Stood up my PixelFed server yesterday. Federation seems to just...not be happening. I manually added a bunch of servers in the "instances" tab but they all say 0 users. If I search for exact profile names, I can find them but they're completely empty. Pictured is my server on the left and .social on the right. The weird part is that a handful of posts do come through. Like, maybe a dozen in the last 24 hours in my global feed.

I made a test post and someone on .social followed me, so they can obviously see me, but when I went to follow them back, their profile was also completely empty.

Is there something I need to do to "kickstart" this into gear? Do I need to just continue waiting? It's been ~16 hours at this point.

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[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 72 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Adding servers to the federation list is just white-listing them. It's not actually establishing syndication in any way. You don't syndicate at the website level, you syndicate at the user level.

The way the system works is, a user on your website subscribes to a user on another website, and from that point forward the remote website starts sending your website that one user's posts, addressed to any and all users on your website who requested them. Your website then receives and stories a copy of all future posts from the remote user, and adds them to the subscribing users' feeds.

This subscription is very much like a magazine subscription. Your site does not receive the back catalogue. It does not automatically receive other magazines (users) published (hosted) by the same publisher (website). You only get what has been requested, from the point the request has been accepted onward.

There is no canonical fediverse that you can just see. It's not a centralized system, which means there's no source of truth to tap into. It's a mass, opt-in content syndication technology, where you have direct access to the locally hosted content on the single website you are using. The fact that much of that content originated elsewhere presents the illusion of some centralized whole, but it's just that: an illusion.

[–] BruisedMoose@piefed.social 21 points 1 day ago

This is an excellent explanation! Nice job simplifying it.

[–] vivi@slrpnk.net 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You need to follow people for their posts to federate to your server. Posts won't federate until you're following a user and they make a post, or boost a post. Also, old posts won't federate unless they are boosted/reblogged/shared. This is also how Mastodon works.

I recommend following as many people as you can, especially people who boost a lot, and following the people who are being boosted.

It takes a lot of effort to start the process up.

Also make sure that the AP and federation features are turned on in the env file, as i believe by default they are off with pixelfed.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Incidentally, this is why Mastodon relays exist.

[–] vivi@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

Yes, i really wish there was a good way to do pixelfed relaying.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

You need to follow people for their posts to federate to your server.

There's already several people in my global feed that I have not followed. And you can see in my photo, I've followed Dansup but his profile is still not showing any posts, followers, or even a profile picture.

old posts won't federate unless they are boosted/reblogged/shared

I also have several posts that predate my server in the global feed from accounts I have not followed.

Not saying you're wrong, just trying to understand.

I recommend following as many people as you can

How am I supposed to follow anyone when I can't even find them?

make sure that the AP and federation features are turned on in the env file

I did.

I don't really care to browse other profiles, I mostly just want to ensure mine is visible to others. But it is sad to learn that federation works this way, as it makes standing up a server for a single person kind of a waste of time.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And you can see in my photo that I’ve followed Dansup but his profile is still not showing any posts or even a profile picture.

His last post was 4 days ago so there hasn't been anything new enough to send to you. Try following his Mastodon account, he uses it a lot more.

I also have several posts that predate my server in the global feed from accounts I have not followed.

Someone you followed may have boosted them, old posts will show up if the boost happens after you follow them.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So it won't even send me any of his profile info until after he posts something?

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

IDK, how software fetches profile info is implementation dependent, so you'd have to dive into the source code or wait for him to post and see if you get it.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Okay, thanks for your help. Honestly, it's a bit of a relief as I didn't want a bunch of data I'm not using filling up my server.

[–] kat@orbi.camp 1 points 1 day ago

yeah, only new stuff is sent over.

[–] scsi@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

I mostly just want to ensure mine is visible to others.

This is the tricky part - you will be remote-invisible until someone from the other instance(s) follow you for any of your content to show up in their Explore (hashtags, etc.) feed for other people to discover you. Pixelfed.social is the biggest hub by far so getting on that radar is key (much like joining a small Mastodon instance and you want to be "seen" on mastodon.social e.g. - same processes).

So you want to follow yourself from your pixelfed.social account to your own domain.com, so that your domain.com profile is seeded (federated) for other pixelfed.social users to discover as they browse. It's a hack but there's no other real way given how "opt-in" federation works, unless you have pre-existing friends on pixelfed.social who subscribe to your domain.com for you right away so you don't have to hack it to get started.

[–] Tablaste@linux.community 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hey, I did the same thing recently! Set it up on my own server, and after a week, I'm starting to see new accounts being added to my explore feed. But there's no user count.

It's an annoying experience and I'm not fully sure how to resolve it yet, nor have I dung into it.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Thanks for the validation

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I've had the file system permissions wrong and that lead to all kinds of unrelated issues. But yeah the number of users and incoming posts are supposed to not increase unless you subscribe to users. Just adding instance URLs doesn't do anything. And it seems to federate new posts only, not the entire history of a user.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe the posts you expect were made before your instance, and just like on lemmy, federation does not work retroactively.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

I already have retroactive posts in my feed, so I don't think that's correct. Even if it was, it doesn't explain the lack of posts since I stood it up, or the lack of any information in profiles.