Admin user itself needs to be approved on fresh installed v4.2.8 instance

[bobby365]

I tried using the workaround posted down below but I keep getting this error. ERROR: Missing RAILS_ENV environment variable, please set it to "production", "development", or "test". I just downloaded the latest version of Mastodon from the install docs

This has been fixed by #29379 and a note has been added to the release notes about a workaround (using tootctl modify <username> --approved)

for my fresh installation it was:
bin/tootctl accounts approve admin

Originally posted by @cavuugroup in #29380 (comment)

[renchap]

You need to run

RAILS_ENV=production bin/tootctl accounts approve admin