Can't connect to known good sites #61

gemlog commented 2026年04月15日 00:02:28 +02:00

Hallo,
Thank you very much for all your code over the years!
I did install friendica years ago, but I've been on masto since 2017, so I know all these accounts are good.
I can Connect to some sites, but not others. I have no idea why. Long-time fedizens that I know.
My instance is at https://friendface.kalum.ca/ and running version 26.4.4.
I am just now going through a .csv of my follows and I find that some can't be found: "Channel not found."
Here are a few examples from my notes that provoke that error:

Can not follow with forte forté :
avilewis@mstdn.ca
claudiom@bsd.network
billbot@mstdn.ca
CloudsGoBy@mindly.social
Kaja@federation.network
requiem@masto.hackers.town
GeoffWozniak@masto.hackers.town
wim_v12e@tilde.zone
evilscientistca@mstdn.ca
PGBeattie@mastodonapp.uk
stebby@bsd.network
sohkamyung@photog.social
northernlights@tilde.zone

With or w/o a leading '@'.
I'm about half-way through my list of ~70. Other than that one common domain, I have no idea why, but I'm going to keep up my list.
My instance is on a VPN in Germany. Debian 12 Bookworm. Kernel: 6.1.0-44-amd64. Can't think of anything else.
Thanks again bud! I'm really liking Forté. It's very different and I'm still poking around.
Just whenever you have time.

(edited to update the full list from my ~70 follows from masto)

It's not bsd, b/c .sdf.org uses bsd where I can follow. I know a couple use the friendly glitch fork. I really have no idea.
Geographically, I'm in northish BC, Canada.

Hallo, Thank you very much for all your code over the years! I did install friendica years ago, but I've been on masto since 2017, so I know all these accounts are good. I can Connect to _some_ sites, but not others. I have no idea why. Long-time fedizens that I know. My instance is at https://friendface.kalum.ca/ and running version 26.4.4. I am just now going through a .csv of my follows and I find that some can't be found: "Channel not found." Here are a few examples from my notes that provoke that error: Can not follow with forte forté : avilewis@mstdn.ca claudiom@bsd.network billbot@mstdn.ca CloudsGoBy@mindly.social Kaja@federation.network requiem@masto.hackers.town GeoffWozniak@masto.hackers.town wim_v12e@tilde.zone evilscientistca@mstdn.ca PGBeattie@mastodonapp.uk stebby@bsd.network sohkamyung@photog.social northernlights@tilde.zone With or w/o a leading '@'. I'm about half-way through my list of ~70. Other than that one common domain, I have no idea why, but I'm going to keep up my list. My instance is on a VPN in Germany. Debian 12 Bookworm. Kernel: 6.1.0-44-amd64. Can't think of anything else. Thanks again bud! I'm really liking Forté. It's very different and I'm still poking around. Just whenever you have time. (edited to update the full list from my ~70 follows from masto) It's not bsd, b/c .sdf.org uses bsd where I can follow. I know a couple use the friendly glitch fork. I really have no idea. Geographically, I'm in northish BC, Canada.

fortified commented 2026年04月15日 00:33:21 +02:00

First question to ask is what if any plugins/addons you may have installed, and if you made any changes on the admin/security page. The accounts you listed all appear to be Mastodon accounts; and I saw errors associated with all of these due to my having installed the 'uafilter' addon on my own instance. By default this addon blocks Mastodon, Meta, and Gab if I recall correctly. You can change this by visiting /uafilter on your instance and removing mastodon from the list. Or just disable that addon if you installed it -- and things should improve.

There are a number of associated security settings which can also block some or all Mastodon traffic, as they represent the primary vehicle for spam, malware, and hostile humans/bots entering the fediverse. There are also settings to enable features that Mastodon doesn't currently support, but may in the future. If you send a screenshot of your admin/security page to my email (mike at macgirvin dot com), I can tell you if any of your current settings might be problematic with Mastodon, as we don't currently have a 'restore system defaults'.

