SMF Unapproved post notification will not go away (Topics value -1)

SMF (Simple Machines Forum) is widely used forum script. You can install SMF if your hosting server supports PHP and MySQL

Recently I enabled post moderation in my forum and noticed unusual things. Apart from post moderation, I am also using Akismet mod for SMF forum. Whenever it detects any spam, we can directly moderate it from the post but this was causing another issue with default post moderation features in SMF.

If we delete or approve any post directly from the post, it was showing negative value on the forum board as shown in the following image.

This is a common issue whenever you use Akismet mod with post moderation. If you get the above message, the only way to clear “Unapproved post notification” message is to update database tables.

You will have to execute the following queries to clear this message:

UPDATE my_boards SET unapproved_posts = 0, unapproved_topics = 0
UPDATE my_topics SET unapproved_posts = 0
UPDATE my_messages SET approved = 1

If your table prefix is different, make sure you replace my_ with your table prefix.

Note: Though the above queries should not cause any issue, it is always recommended that you backup your MySQL database before executing above queries.