Player shows "No Character", Can't chat or Emote

[Molgrin]

A player who had to set all graphics settings to the bare minimum to play, is level 4, and can't whisper, party chat, /say, send /emote commands, or anything. Is this by design? a Level chat restriction? We've spent hours trying to figure out what's wrong.

 

In addition to this, when I look at the player in my Friends list, it shows their username but says they have no character and are not online, even when they are logged in and standing right in front of me. It's caused so much stress and rage trying to figure this out. 

 

They also get the usual "Disconnected from Server" when things get too graphics intensive or whatever. Any thoughts?