# Ghost Approver on Group Add

**URL:** <https://forum.gitea.com/t/ghost-approver-on-group-add/12384>\
**Category:** Gitea Usages\
**Created:** [August 26, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://forum.gitea.com/t/ghost-approver-on-group-add/12384 "2026-08-26T13:35:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kr6994e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8baadc/32.png) [@kr6994e](https://forum.gitea.com/u/kr6994e)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://forum.gitea.com/t/ghost-approver-on-group-add/12384/1 "2026-08-26T13:35:51Z")

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I noticed unexpected behavior when adding a group to a pull request. The group was added correctly, but the timeline also shows a user named **“Ghost”** being added. I verified that no user with that name exists in the group or anywhere in the Gitea instance. As a site administrator, I checked the user list directly and could not find any matching account.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nite\_route](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.gitea.com/nite_route/32/7522_2.png) [@nite\_route](https://forum.gitea.com/u/nite_route)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2026, 7:16pm UTC](https://forum.gitea.com/t/ghost-approver-on-group-add/12384/2 "2026-08-30T19:16:52Z")

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ghost isnt a real account, its the placeholder gitea puts in when the user id that left the timeline event is gone. usually someone was in that group (or somehow linked to the review) and then got deleted, or an oauth/ldap user vanished and the row still points at the old id.

check the team members list for anyone missing, and if you have deleted users / audit logs look there. the group add itself is fine, the Ghost line is just leftover history. not something you can “fix” without cleaning that event row in the db.