Discord Bot Java API (net.dv8tion) Permission Problems

Question

i'm trying to make a discord bot that can add/delete roles of users but sadly i got some permission problems.

API can be found: https://github.com/DV8FromTheWorld/JDA/

I would love to hear of someone who has an idea of what to do. I have not found anyone with the same problem.

The "exiting" part of the error looks like the following:

net.dv8tion.jda.api.exceptions.HierarchyException: Can't modify a role with higher or equal highest role than yourself! Role: R:unverified(1014845515776671764)
at net.dv8tion.jda.internal.entities.GuildImpl.checkPosition(GuildImpl.java:1866)
at net.dv8tion.jda.internal.entities.GuildImpl.addRoleToMember(GuildImpl.java:1535)
at Verify.onMessageReceived(Verify.java:29)

What i've already checked:

• in the https://discord.com/developers/applications - bot section i marked the Privileged Gateway Intents stuff
• in the invite for my bot on the server i checked the administrator permissions
• in the invite i also checked the guild-related scopes in addition to bot and application.commands scopes (but if i just check all of the scopes the invite link doesnt work so i concentrated on the ones i think are important ... whatever)
• in the source code i enabled the GatewayIntents (see source code below) but i think it's not needed since i set them already in the previous points
• EDIT: i also tried to do the addRoleThingy with a new Account that has no roles at all on the server -> received the exact same error
• EDIT: when i want to kick the other account with the bot it works as intended even though you need some higher permission for that...

Main.java:

import net.dv8tion.jda.api.JDA;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.JDABuilder;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.OnlineStatus;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.entities.*;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.hooks.ListenerAdapter;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.requests.GatewayIntent;
import javax.security.auth.login.LoginException;


public class Main extends ListenerAdapter {
    public static Channel verifyingChannel = null;
    public static Role unverified = null;
    public static Role verified = null;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws LoginException {

        String token = "MTAxNDc5NDM3NTc5ODIwNjU2NA.GbfY1_.xBGsGKK5Ox1jzFVYwIp_cMU3kMcOvNnq2dKOQM";
        JDABuilder builder = JDABuilder.createDefault(token);

        builder.enableIntents(GatewayIntent.GUILD_MEMBERS, GatewayIntent.MESSAGE_CONTENT,GatewayIntent.GUILD_PRESENCES);
        builder.setStatus(OnlineStatus.ONLINE);
        builder.setActivity(Activity.listening("the sound of life"));

        builder.setMemberCachePolicy(MemberCachePolicy.ALL);
        builder.setChunkingFilter(ChunkingFilter.ALL);
        builder.enableCache(CacheFlag.ROLE_TAGS);
        JDA bot = builder.build().awaitReady();
        bot.addEventListener(new Verify());

        // don't worry about the next one, it adds some commands that just work already
        bot.addEventListener(new Commander(bot));

        System.out.println("Bot is online!");

    }

}

Verify.java

import net.dv8tion.jda.api.entities.Channel;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.entities.Member;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.entities.TextChannel;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.events.guild.member.GuildMemberJoinEvent;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.events.message.MessageReceivedEvent;
import net.dv8tion.jda.api.hooks.ListenerAdapter;

public class Verify extends ListenerAdapter {

    public Verify(){}

    @Override
    public void onGuildMemberJoin(GuildMemberJoinEvent event) {
        // later: implement the addRoleToMember funtion here
    }

    @Override
    public void onMessageReceived(MessageReceivedEvent event){
        // The Role Main.unverified is first set with a setup command in the Commander-Class, that part is not the problem
        event.getGuild().addRoleToMember(event.getMember(),Main.unverified).queue();
    }

}

Answer 1

So, to finally fix my problem i simply rearranged the roles on the server. In the server properties the bot role had to be above the role i wanted to apply.