The latest WordPress release doesn’t display the WP Toolbar for Subscriber level users. Not only does this prevent access to the account menu via the Toolbar, it more importantly means that Notifications remain at zero, even on the user profile page.
Upgrading the account to Contributor or above will reinstate the Toolbar and bring Notifications back to life.
This problem isn’t theme specific or a plugin conflict. bbPress is affected in the same way.
Any thoughts on this? WP is breaking a key component of two it’s most widely used plugins.