Admin Notifications

Benecaster surfaces notices in two places: the notification bell (🔔) in the top bar, and a persistent bar that appears at the top of Benecaster screens for high-priority conditions. Most notices live only in the bell panel; critical conditions also appear as a full-width bar that stays visible until the issue is resolved.

Notice Tiers

Every notice has a tier that controls where it appears and whether it can be filtered:

Tier	Color	When it shows
Critical	🔴 Red	Always shown — cannot be filtered out
Warning	🟡 Amber	Shown unless you’ve set your minimum to Critical only
Info	🔵 Blue	Shown unless you’ve set your minimum to Warning or above
Tip	🟣 Purple	Shown unless you’ve set your minimum to Info or above
Marketing	🩵 Teal	Hidden unless you’ve set your minimum to All

You can adjust which tiers appear in Settings → Notifications → Minimum notice level. Critical notices are always shown regardless of this setting.

Dismissing Notices

Most notices have a dismiss [✕] button. Dismissal is site-wide — dismissing a notice on one screen clears it everywhere. Some notices are non-dismissible; they remain until the underlying condition is resolved.

The Mark all read button in the bell panel dismisses all currently visible dismissible notices at once.

Notice Catalog

Account and License

Setup wizard incomplete (Tip)
Shown on first activation before the setup wizard is completed. Provides a direct link to start the wizard. Clears automatically once the wizard is finished. Dismissible.

License validation failing (Warning → Critical)
The plugin hasn’t been able to reach the Benecaster license server. Days 1–14: silent fail-open. Day 15: Warning notice appears. Escalates to Critical as the window progresses. Non-dismissible. Clears when the next validation succeeds. See License Status for the escalation schedule.

There is no notice for reaching your plan’s site activation limit. The limit is still enforced, but it is checked on benecaster.com before you are asked to approve the connection — you see the at-capacity screen there, with the option to disconnect an existing site, and you are never sent back to your WordPress admin with an error. You can also free a slot ahead of time from Connected shows on your account page. See Connecting Your Site.

Subscriber Limits

Approaching subscriber limit — 80% (Info)
Your paying subscriber count has reached 80% of your plan’s limit. Includes a one-click upgrade link. Dismissible, but a dismissal holds for 7 days — if you’re still at 80% or above a week later, the notice returns with your current numbers. It also clears itself within two days once your count falls back under 80%, so dismissing it is not the only way to be rid of it.

Approaching token cap — 80% (Info)
Your total token count (paying + free-tier subscribers) has reached 80% of your plan’s cap. Dismissible on the same terms as the subscriber warning above: a dismissal holds for 7 days and then the notice returns while the condition lasts, and it clears itself within two days once usage falls back under 80%.

Over subscriber limit (Warning)
Your paying subscriber count has exceeded your plan’s limit. Benecaster evaluates this on a rolling 24-hour window, so going over today is acted on tomorrow. Non-dismissible while over limit. Includes upgrade link. Subscribers above the limit are receiving your public feed instead of their private feed — see How Subscriber Limits Work for what this means and how to resolve it.

Over token cap (Warning)
Your total token count has exceeded your plan’s cap. The same rolling 24-hour window applies. Non-dismissible while over cap. Same enforcement behavior as the subscriber limit notice above.

Show Limits

Show limit reached (Warning)
Your plan’s active show limit is occupied. The Add Show button is disabled. Includes an upgrade link to Multi-Show. Non-dismissible while at limit. Clears if you delete or archive an active show.

Setup and Health Checks

Listener Support: Stripe not connected (Warning)
Listener Support is enabled in your show settings but no Stripe publishable key is configured. Appears weekly while the condition persists. Links to Shows → [show] → Listener Support. Dismissing hides it for 7 days; the check re-runs on the next weekly cycle. Auto-clears when Stripe is connected or the Listener Support intent toggle is turned off.

GeoIP database update available (Info)
A newer version of the MaxMind GeoLite2 database is available. The GeoIP database provides country and region data for subscriber analytics. Dismissible; your existing database remains in use until updated. Links to Settings → Tools → Update GeoIP database.

Email template missing for locale (Info)
One of your supported languages has a template gap — a customized email template exists for your primary locale but has not been created for a secondary locale. One notice per affected language; dismissing one locale’s notice does not dismiss others. Auto-clears when the gap is resolved. Re-evaluates immediately when you add or remove a language in Shows → [show] → Language.

{N} transcript files are attached to “{episode}”, so Benecaster could not pick one automatically. Set the Transcript URL on the episode manually. (Warning)
Fires when an episode has two or more .vtt/.srt/.txt-shaped files attached, so Benecaster’s Podcasting 2.0 transcript auto-fill can’t tell which one to use. One notice per episode, keyed on the episode ID. Dismissible, but ⚠ its re-surfacing rule is unlike every other notice on this page — there is no weekly cycle and no 7-day dismissal window. The notice is deleted and republished on every save of that episode while the ambiguity persists, so dismissing it and saving again brings it straight back. Clears when the ambiguity does: detach a file down to one (or zero), or set the Transcript URL by hand.

Security

Unusual failed feed access on {Show} (Warning)
Fires when a show sees 10 or more feed requests in 60 minutes using feed addresses that match no subscriber at all — revoked tokens never count toward this. At most one per show per 24 hours; each occurrence is its own bell entry. Dismissible — dismissing the show’s current alert clears its count and keeps that show quiet for at least an hour, after which a fresh burst of 10 alerts again. Button “What to do” links to Invalid Feed Token Security Alerts. Developers can retune the threshold or window per show with the benecaster_invalid_token_alert_threshold filter.

Remote Notices

Remote notices are delivered by the Benecaster license server during the daily license check. They appear in the bell panel alongside local notices.

Security alerts (Critical)
Issued when a known vulnerability requires immediate action. Non-dismissible. Includes a description of the issue and a link to the resolution.

Feature announcements and release notes (Info)
New features, compatibility updates, and release highlights. Dismissible.

Add-on promotions (Marketing)
Add-on highlights and bundle announcements. Filtered out unless your minimum notice level is set to All.

Remote notices are retired automatically by the license server — they disappear from the bell panel when their expiry date passes, even if not explicitly dismissed.

Persistent Bar Notices

Critical and some warning notices use a persistent bar that spans the top of every Benecaster admin screen. Only the highest-priority active bar notice is shown at once. The bar cannot be dismissed for non-dismissible notices — it clears when the condition resolves.

Conditions that trigger a persistent bar:

License validation entering the critical escalation window (Day 22+)
Over subscriber limit (while enforcement is active)
Over token cap (while enforcement is active)
Security alerts from the license server