Understand Base Tier, Effective Tier, All Access, and Max Preview
QC Live Forum separates the entitlement you fundamentally have from the feature tier QCLF is allowed to use right now. The two most useful Status values are Base tier and Effective tier.
This distinction matters during a Max Preview, All Access entitlement, temporary validation trouble, expiration, or an unhealthy entitlement task.
Base Tier
The Base tier represents the underlying paid/product entitlement after QCLF resolves Authorized-Domain access. It is normally Basic, Pro, or Max. When entitlement comes from QuantaCade All Access, QCLF stores Max-level product access and labels the source as Max via All Access.
A Max Preview does not replace the Base tier. A Pro customer can therefore have Base tier Pro while the Effective tier is temporarily Max.
Effective Tier
The Effective tier is the tier QCLF actually uses for feature and structure gates at the current moment. QCLF resolves it from the validated Base tier, preview state, All Access source, known expirations, validation freshness, and required entitlement-task health.
Frontend and Administrator feature checks use the Effective tier rather than trusting a raw saved plan value.
Common Combinations
| Status example | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Basic / Basic | Normal Basic operation. |
| Pro / Pro | Current paid Pro entitlement is confirmed. |
| Pro / Max | A 30-Day Max Preview is active over a Pro Base tier. |
| Max via All Access / Max | All Access currently supplies Max-level QCLF access. |
| Paid Base / Basic | The paid tier may be expired, stale beyond grace, explicitly invalid, or blocked because Entitlement Revalidation is structurally unhealthy. |
Preview and All Access Fallback
When a Max Preview ends, QCLF checks the underlying Base tier. A still-current Pro entitlement falls back to Pro; a still-current Max entitlement remains Max; otherwise Basic continues.
All Access is an entitlement source, not a separate QCLF feature level above Max. For QCLF feature gating, current All Access supplies Max-level access.
When All Access is no longer returned by the entitlement service, the next authoritative Authorized-Domain resolution supplies the product-specific Base tier that is still valid; if no paid QCLF entitlement remains, Effective access returns to Basic.
Validation and Task Health Can Lower Effective Access
Entitlement above Basic requires the canonical Entitlement Revalidation task to remain structurally healthy and run at least hourly. If that integrity requirement fails, QCLF forces the Effective tier to Basic until the task is healthy again.
A temporary transport outage is different: a recently confirmed paid tier or preview may continue only inside the bounded 24-hour grace window and never beyond a known paid or preview expiration. Explicit invalid, revoked, expired, or other terminal results do not receive transport grace.
Community Discussion
Want to compare forum workflows, share practical QCLF tips, or discuss how other Joomla site owners use this feature? Visit the QC Live Forum Community. For private support, bug reports, account-specific entitlement problems, or feature requests, use the QuantaCade support system.