Stuck Follow Request when following a WordPress Profile #27458

pfefferle · 2023-10-18T14:21:34Z

Steps to reproduce the problem

Go to for example mastodon.art
Search for pfefferle@notiz.blog
Press "Follow" button

Expected behaviour

Mastodon user follows WordPress User

Actual behaviour

Process seem to be stuck ("Cancel follow")

Detailed description

We have received some reports (here is the ticket on the WordPress plugin repo) that the Follow process seems to be stuck and not accepted by the WordPress instance.

Debugging on the WordPress site shows that when searching for the WordPress profile, all required endpoints (WebFinger, Followers, ...) are requested and the profile is displayed correctly in the Mastodon UI. However, after clicking the follow button, WordPress does not receive a follow request (or any other requests to the inbox), this also applies to a unfollow/re-follow. Sending an accept by hand, on the other hand, seems to work.

Another way to reset the follow process seems to be an @-reply. After sending an @-reply to the Mastodon profile,an unfollow/re-follow also seems to work.

An example profile: @pfefferle@notiz.blog
An example group: @notiz.blog@notiz.blog

For a few weeks now, the Mastodon UI has also been displaying a 500 error in the UI when requesting the internal featured-tags endpoint: https://mastodon.social/api/v1/accounts/[...]/featured_tags.

Here is an example endpoint for the Featured Tags endpoint of WordPress: https://notiz.blog/wp-api/activitypub/1.0/users/0/collections/tags

Mastodon instance

mastodon.art, mastodon.ie, twit.social

Mastodon version

v4.2.1

Technical details

No response

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

ClearlyClaire · 2023-10-18T14:39:17Z

I am unable to reproduce the issue from mastodon.social, mastodon.online, or my own private server.

Sending an accept by hand, on the other hand, seems to work.

Another way to reset the follow process seems to be an @-reply. After sending an @-reply to the Mastodon profile,an unfollow/re-follow also seems to work.

This makes me think the server might have been ruled as unavailable by Mastodon. This happens if delivery attempts fail for 7 different days with no success in-between and no delivery from the supposedly-undeliverable server to our own.

pfefferle · 2023-10-18T14:53:37Z

But shouldn't a valid follow request (all endpoints return the correct informations during this process) reset that state then? Is it possible to debug that state in the Admin backend?

What speaks against that is, that the WordPress.com release is less than 7 days old and we already had users with that issue.

pfefferle · 2023-10-19T05:08:44Z

A lot of these issues seem to happen on instances hosted by masto.host, is there a setting/configuration/setup that might cause this issue?

This phenomenon seem to be relatively new, because the plugin worked nicely together with some of the instances for quite some time.

mro · 2023-10-19T09:56:13Z

ruled as unavailable by Mastodon

Hi @ClearlyClaire,

how can 'unavailable' be reset?

Sorry for hijacking, but seems on topic. Author of https://seppo.social here. I may be an 'unavailable' victim at https://digitalcourage.social and am in contact with the admin https://digitalcourage.social/@chpietsch/111260615834845738.

ClearlyClaire · 2023-10-19T11:45:29Z

But shouldn't a valid follow request (all endpoints return the correct informations during this process) reset that state then?

It would not, the request would not be issued.

Is it possible to debug that state in the Admin backend?

On the mastodon side, yes, in the moderation interface, the “Federation” section will show if a server is considered available for delivery, with some information and options to restart delivery or outright delete any data about the server.

cc @mro this should also answer your question

What speaks against that is, that the WordPress.com release is less than 7 days old and we already had users with that issue.

Yes, that does seem to contradict this theory…

A lot of these issues seem to happen on instances hosted by masto.host, is there a setting/configuration/setup that might cause this issue?

Not that I know of, but maybe we could investigate with masto.host. Do you know of specific servers exhibiting the issue?

HashRaygoza · 2023-10-22T21:00:48Z

I have the exact same issue with a blog hosted in wordpress.com, I enabled the fediverse plugin, try to follow from both mastodon.art and me.dm and in both I get a 500 error, it seems to follow but then goes to awaiting.

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-24T07:38:52Z

The Delivery Tracker seems to be fixated on public-api.wordpress.com, while the domain is almost always not that same domain, so the "clear delivery errors" button will not do anything.

