Lemmy through SDF is basically read-only now. Read interesting stuff, but open an account elsewhere if you want to reply.
Federation is broken.
It's been broken for days - and that's not to say for months, because I charitably include the few hours it worked again lately for some reason.
I don't know if other instances are that thoroughly broken, because the rest of Lemmy seems to be chugging along just fine. It's just us poor SDF user suckers.
Yeah, I'm a grad student with limited funds and I contributed to the server when I joined last summer. I don't really want to sacrifice this account, but if we can't interact with anyone else, it kind of defeats the purpose of being federated.
I think the problem is that we have only one admin, /u/SDF@lemmy.sdf.org , and they aren't very active here. Their last post was 4 months ago.
I have no idea who has access to install software updates. Maybe also just @SDF?
Maybe it's time to take applications to expand the roster? I assume @SDF has many other things in their life, and generally speaking, having only one person who can manage a service is just asking for extended downtime.
Is /u/SDF@lemmy.sdf.org (/u/SDF@lemmy.sdf.org) the correct way to ping or is it @SDF@lemmy.sdf.org (@SDF@lemmy.sdf.org)? I’m not sure I’ve ever successfully pinged before.
I could be wrong but I think this is a general issue within the SDF. It's an incredible organization and I value my membership in it very highly but I wish it were easier to pitch in and volunteer to make things better.
I think I'll give lemmy.ml a shot. It's run by the Lemmy developers so seems like chances are good it'll continue to function properly :)
Ah well, we live in an imperfect world. I'm grateful for them in any case! :)
FYI, on lemm.ee I have been testing 0.19.1 patched with the #4330 changes by @phiresky for the past week and have noticed no further issues with outgoing federation, so I think this issue will be resolved with the next release
It is, rebooting a service/system/server or other tinkering by the instance admins has let at least one instance come back. But the bug comes back so it's not a real solution. The instances that don't show the problem might still have it but also have a solution watching to reset when needed.
What would be the right way? @SDF here on lemmy has been pinged afaik. I don't use mastodon, and I don't know where to e-mail.
In the future, maybe we should ask SDF for an official way to contact them outside lemmy. I'm guessing that the admin isn't really a lemmy user, or they would have noticed the whole thing going on.
I realize that I can't demand anything, we're using a free service run by volunteers and donations. I like the community here on SDF, and am interested in finding out how we, together, can make it a great instance.
Easy: post from the SDF instance, then check directly on the other instance if your post made it. If it hasn't after 10 minutes, feel like you wasted your time. Rinse, repeat - until you're tired of wasting your time and open an account on another instance.
It’s frustrating and it makes me sad and disappointed to see the SDF so unresponsive to pretty much all issues (even those raised on the system itself, about the system).
That being said, I actually feel like it makes me do the opposite of waste time, because it’s virtually impossible for me to get sucked into an upsetting interaction here that has no broader consequence beyond making me feel bad.
That's a shame. Problems like this is why lemmy won't go very far imo. Expecting a random person on the internet to go through the signup process which involves applying for an account on some instances is wishful thinking, them understanding what federation is and how it works is very optimistic, but then braking the federation with no warning and no action plan for fixing it is just shooting yourself in the foot.
Woah, a few minutes ago my test message to sh.itjust.works from 8 days ago finally arrived. Also a comment I made here 8 days ago.
I've sent myself another one about 2 minutes ago, but it hasn't federated yet. We'll see...
Edit: 2 more of my comments federated, latest from 4 days ago. I think we'll be ready to federate smoothly in about 30 minutes, based on last time this happened.
I see the UI has been updated to version 0.19.2, while the backend is still 0.19.1-rc2. Perhaps the backend update is still in progress. Could be that federation is working again simply because they restarted the backend service.
Hopefully the backend update to 0.19.2 is coming and will be more stable.
I also noticed that the web UI is kind of messed up now. None of the button icons display for me, like for upvote, downvote, reply, or notifications, so it's a little hard to navigate.
If I remember rightly, the backend update takes a long time as the database needs to do a particularly slow schema update.
https://old.lemmy.sdf.org seems to still be ok.
I started looking for an SDF alternative just yesterday, to see if SDF was broken again. So thanks for the post. Guess I will carry on with another account. I'm thinking lemmy.ca.
I might be tempted to jump ship, too, but what I love about SDF’s Lemmy is their reluctance to ban entire other instances. I, and not my instance’s admin, am the one who should have that right in the fediverse.
Do you know another instance that is admined similarly? I have accounts on a few servers but I think they have all been involved in various defederation drama in the past.
Edit: I found this, haven't looked it over yet but hoping to find an alternative to put in my stable of lemmy logins