Hello,
1. This may happen depending on the member's account status and your settings. Please provide examples of your members' referral links to verify.
2. How do you manually assign the sponsor for members? from the member edit page?
3. You can approve the member manually from the member profile page in the Admin CP, and to approve the sales manually, you can do so from the transaction history. After the members confirm their payment, there is an icon to check the proof of payment and approve the order.
Regards,