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    Gallery field not working for some users

    Symptom: A form containing a gallery field works for some users but not others. For the affected users, clicking the Add to gallery button does nothing — the media uploader doesn’t open, and the browser console logs an error about a missing media-uploader script or undefined property (typically a wp.media call failing because the media-uploader assets were never loaded for that user).

    Cause: This isn’t a bug in Advanced Forms — it’s a WordPress capability check. WordPress only enqueues the media-uploader scripts and resources for users who have the upload_files capability. Users without that cap get a form page with no media uploader behind the gallery field, so the Add to gallery click has nothing to bind to.

    In practice, this means the gallery field can only be used in a front-end form by logged-in users who have the upload_files capability. By default that’s Administrators, Editors, Authors, and Contributors — Subscribers and custom roles don’t have it unless you grant it explicitly.

    Fix: Grant the upload_files capability to the roles that need to use the gallery field. You may consider using a plugin like User Role Editor for a UI-driven approach, or do it in code on plugin/theme activation:

    add_action( 'init', function () {
        $role = get_role( 'subscriber' );
    

        if ( $role && ! $role->has_cap( 'upload_files' ) ) {
            $role->add_cap( 'upload_files' );
        }
    } );

    Capabilities are stored in the database, so you only need this to run once per environment — wrap it in an activation hook, or run it manually and remove the code afterwards.

    If you need to support non-logged-in users

    Section titled “If you need to support non-logged-in users”

    The gallery field genuinely can’t work for non-logged-in users — the media uploader is a logged-in-only WordPress feature, and there’s no capability you can grant to a visitor who isn’t authenticated.

    If you need to collect multiple files from non-logged-in users, use a repeater field containing a regular image or file field instead. Those don’t depend on the media uploader and work fine for guests.

    See also

    Section titled “See also”