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"<Player> only accepts challenges from friends" even though we are friends

I am trying to invite a friend to a challenge. We are both following each other, so are 'friends', our 'Let other players challenge you' setting is set to 'Only friends', but when either one of us tries to start a challenge, we get the error message "<Player> only accepts challenges from friends." (where <Player> is either me or him, depending on who tries to initiate the challenge). When one of us changes the 'Let other players challenge you' setting to 'If registered', then the challenge works, but we would prefer to keep the setting at 'Only friends'. We have also tried to unfollow and then refollow each other, but this also did not help. We had no problems with starting challenges in the past. The only thing that recently changed is that I became a patron, but I can't imagine that this has any bearing on this. Is this a bug or does anybody have any advice?
I am also experiencing this error — I think when a friend matches a friend who only accepts matches from friends, it occurs. Hopefully LiChess sees this.
As far as I can tell, the issue has been resolved. At least, I am now able to challenge the person I wanted to challenge.