If a staff member is assigned self check permissions and tries to log into the Opac it fails. This is just fine and the permission says so on the label when it is expanded. However we really really should fix the Failure message on the Opac to reflect what the real reason why the patron cannot log in. In Koha 19.11 it says: "You entered an incorrect username or password. Please try again! But note that passwords are case sensitive. Please contact a library staff member if you continue to have problems." When in reality it should say: "Your Self Checkout permission prevents the you from using any other OPAC functionality." This is a bug because (a) the patron's username and password is just fine so we're giving them the wrong error message and (b) every quarter or so I get a support ticket with this issue and that is just enough time to completely forget about the permissions pitfall. Evidently that note on the permission is insufficient warning to staff member themselves or the staff admin doling out permissions.
Hi Margaret, I don't think it is valid, at least not what you are suggesting. We should not tell the username is valid, even less it's a specific account. I don't have much to suggest however. Maybe we could display the specific/reserved (anonymous, selfcheck) patrons on the about page?
Maybe we could also display a warning on one account pages on the staff side that the patron cannot log into the OPAC and is only to be used for the self check?
I agree with Jonathan that we can't give away any information about users or their permissions on the OPAC when unauthenticated due to security concerns. I like Katrin's idea.