2d ago

Is federation working?

Can see accounts on pixelfed.social but I can't see any pics from them.

15 comments

There is some weird issue with federation on pixelfed... you can't search up hashtags either. I am not sure how the caching in federation works, but it seems like you have to wait for pixelfed.ca to "encounter" the post somehow first before you can search for/view them.
EDIT: There's definitely something about the way pixelfed.ca is configured. Or maybe pixelfed.social is configured in specific way (latest commits in the repo?). On pixelfed.social, you can view mastodon accounts (and all their photos) and hashtags. But on pixelfed.ca (and another server I've tried before), I can see the account, but none of the posts.
- When you search for a hash tag, you're searching the global feed. The global feed is local accounts, accounts anyone on your server is following, and accounts connected to a relay your server is following. On a new server, it takes time to build those connections.
  Also, when a server becomes aware of an account, only new posts are shown. The reason you can see all that stuff on pixelfed.social is that it's been active for like 7 years and has "known" about those accounts for a long time. When first connected, you'd get the same results on pixelfed.social that you're getting now.
  Federation is probably fine, but Pixelfed.ca is just in an awkward phase.
  
  I'm following #Vancouver hash tags and I don't see anything showing up on my Home feed, there's new posts though. Those new posts with the hashtag should be showing up on my Home feed right? I know they do on pixelfed.social.
  EDIT: It's weird. I see a post on my pixelfed.social home feed for an account @pixelfed.ca that has #Vancouver in the post.. but on my pixelfed.ca home feed, I'm not seeing that post. I can search for it though? Is there some kind of home feed setting I'm missing?
  EDIT 2: does anyone else have a similar experience with following hash tags that aren’t showing on the home feed?
  
  Ah okay. So it's just a matter of.. the more people use this instance, the more things are cached. Gotcha! Thanks for that explanation 🙏
  
  That would explain a lot of behavior I was seeing. Will pixelfed.ca ever get content from the past? Or is all the stuff posted elsewhere before pixelfed.ca went live essentially gone?

@avidamoeba from Masto I don't see any pictures in this post. So no way you can see it from pixelfed. Or am I missing something?
- This is the Lemmy community to discuss our Pixelfed instance, and there weren't any images in this discussion post :)

15 comments