does not have any Smart Action yet” for all collections.
Observed behavior
No Smart Actions appear in any Forest Admin collections
Smart Actions tab explicitly shows “No Smart Action - This collection does not have any Smart Action yet”
Server logs show “Forest Admin actions registered successfully”
Tried troubleshooting with:
Incognito mode
Disabled browser cache
Verified role permissions (single role with triggers allowed)
Checked layout editor and Smart View tab
Routes are properly defined in forest.js
Actions are defined in actions.js but using inconsistent registration methods
Expected behavior
Smart Actions should appear in:
ServiceProvider collection (Upload Photo action)
Hotel collection (Upload Photo action)
QRCode collection (Test Action, Generate QR Codes, Download QR Codes)
Smart Actions tab should show these actions and allow configuration
Role permissions verified (single role with triggers enabled)
UI configuration attempted through layout editor and Smart View tab
The core issue appears to be inconsistent action registration methods and potentially incorrect initialization timing in app.js. Client-side caching and permission issues have been ruled out through testing.
Thank you for reaching out to us. To better understand the issue, could you please share the complete failure log of your agent?
Additionally, could you confirm that your project name is indeed HotelsConnect and not HotelsConnect API? Lastly, could you clarify which environment you are encountering this issue in development or production?
Project name is HotelsConnect (not HotelsConnect API)
This is occurring in the production environment
Here are the complete agent logs (sanitized - and the actions errors do not show on our agent any longer since we updated, this is just historical logs):
POST /forest/actions/download-reports
[forest] Checking need for apimap update…
Initializing Forest Admin actions…
Error initializing Forest Admin actions: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading ‘actions’)
at exports.collection (forest-express/dist/index.js:434:50)
at initForestActions (forest/actions.js:8:11)
at app.js:123:5
Warning: Accessing non-existent property ‘count’ of module exports inside circular dependency
Warning: Accessing non-existent property ‘findOne’ of module exports inside circular dependency
Warning: Accessing non-existent property ‘remove’ of module exports inside circular dependency
Warning: Accessing non-existent property ‘updateOne’ of module exports inside circular dependency
DeprecationWarning: current Server Discovery and Monitoring engine is deprecated
The logs show Forest Admin successfully initializing but no Smart Actions are appearing in any collections despite being properly configured. I’ve verified:
Actions are defined in actions.js
Routes are defined in forest.js
All endpoints match
Browser cache/incognito testing completed
Role permissions are correct
Edit Layout>Collection Settings>Actions = No actions
Let me know if you need any additional information."
I just had a look at the schema that was sent to the Forest Admin backend on your last sucessful agent start, on 21/11/2024 07:46:30
Indeed, the actions that you are referring to are not present. I checked
ServiceProvider collection (Upload Photo action)
Hotel collection (Upload Photo action)
and
QRCode collection (Test Action, Generate QR Codes, Download QR Codes)
This narrows down the issue to the agent, and not an issue of permission, cache, endpoint or frontend.
Did you manage to make the actions work in a development enviroment first ?
If not then I suggest that you try that first. this should be easier to do since the schema will be sent to our backend every time it changes and your agent restart, and no permissions are applied.
You can also check yourself that when you write your action code, it gets added to the schema file in your agent repo (usually named forestadmin-schema.json)
Note that in production, the agent will not recompute the schema, you will have to provide it along your agent production build.
Last I can see that you have an error linked to actions in your agent logs:
Error initializing Forest Admin actions: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading ‘actions’)
at exports.collection (forest-express/dist/index.js:434:50)
at initForestActions (forest/actions.js:8:11)
at app.js:123:5
did you try investigate this ?
Could you please share all the details of the code that you used to define one of the missing actions ? You can provide those in private message if you prefer not to post it on this forum
I thought I should ask, is this a restriction on the free tier? There is really bad info on the website, just describes what you get with pro and enterprise plans only. AI says smart actions and smart filters are only available for pro plans.
This is driving me nuts, been at it for it at a week.
How can I share this because I don’t even know what is my original code anymore, we ended up using Cursor literally just for this so we could try dozens of different ways to do this. NOTHING is working.
At wits end. Sorry to steam off but we are not happy.
SO MANY ISSUES. Some relationships are displaying fine in collections and then others just don’t display no matter how much we replicate it onto another collection. WTF!
Filters stop working with race conditions. All of a sudden views are taking 20x longer to load when we didn’t even change anything.
ACTIONS ARE NEVER getting generated! We have tried everything…
Its not your fault, I just need to scream at someone. It would be great if we can get this to work but I’ve already recommended to the team to abandon Forest Admin entirely. We’ve actually been handing this between devs for almost 6 years and we are all just so over it. Yeah, there’s a bunch of legacy crap that’s been handed down from dev to dev, but the consensus from every team we used in Australia, to India, the Phillipines, to now Japan…Forest Admin is killing us!
Hey @John_Zealand-Doyle, I lead the Product team at Forest Admin, and I’m very sorry to hear about your experience with Forest Admin.
I’ve sent you a PM to book a call with me, to fix your issues and gather your general feedback around our product.
It’s important for us to hear this kind of feedback and work to make sure our user experience is great, so I would be grateful if you can take the time for a call
Thanks!
Gautier
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having a bad experience with Forest Admin. I’ll hand over to @GautierD to help you out with your issues.
Just one comment about your remark above:
AI says smart actions and smart filters are only available for pro plans.
No, this is not correct. Your current free plan does include smart actions and smart filters. However, your current plan is not offered anymore, which is why you don’t see it on the website.
