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Are the federation problems fixed? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A long time ago, I had a mstdn.social account and was trying to view a friend's content on like mastodon.art. I couldn't see his content via mstdn.social at all, but I could if I just went to mastodon.art. Mastodon.art was not in the list of servers mstdn.social did not federate with. I assumed this was a glitch.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago (1 children)

If you would follow the person then all their content that they post afterwards should reach your instance. So each instance only gets the information that is needed to show the content that people have subscribed to. Otherwise each server would have to download and store ALL information which is posted, that would be unpractical.

So to view a person that you don't yet follow, go to their original profile. If you follow them you can trust that all their content will reach you from that moment (if they or their server isn't being blocked by your server, but that's pretty rare)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)

This was precisely what was not working. I could follow them, but no content would appear iirc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Oh this sounds like a network issue or something with one of the servers. Maybe hit up an admin?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Okay so hopefully it was a glitch! I've been thinking about joining mastodon again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

you 100% should give it another try. Maybe you can move your old account to another server?

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/, "Exporting your information", import that on the new account, then do "Profile move". Then do the part under "Account aliases". This should lead to you having your account on the new server, with the old followers and everything taken with you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

If you type their "@[email protected]" in the search field on your instance, their account should pop up. Once you follow them from there, they'll be in your feed. I'm not aware of any specific bug with this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago

This was precisely what was not working. I could follow them, but no content would appear iirc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

It's not a glitch, it's just how Mastodon works in order to protect the users and limit how much information a server can have. It sucks, but people like it 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Huh? If I manage to get my friends to sign up, we should all sign up on the same instance? Aka we should all use mastodon.social because since that's the biggest instance, if I eventually meet someone who already has a mastodon account, they're prob on mastodon.social.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

You should not use mastodon.social "because it is the largest instance". The Fediverse was not designed to "join the largest instance". Instead, go to https://instances.social/ and find something that meets your criteria :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

You can do that, but once you get enough time in Mastodon, you'll realize that what you're saying is not that important. As @[email protected] said, you may want to look for a better instance. Don't worry if you don't choose the right one, you can migrate your account (everything) any time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

Instead of a glitch on the instance there could be an alternative explanation. Is it possible that you inadvertently muted your friend? This explains that you couldn't see his content on your time line but when you go to your friends account you can still read it.