That domain is then also not visible in the federation tab, so it cannot be clicked "clear delivery errors", i had to go into the rails console to figure out that public-api.wordpress.com is stuck on 7 days non-delivery, probably during a collective outage, ive only just now been able to clear it.

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-24T07:40:45Z

After clearing the delivery error, and refreshing the remote URL, it seems to constantly fail on a Mastodon::UnexpectedResponseError, HTTP code 401, to a follow request, and the likes.

pfefferle · 2023-10-24T07:59:37Z

@ShadowJonathan Have you enabled AUTHORIZED_FETCH on you server?

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-24T08:15:20Z

@pfefferle yes, and for the record, i expect that to become more prevalent, especially since mastodon has added an accessible checkmark to enable it in the admin console.

pfefferle · 2023-10-24T08:17:38Z

@ShadowJonathan yes totally! It has to work on WordPress.com and I am working on a fix! This might be also an issue of the different API host.

Can you verify that it might be an WordPress.com issue and try to follow my other non WordPress.com blog @pfefferle@notiz.blog to see if it works like expected?

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-24T08:22:09Z

I had to clear delivery errors first, but then it went through.

pfefferle · 2023-10-24T08:23:34Z

notiz.blog went through? So this is also only a WordPress.com issue! Thanks!

Can you see the errors? Why is the plugin producing so much errors?

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-24T08:28:53Z

This is one such error;

Oct 24 07:39:58 queue-workers bundle[2238100]: 2023-10-24T07:39:58.391Z pid=2238100 tid=2h47g WARN: {
    "context": "Job raised exception",
    "job": {
        "retry": 16,
        "queue": "push",
        "dead": false,
        "args": [
            "{\"@context\":\"https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams\",\"id\":\"https://tech.lgbt/2934a834-34af-4242-a06a-136b3ae12b3c\",\"type\":\"Follow\",\"actor\":\"https://tech.lgbt/users/ShadowJonathan\",\"object\":\"http://kyefox.com/@kyefox.com\"}",
            105209,
            "https://public-api.wordpress.com/wpcom/activitypub-1.0/sites/157570986/users/0/inbox"
        ],
        "class": "ActivityPub::DeliveryWorker",
        "jid": "de314061f74dce8ce21febaa",
        "created_at": 1698133153.8004045,
        "enqueued_at": 1698133196.5979354,
        "error_message": "https://public-api.wordpress.com/wpcom/activitypub-1.0/sites/157570986/users/0/inbox returned code 401",
        "error_class": "Mastodon::UnexpectedResponseError",
        "failed_at": 1698133154.6045635,
        "retry_count": 1,
        "retried_at": 1698133175.397954
    }
}

pfefferle · 2023-10-24T08:31:34Z

OK, that's the AUTHORIZED_FETCH issue, will have a look at that. Thanks!

hugogameiro · 2023-10-25T17:08:17Z

I believe there are 3 issues being reported here.

1 - instances with AUTHORIZED_FETCH enabled are not compatible with the WordPress ActivityPub plugin - confirmed by @pfefferle at #27458 (comment)

2 - Problem with featured tags implementation in the Wordpress ActivityPub plugin - probably a different issue should be opened regarding this.

3 - There is no way to revert a domain 'Failure threshold' (7 days) if the domain in question does not "federate" with the instance where the 'Failure threshold' was reached.

This last point is probably closer to the OP and I don't even think it's because Wordpress.com uses a different domain public-api.wordpress.com for ActivityPub.

I think that what is happening on some instances is that the public-api.wordpress.com has reached the 'Failure threshold' (I see that domain listed on the unavailable_domains table in the database on an instance that it's still failing to federate with Wordpress.com blogs).

That is not displayed in Mastodon administration web interface because #27525. But even on a situation where the domain showed up in the Mastodon administration web interface as having reached the 'Failure threshold' that would make no difference because there is no option for the admin to clear the 'Failure threshold' or to force a retry.

AFAIK, the only thing that will remote the 'Failure threshold' from a domain, is if that domain federates/communicates with the instance where the 'Failure threshold' has been triggered.

