You are not allowed to perform this action.

Same problem. One site user/administrator. No way to upload screenshot here.

Error message: ‘You are not allowed to perform this action.’

New installation of Image Watermark, WordPress 6.9

Hi there,

I can confirm I am having the exist same issue with all images in my media library.

My settings are as follows:

– Image Processor: GD Library

– Automatic Watermarking: ON

– Manual Watermarking: ON

– Front-end Watermarking: ON

– Image Sizes: ON for all available checkboxes (1536×1536 2048×2048 full large medium medium_large thumbnail woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail woocommerce_single woocommerce_thumbnail)

– Apply Watermark To: Everywhere

Please let me know what I can do to help you debug this issue and get the plugin working again!

From the status page also:

Plugin version: Image Watermark 2.0.5
PHP version: PHP 8.3.30
GD Library: Available
ImageMagick: Not available
Active engine: GD Library
Backup folder: Ready and writable.

Thanks in advance,
Marc

Do you see any feedback, warning anything in the brwoser console? Have you re-saved the settings as recommended?

We’ve just released version 2.0.6.

It may resolve the issue you’re experiencing. If not, it provides much more detailed debugging information in both the browser console and the debug.log file. Hopefully this helps!

That message is thrown by the manual apply AJAX handler when it checks the saved watermark image option.

So the reason could be an invalid watermark image attachment ID when:

– no watermark image selected or the selection wasn’t saved on the settings page.
– the selected watermark image was deleted, trashed, or is no longer a valid Media Library attachment.
– the selected file is not an image (or not an allowed type like JPEG/PNG/WebP/GIF).

What is your watermark type? Is it image or text?

Hi there,

I can confirm that at least for me this seems to be an issue with text based watermarks. I have generated an image of the text I intended to use, and am able to apply this to images now.

EDIT: Unfortunately I spoke too soon, the issue is not resolved. It generates a preview of the watermark, but does not persist it upon reloading the media dashboard. Additionally the watermark does not show up on the live site.

Hope this helps you debug further, let me know if I can provide any further information for you to figure out why text is not working.

Thanks for all your help.

FIX, IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THIS ISSUE: Use Image watermarks until the issue is resolved.

Fix is not working…

Got you.

We’ve made another round of improvements to help you identify the issue by giving more feedback whenever something is not working. Please use this 2.0.7-beta version from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/90x6gg8z7g7xtb3kl0mcn/image-watermark-2.0.7-beta.zip?rlkey=szdbmrnd9y9i2itrq6pyg2nuv&dl=0

After installing try to do what you did previously – use text and image watermark, use automatic (during image upload) and manual watermarking. Check the debug.log file for any Image Watermark related entries.

And share your findings please.

Hi there,

I had to enable debug mode, I now have access to the debug.log.

Here is a summary of the logs:

— Image Watermark Action Logs —
[29-Jan-2026 13:24:24 UTC] Image Watermark: Action=removewatermark, PostID=292, ManualEnabled=yes, WatermarkURL=288
[29-Jan-2026 13:24:42 UTC] Image Watermark: Action=applywatermark, PostID=72, ManualEnabled=yes, WatermarkURL=288
[29-Jan-2026 13:27:32 UTC] Image Watermark: Action=applywatermark, PostID=73, ManualEnabled=yes, WatermarkURL=288
[29-Jan-2026 13:27:35 UTC] Image Watermark: Action=applywatermark, PostID=72, ManualEnabled=yes, WatermarkURL=288
[29-Jan-2026 13:27:37 UTC] Image Watermark: Action=applywatermark, PostID=71, ManualEnabled=yes, WatermarkURL=288

— Recurring PHP Warning —
[29-Jan-2026 13:24:43 UTC] PHP Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 19.05 to int loses precision in /…/plugins/image-watermark/includes/class-upload-handler.php on line 849

— Potential Environment Conflicts —
The log is receiving constant PHP Notices from ‘ionos-performance’ and ‘woocommerce’ domains regarding ‘_load_textdomain_just_in_time’ being called too early.

I will provide the full log here: https://sharetext.io/i6dg1h4i

Please let me know what else I can do to help you further.

I am not not managing to get any watermarks, even after automatically adding them to newly uploaded images. Or scratch that, every now and then it works, but not consistently.

@marcaufderheyde we have checked manual/automatic/list style/grid style/single post upload/remove/apply and everything worked without any issues or notices :)

That’s not really the point. You’re definitely not stupid — you actually helped us identify a few issues 🙂

Images can behave differently depending on the installation environment, optimization tools, and the browser being used. In most cases, they’re cached, so it may take some time before an updated version is served to you.

IW tries to force a fresh version in the admin preview using cache‑busting, but it doesn’t do that on the frontend or for directly browsed files, to avoid causing other issues.

One thing you can try when viewing a full‑size image directly, or on one of the site pages: press CTRL + SHIFT + R. That forces a hard reload in most browsers.

Still not working for me. Text watermark, v2.0.7 installed, purged cache multiple times, GD Library, Manual watermarking, Apply Everywhere.

Now it appears to apply the watermark in the Edit screen, no ‘not allowed’ error message — but when I click ‘Update’ the watermark disappears and Apply Watermark displays again.

If I click ‘Apply Watermark’ again, I get the message: “Watermark not applied because the original backup is missing.”