BuddyPress/BuddyBoss Activity Stream with DigitalOcean Managed Database (solved)

To assist other users who may also be attempting to use BuddyPress or BuddyBoss Platform with a DigitalOcean managed MySQL database I want to report an issue that arose for me with the stock managed database configuration.

The issue was with the BuddyPress Activity Stream. Activity posts would not load when the BuddyPress Groups component was active.

I traced the problem to a BuddyPress query that was throwing an “unknown column” error. This type of error occurs when MySQL cannot match a column in the query with a column in the database. It usually indicates a problem with the query syntax.

In this case, however, the problem appeared to be on the database side. BuddyBoss Platform worked fine in other environments. And so I began looking for things I could control on the managed database.

The solution turned out to be to delete one of the default Global SQL Modes in the settings tab of the database management console. By deleting the “ANSI_QUOTES” mode I was able to prevent the error and solve the problem.

At the time of this writing, BuddyBoss Platform is on version 2.5.90 and MySQL is version 8. It appears possible that there is a glitch in the code that generates this particular query. Everything else in BuddyBoss Platform works with the stock managed database. I have raised this question with the developers, but for now this solution is working for me.