If it makes you feel any better, we've had this issue before. I'm not sure if
this thread will help or not, though. I think you're stuck waiting for the coder.
But there are other options! Ask the person to clone their character, disown it, and re-add it. If all else fails, tell them to make a blank character and accept it that way (maybe it's the information in the character that's the issue?). Or give that person temporary GM powers - the power to approve characters.
As a last ditch option, you can make the roleplay completely open where character approval is set to "off" so anyone can join it without approval. More specifically, that friend can join it and then, once joined, you can go back to having "character approval."
That's my suggestion for getting around this odd little hiccup.