Mastodon

Mastodon’s federated search often returns incomplete or unexpected results. Many users search for a specific username, hashtag, or post and find nothing even though the content exists on another instance. This happens because Mastodon’s search engine does not index the entire fediverse. This article explains exactly what the federated search covers, what it deliberately excludes, … Read more

Single-user Mastodon instances are private servers where you run your own account without sharing the instance with other users. These instances can still receive malicious requests from unverified remote servers that pretend to be someone else. Authorized fetch is a security feature that forces all incoming federation requests to carry a valid signature from the … Read more

When the federation queue in Mastodon gets stuck, new posts from other instances stop appearing in your federated timeline. Outgoing messages to remote servers also fail to deliver. This problem is almost always caused by one worker process in Sidekiq that is processing a job that never finishes. This article explains why the queue freezes … Read more

When you publish a post on Mastodon, the server distributes it across the fediverse to your followers on other instances. You may notice that some followers never see your post, even though you sent it successfully from your own server. This happens because federation relies on each remote instance pulling the post from your server, … Read more

You posted a reply on Mastodon, but the original author on another instance cannot see it. This happens because Mastodon uses a pull-based federation model where replies are only delivered to instances that already follow the conversation. If the target instance has not fetched the parent post, your reply remains invisible there. This article explains … Read more

Mastodon supports custom emoji that server administrators can upload for their users. These emoji appear in the emoji picker and can be used in posts, boosts, and replies. However, custom emoji do not automatically appear on other instances when a user includes them in a post. The emoji must be federated from the origin instance … Read more

When Mastodon cannot find a remote user by their full handle, federation breaks. You see errors like “User not found” or “Failed to fetch account” when searching for someone on another instance. This happens because Webfinger lookup, the protocol Mastodon uses to resolve a user’s address into a profile URL, is failing. This article explains … Read more

When you follow a user on another Mastodon server, their display name, bio, and avatar may become outdated on your local instance. This happens because Mastodon caches remote profile data to reduce server load and speed up timeline loading. A stale profile shows old information even after the remote user has updated their details. This … Read more

When you boost a post from another Mastodon instance, your followers see it in their Home timeline. But when you reply to a cross-instance post, the reply may not reach all followers. This difference confuses many users because both actions seem similar: you engage with content from a different server. The visibility rules for boosts … Read more