First question to ask is what if any plugins/addons you may have installed, and if you made any changes on the admin/security page. The accounts you listed all appear to be Mastodon accounts; and I saw errors associated with all of these due to my having installed the 'uafilter' addon on my own instance. By default this addon blocks Mastodon, Meta, and Gab if I recall correctly. You can change this by visiting `/uafilter` on your instance and removing mastodon from the list. Or just disable that addon if you installed it -- and things should improve. There are a number of associated security settings which can also block some or all Mastodon traffic, as they represent the primary vehicle for spam, malware, and hostile humans/bots entering the fediverse. There are also settings to enable features that Mastodon doesn't currently support, but may in the future. If you send a screenshot of your admin/security page to my email (mike at macgirvin dot com), I can tell you if any of your current settings might be problematic with Mastodon, as we don't currently have a 'restore system defaults'.

fortified commented 2026年04月15日 06:42:24 +02:00

Didn't see any issues with the settings, and I'm not having any issues connecting with Mastodon accounts in general (if I turn off the uafilter addon temporarily).

There are tools in your server to see what's happening.

$yoursite/dev/finger

Allows you to input a webfinger address and see what is returned. (Addresses with an '@').

$yorsite/dev/ap_probe

If 'finger' returns something useful, you can enter their channel URL on the ap_probe page and get back ActivityPub. Both of these actions try to return any error messages that may have been encountered. You can also choose to sign the activity with your
account - which might tell you if you've been blocked. Otherwise, it might be necessary to turn on logging and/or turn up the log level a bit to figure out what went wrong.

Your site should try in the background to cache connection information if it wasn't stored already. So you might be able to find those entries in your site /directory after your earlier attempt. In that case, it might be a simple matter to re-import. This shouldn't cause any issues with anybody that is already connected.

Sorry I don't have better answers, but let's see if any of these things point to something obvious.

Didn't see any issues with the settings, and I'm not having any issues connecting with Mastodon accounts in general (if I turn off the uafilter addon temporarily). There are tools in your server to see what's happening. $yoursite/dev/finger Allows you to input a webfinger address and see what is returned. (Addresses with an '@'). $yorsite/dev/ap_probe If 'finger' returns something useful, you can enter their channel URL on the ap_probe page and get back ActivityPub. Both of these actions try to return any error messages that may have been encountered. You can also choose to sign the activity with your account - which might tell you if you've been blocked. Otherwise, it might be necessary to turn on logging and/or turn up the log level a bit to figure out what went wrong. Your site should try in the background to cache connection information if it wasn't stored already. So you might be able to find those entries in your site /directory after your earlier attempt. In that case, it might be a simple matter to re-import. This shouldn't cause any issues with anybody that is already connected. Sorry I don't have better answers, but let's see if any of these things point to something obvious.

fortified commented 2026年04月15日 22:08:55 +02:00

Hang on a minute... sorry I forgot an important question - how were you importing the connections from csv? Were you using the "followlist" addon or some other way? Was just tracking through the instances of that particular error message, and wondering why you might have encountered it, as connection import doesn't usually trigger that message directly.

Hang on a minute... sorry I forgot an important question - how were you importing the connections from csv? Were you using the "followlist" addon or some other way? Was just tracking through the instances of that particular error message, and wondering why you might have encountered it, as connection import doesn't usually trigger that message directly.

gemlog commented 2026年04月15日 22:16:31 +02:00

Hi,
Thanks so much for your replies!
I haven't had a chance to try the web finger thing etc. yet.
I didn't know if Forté could import Mastodon csv's, so I was just copy/pasting from LibreOffice manually. I needed to prune a bit anyhow - I can only read a maximum of 75 and no more. Less is better.
This is really nice work Bud and I'm enjoying it. Everything always gets resolved eventually. I'll get back to it in a few hours.

Hi, Thanks so much for your replies! I haven't had a chance to try the web finger thing etc. yet. I didn't know if Forté could import Mastodon csv's, so I was just copy/pasting from LibreOffice manually. I needed to prune a bit anyhow - I can only read a maximum of 75 and no more. Less is better. This is really nice work Bud and I'm enjoying it. Everything always gets resolved eventually. I'll get back to it in a few hours.

fortified commented 2026年04月16日 00:55:03 +02:00

Mostly curious what page and possibly which input box were you manually copy/pasting to. Some inputs only check what remote channels are already known to they system, while some go out and fetch the information.