This can be problematic in a situation where a local user searches for a remote profile (that no other local user follows) and the profile federates like normal but when they try to follow that account, the follow fails due to some problem with the remote server (in this case public-api.wordpress.com was failing for some time). Then, if the remote server continues to try for 7 days and it keeps failing it is marked as an "unavailable_domain".

As Mastodon will only remove the domain from unavailable_domains if the remote server federates with the instance, and the only reason for the remote server to federate is if it knows that someone on that server follows the account making the post, then it gets stuck endlessly because the follow never federated and cannot federate until the domain is manually removed from the unavailable_domains or the remote server "forces" a federation to that server.

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-27T10:05:54Z

I've created #27586, which is intended to help with one half of this problem; the fact that federation is wedged because of this issue, and isn't easily able to be unwedged.

The other half of this problem is for @pfefferle to fix on wordpress' side, where AF can be properly processed.

After this, and after an update, wordpress.com-hosted blogs can be properly accessed once more (after users cancel and refollow blogs they tried to follow).

ShadowJonathan · 2023-10-27T15:13:57Z

The auth-fetch issue is better able to be tracked in Automattic/wordpress-activitypub#523, the mastodon side of this issue (where it is about being able to send follow requests in the first place when delivery is wedged) has been fixed by #27586

pfefferle · 2023-10-27T15:14:52Z

thanks a lot @ShadowJonathan 🎉

IanWelsh920 · 2023-11-22T15:46:51Z

Just a brief comment to note that I'm getting this same issue.

https://mstdn.social/@ianwelsh.net@www.ianwelsh.net

pfefferle · 2023-11-22T17:56:05Z

@IanWelsh920 this seems to be a different issue! Your WebFinger endpoint does not work properly. It should return JSON but seems to load your frontpage https://www.ianwelsh.net/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct%3Aianwelsh.net%40www.ianwelsh.net

pfefferle added bug Something isn't working status/to triage This issue needs to be triaged labels Oct 18, 2023

pfefferle mentioned this issue Oct 18, 2023

Improve Accept Activities on Follow Requests Automattic/wordpress-activitypub#524

Closed

ShadowJonathan mentioned this issue Oct 24, 2023

Stuck in "Follow Requested" state Automattic/wordpress-activitypub#523

Closed

ShadowJonathan mentioned this issue Oct 24, 2023

Inboxes who live on a different host do not show up in the delivery tracker #27525

Open

ShadowJonathan mentioned this issue Oct 27, 2023

Have Follow activities bypass availability #27586

Merged

ClearlyClaire closed this as completed in #27586 Oct 27, 2023

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Stuck Follow Request when following a WordPress Profile #27458

Stuck Follow Request when following a WordPress Profile #27458

pfefferle commented Oct 18, 2023

ClearlyClaire commented Oct 18, 2023

pfefferle commented Oct 18, 2023

pfefferle commented Oct 19, 2023

mro commented Oct 19, 2023

ClearlyClaire commented Oct 19, 2023

HashRaygoza commented Oct 22, 2023

ShadowJonathan commented Oct 24, 2023

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ShadowJonathan commented Oct 24, 2023

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pfefferle commented Oct 24, 2023

hugogameiro commented Oct 25, 2023

ShadowJonathan commented Oct 27, 2023

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pfefferle commented Oct 27, 2023

IanWelsh920 commented Nov 22, 2023

pfefferle commented Nov 22, 2023

Stuck Follow Request when following a WordPress Profile #27458

Stuck Follow Request when following a WordPress Profile #27458

Comments

pfefferle commented Oct 18, 2023

Steps to reproduce the problem

Expected behaviour

Actual behaviour

Detailed description

Mastodon instance

Mastodon version

Technical details

ClearlyClaire commented Oct 18, 2023

pfefferle commented Oct 18, 2023

pfefferle commented Oct 19, 2023

mro commented Oct 19, 2023

ClearlyClaire commented Oct 19, 2023

HashRaygoza commented Oct 22, 2023

ShadowJonathan commented Oct 24, 2023

ShadowJonathan commented Oct 24, 2023

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hugogameiro commented Oct 25, 2023

ShadowJonathan commented Oct 27, 2023

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pfefferle commented Oct 27, 2023

IanWelsh920 commented Nov 22, 2023

pfefferle commented Nov 22, 2023

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