One moment I can type in /4 to speak in community chat with regular chat box, next moment I log on and none of it appears. I have to actually open community interface to talk. I’ve tried going into settings, relogging, updating addons, the whole shebang. What’s going on.
edit:
I had to leave community (as owner) and rejoin for it to fix… This is broken and I just saw old threads about it. Why isn’t this fixed?
I’m in much the same position. With some of my characters, it works flawlessly, but others it just doesn’t. Heck, I’m using the desktop app just to figure out that sometimes you can go to settings and select the checkbox under “channels”, but with other characters I can be in the community (visible under the guilds and communities window) but it won’t come up in the chat channels as even being there.
Worse, I can SEE the community chat from the guild and communities window, use it there, use it from the app, but CANNOT see it in the chat channels and seem unable to join or use a link since I’m already a member.
I second all of this. It is unfortunately still a problem and I have had nothing but trouble with my new community. Any configuration of the chat window for it has been utterly in vain. I have given up on the separate tab entirely at the moment. This needs to be fixed as soon as possible!
Same problem here. I tried even going so far as deleting my chat-cache.txt file, logging in, using the Community tab to “add to channel”, had it added to every single tab, and then logged out and back in, still nothing.
Edit: I found that this bug happens to me upon initial login of a character. However, if I immediately reload the UI, this fixes the problem. So weird.
Yes it is happening to me as well. A reload UI after logging in will fix it. It seems like the game isn’t sending the community chat events to the chatframe at all
So it seems like there is a point in time before which you cannot join a community chat channel.
What happens is that the game tries to register all the chat frame’s channels before that point occurs. There’s no error or anything - you are just joined to some kind of zombie channel that doesn’t work. If you make the chatframe re-register its channels a bit later everything is fine. I am wondering if there is an event that indicates you can register community channels.
This is STILL an issue. After first logging in after launching the game (so a complete WoW exit is required to reproduce this), it seems that CHAT_MSG_COMMUNITIES_CHANNEL is not getting fired for communities that you’re already in. CLUB_MESSAGE_ADDED does fire, but CHAT_MSG_COMMUNITIES_CHANNEL does not.
I was able to “fix” this by using the new experimental feature in Prat that syncs your channels and chat tabs across characters. To enable it, go into Prat’s options > “Extra Stuff” tab > “Memory”. Click “Save Settings”, and enable “Load settings automatically”.
After doing this in prat, my communities seem to work every time after starting the game without having to the wonky workarounds like removing and re-adding the channel.
So, is this Blizzard’s decision on this bug that’s been in the game for a couple years now? Make players download a 3rd party addon to load a chat channel you’re already in?
Is this not a five minute fix? I would genuinely love some speculation or rationalization for why this is harder than ctrl+c, ctrl+v. Every other chat channel fires up, so unless “communities” are super poorly implemented using some third party chat appendage or something, I just cannot figure out why.
I know this is a necropost, and I know that Blizz probably has no interest in fixing bugs that don’t immediately and noticeably turn away subscribers. But this is an annoyance every single play session, so whether or not it’s game-breaking, it certainly colors the experience, little by little, as buggy and willfully neglected.
Still an issue. Have to turn the channel off and on every day when I first log in. Highly frustrating.
Just came back to wow retail after playing classic. I can’t see chats in the regular channels, newcomer chat works fine for all it’s worth. What is wrong with this game? Even a fresh install doesn’t seem to fix. Oh yes. And here’s to necro a dead thread. </3
Bringing this up yet again in 2022 because it still DOESN’T WORK
Just comfirming that this is still an issue. PLEASE USE THE IN GAME FUNCTION TO REPORT THIS and ask your communities to report the bug 
Also: The Prat work-around continues to work!
Years later, still broke.
Update: 01/32/2023 1:01 am:
This improved in the last patch or two. Remembered the channel in general on my main, but the color selection for the channel in my general chat box changed against my wishes from green to brown. Remembrance of community channels added to tabs still appears to be spotty as on a different character it was not remembered. I will update this as experiences change.
Just came here wondering if it was just me, for some weird reason after resetting the chat window it worked, then i relogged and it was gone again.
Also, on my other account the issue doesn’t happen, tried resetting the interface to default and also nothing.
Lol, 2024, still broken.