If you input the address into the "Add New Connection" box on the /connections page, it should go out and fetch it and send out a follow request. Whereas if you put it in the "Find Channels" box on that same page, it only searches addresses already known to your system -- and it appears this (or a similar dialogue box) may trigger the message you saw. So it's possible this is working as designed and we just need better documentation regarding "Find Channels"; which doesn't actually search outside what your local system already knows. But if there's something truly broken and you can't establish remote connections and nobody involved is being blocked somehow, I'll certainly try and fix it.

Mostly curious what page and possibly which input box were you manually copy/pasting to. Some inputs only check what remote channels are already known to they system, while some go out and fetch the information. If you input the address into the "Add New Connection" box on the /connections page, it **should** go out and fetch it and send out a follow request. Whereas if you put it in the "Find Channels" box on that same page, it only searches addresses already known to your system -- and it appears this (or a similar dialogue box) **may** trigger the message you saw. So it's possible this is working as designed and we just need better documentation regarding "Find Channels"; which doesn't actually search outside what your local system already knows. But if there's something truly broken and you can't establish remote connections and nobody involved is being blocked somehow, I'll certainly try and fix it.

gemlog commented 2026年04月16日 02:03:53 +02:00

"Remote channel or protocol unavailable."
I tried add new connections with avilewis@mstdn.ca
Same with claudiom@bsd.network
and Kaja@federation.network
I don't know what is common about them.
I've been talking to two of them for 5-6 years, at least.

"Remote channel or protocol unavailable." I tried add new connections with avilewis@mstdn.ca Same with claudiom@bsd.network and Kaja@federation.network I don't know what is common about them. I've been talking to two of them for 5-6 years, at least.

gemlog commented 2026年04月16日 02:06:03 +02:00

[
[subject] => 'acct:billbot@mstdn.ca',
[aliases] => [
[0] => 'https://mstdn.ca/@billbot',
[1] => 'https://mstdn.ca/users/billbot',
],

[links] => [
	[0] => [
		[rel] => 'http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page',
		[type] => 'text/html',
		[href] => 'https://mstdn.ca/@billbot',
	],
	[1] => [
		[rel] => 'self',
		[type] => 'application/activity+json',
		[href] => 'https://mstdn.ca/users/billbot',
	],
	[2] => [
		[rel] => 'http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe',
		[template] => 'https://mstdn.ca/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}',
	],
	[3] => [
		[rel] => 'http://webfinger.net/rel/avatar',
		[type] => 'image/jpeg',
		[href] => 'https://cdn.mstdn.ca/accounts/avatars/109/814/349/162/256/813/original/448f48285f57dc92.jpg',
	],
],

];

https://friendface.kalum.ca/dev/finger?resource=billbot%40mstdn.ca&submit=Submit

[ [subject] => 'acct:billbot@mstdn.ca', [aliases] => [ [0] => 'https://mstdn.ca/@billbot', [1] => 'https://mstdn.ca/users/billbot', ], [links] => [ [0] => [ [rel] => 'http://webfinger.net/rel/profile-page', [type] => 'text/html', [href] => 'https://mstdn.ca/@billbot', ], [1] => [ [rel] => 'self', [type] => 'application/activity+json', [href] => 'https://mstdn.ca/users/billbot', ], [2] => [ [rel] => 'http://ostatus.org/schema/1.0/subscribe', [template] => 'https://mstdn.ca/authorize_interaction?uri={uri}', ], [3] => [ [rel] => 'http://webfinger.net/rel/avatar', [type] => 'image/jpeg', [href] => 'https://cdn.mstdn.ca/accounts/avatars/109/814/349/162/256/813/original/448f48285f57dc92.jpg', ], ], ]; https://friendface.kalum.ca/dev/finger?resource=billbot%40mstdn.ca&submit=Submit

fortified commented 2026年04月16日 06:23:37 +02:00

Thanks, I found something. The "site actor" on your instance has no public key and this is affecting some interactions with other sites. I'm going to poke around and see if I can determine how this could have happened and then we'll get that fixed up for you. Please allow me a day or two and I apologies for that, but I want to make sure the problem doesn't go any deeper than that.

