Not sure why the render key has to be blank. That setting has been properly detected by EasySocial in the past, but I'm glad to hear it helped get you going by removing it.
By the way what is the function of the System Page Cache and what other things are affected by its enabling/disabling?
That plugin has two functions:
* Page caching - Joomla will store the output HTML from a page after it's been rendered and then serve up this cached version of the whole page when it's revisited in the future. This *usually* works fine, but this plugin *must* be the last-ordered plugin to make sure it's caching the HTML after all other system plugins have executed. Otherwise, it will cache the page with the {JFBCLogin} tag, for instance, before the JFBCSystem plugin replaced the tag.
* Browser caching - This setting (disabled by default) will instruct the browser to store the HTML on a page. This can be fantastic for speed but a *disaster* on sites that allow authentication as the browser won't show the logged in view of a page if the user already viewed it while not logged in.
I hope that helps explain things, but should you need anything else, just let us know.
Thanks,
Alex