When anonymous users see the 'Welcome to Drupal' message on the frontpage (?q=node) even though you have promoted nodes to the frontpage, you are experiencing an access problem.

Here's a quick list of things to check:

  • Check admin/user/permissions. Do anonymous users have 'access content' permission?
  • Do you really have some nodes promoted to the front page? Check admin/content/node/overview. In the filter section, select "status" and "promoted". Are there any nodes in the list?
  • Do you have the "Organic groups access control" module enabled? If so, open the "Groups" section of the node's Edit page. If any of the "Audience" items are checked, make sure the "Public" checkbox is also checked. Otherwise, that node won't be visible to anyone outside of that audience (and users with 'administer nodes' permission).
  • Have you set the front page path on the settings page (admin/settings/site-information "Default front page") to something other than "node"?
  • Did you uninstall an access module* without disabling it properly?
  • Did you try rebuilding permissions? Go to admin/content/node-settings and click "Rebuild permissions".

If the above conditions have been met, you may use the following SQL queries to reset the node_access table. You can run these from the command line or in phpmyadmin by clicking on the SQL tab of your right hand pane and pasting the queries into the text area, then clicking go.

Warning: the following SQL queries will reset the entire node access table:

TRUNCATE node_access;

This query deletes all access rules. The next query grants the 'view' permission to all nodes.

INSERT INTO node_access (nid, gid, realm, grant_view, grant_update, grant_delete) VALUES (0, 0, 'all', 1, 0, 0);

* For example: taxonomy access, organic groups, nodeprivacy by role, simple access