Thanks, I found something. The "site actor" on your instance has no public key and this is affecting some interactions with other sites. I'm going to poke around and see if I can determine how this could have happened and then we'll get that fixed up for you. Please allow me a day or two and I apologies for that, but I want to make sure the problem doesn't go any deeper than that.

gemlog commented 2026年04月16日 06:32:28 +02:00

Please don't stress about this. It's just a thing that happens. My bad. I'll need to make a key or w/e.
We flow along :-)
I love your code. It's all good and things always work out.

Please don't stress about this. It's just a thing that happens. My bad. I'll need to make a key or w/e. We flow along :-) I love your code. It's all good and things always work out.

gemlog commented 2026年04月16日 17:58:23 +02:00

Ah! I should have said, I've been lazily using YUNOhost for the past few years. I should contact the packager? Or is it something I can just generate and add in somewhere?

Ah! I should have said, I've been lazily using YUNOhost for the past few years. I should contact the packager? Or is it something I can just generate and add in somewhere?

fortified commented 2026年04月16日 22:01:08 +02:00

No worries mate. I looked deeper and found there's a legitimate bug involved, and it could affect other folks in the same way. Working on a fix now.

No worries mate. I looked deeper and found there's a legitimate bug involved, and it could affect other folks in the same way. Working on a fix now.

fortified commented 2026年04月17日 00:35:23 +02:00

OK. This should be resolved in v26.4.17. I think that recent YUNOhost forte packages will let you update from the admin page or cli. But this wasn't always the case and I don't know if they all do. If you have any problems updating, contact the package maintainer.

OK. This should be resolved in v26.4.17. I think that recent YUNOhost forte packages will let you update from the admin page or cli. But this wasn't always the case and I don't know if they all do. If you have any problems updating, contact the package maintainer.

gemlog commented 2026年04月17日 02:55:40 +02:00

Oh - good! We found something together! :-) I've written my fair share of bugs in my time. It's all good! I don't know who the YUNOhost guy is, I'll have to look and then see when he has the time to repackage. Thank you for being so on top of this. I'll post to the YUNOhost forum.

Oh - good! We found something together! :-) I've written my fair share of bugs in my time. It's all good! I don't know who the YUNOhost guy is, I'll have to look and then see when he has the time to repackage. Thank you for being so on top of this. I'll post to the YUNOhost forum.

gemlog commented 2026年04月17日 20:16:03 +02:00

It has already been pushed Upgrade to v26.4.17 by yunohost-bot · Pull Request #92 · YunoHost-Apps/forte_ynh · GitHub

Wow! Apparently YUNOhost has a bot that saw the PR and already rebuilt the package. In less than a day the lead dev of this project and tooling at another project found and fixed a problem I only discovered a couple of days ago. So great!
I no longer have any code I need to maintain out there, but gnu-linux has been so good to be a part of, since 1994.
Thank you so much!

> It has already been pushed Upgrade to v26.4.17 by yunohost-bot · Pull Request #92 · YunoHost-Apps/forte_ynh · GitHub Wow! Apparently YUNOhost has a bot that saw the PR and already rebuilt the package. In less than a day the lead dev of this project and tooling at another project found and fixed a problem I only discovered a couple of days ago. So great! I no longer have any code I need to maintain out there, but gnu-linux has been so good to be a part of, since 1994. Thank you so much!

gemlog commented 2026年04月17日 21:46:10 +02:00

The patch worked perfectly. I have now connected to all those people. Thank you so much!

The patch worked perfectly. I have now connected to all those people. Thank you so much!

fortified commented 2026年04月17日 21:48:10 +02:00

The proof of the pudding so to speak is if your failed addresses all start working again. I'm cautiously optimistic.
In any case, enjoy your journey.

[edit: oops - our messages crossed. Cheers.]

The proof of the pudding so to speak is if your failed addresses all start working again. I'm cautiously optimistic. In any case, enjoy your journey. [edit: oops - our messages crossed. Cheers.]

gemlog commented 2026年04月17日 21:52:30 +02:00

I copy/pasted each address from the above list into 'add new connection' and they each produced the right avatar and no error messages. You fixed it bud! :-)

I copy/pasted each address from the above list into 'add new connection' and they each produced the right avatar and no error messages. You fixed it bud! :-)