This issue is most commonly caused by a setting.
On the Tournament’s edit page:
- make sure the “This tournament is for staff training purposes” is unchecked. This setting hides tournaments from the public, allowing you to test Melee’s features in private.
- Make sure the tournament’s start time is not in the past. Players are not able to sign up for tournaments when the start time is in the past.
- Make sure the tournament is not set to Invite Only
On the Tournament Controller:
- Make sure the tournament is in the “Registration” stage. At the top of the screen you should see either “Not Published”, “Registration”, or “Started”. If the tournament is not set to “Registration”, players will not be able to register.
- To fix, click on the “Tournament Actions” drop down in the upper right-hand corner and make sure to set the tournament to Published.
If these steps to do remedy the situation, contact the Melee customer support team for assistance.