Replies-to-replies not appearing on Mastodon

Cross-posting
1

I enjoy the new feature where replies to my Mastodon posts appear on micro.blog, but I’ve encountered a bug. Here is the scenario:

  1. Someone replies to one of my Mastodon posts.
  2. I see the reply on Micro.blog. This is the expected behavior.
  3. I reply to the reply.
  4. Expected behavior: My reply-to-the-reply appears as a Mastodon thread
    Actual behavior: The reply-to-a-reply does not appear on Mastodon. As far as I can see, my reply-to-a-reply disappears into the ether.

Please fix.

2

Is this a new bug? This has not been my experience.

3

I have an issue currently where Mastodon replies are not threaded back to the micro.blog post. I receive the reply but only to the mastodon post, not the micro.blog post.

If I reply this comes from micro.blog not my mastodon account

4

This has been an issue for me since Micro.blog started pulling in replies from connected Mastodon accounts, Nov. 29. . I reported it to @help on the timeline some time ago but now I cannot find that report so I’m repeating it here after confirming it’s still an issue.

5

I’m finding delays of several hours, up to 12 hours, for replies on Mastodon appearing on Micro.blog.

The bugginess of this feature is keeping me from using it.

6

I think I know what the hours-long delay might be caused by. Some of Micro.blog’s cross-posting is only triggered when you click on the Mentions section. If you don’t check Mentions every once in a while, it will wait to check for replies.

I did it this way to avoid hammering the Bluesky and Mastodon servers for people not using Micro.blog throughout the day. I’m going to change this, though, since it’s clearly causing problems. I’ll have the change rolled out tonight or tomorrow and we can observe if it’s better.

Thanks!

7

If you have a minute, also let me know if you’re using the web interface or mobile app.

8

I’m using the web interface.

Also, please recall the earlier bug I reported, where replies-to-replies on Mastodon were not appearing on Mastodon. I suspect the reason for that might be that I have switched off the ActivityPub endpoint on micro.blog, and just use cross-posting, or post manually to Masto. I will be willing to switch on the Micro.blog ActivityPub endpoint again if you think that will resolve that problem.

9

I thought I had fixed the replies-to-replies problem. I’ll test it again. I don’t think re-enabling ActivityPub will help… Those should be separate.

10

I tried just now. Replies to replies are showing up on the micro.blog timeline but not mastodon. See here:

https://micro.blog/MitchW/52636124

Scroll down to my reply left at 9:12 pm PT. It appears on the micro.blog timeline but not mastodon.social, where the conversation originated. I

Thanks!

11

I think Manton is wrong about the AP thing-- I don’t think replying using a Micro.blog account that does not have ActivityPub enabled can send that reply to Mastodon on a Mastodon account.

12

I joked when I added some of this that we’re in a “crossing the streams” situation with different ways to connect the platforms, and that’s definitely true here… I wrote all of this code and can barely keep track of all the different ways it can fit together. :crazy_face:

If you have ActivityPub enabled, it should use that. If you don’t have ActivityPub enabled but do have Mastodon cross-posting enabled, Micro.blog should be able to send the reply anyway. I’m looking into why that’s not happening and will add support for it today.

13

I still see a 13-hour delay in Mastodon replies showing up on the Micro.blog timeline. I do appreciate the work you’re putting into resolving this — thank you.

14

I’m still not sure about the 13-hour delay but I have confirmed that replies to Mastodon users if you don’t have ActivityPub enabled are not being sent correctly. I have a fix in testing now, should go live tomorrow morning. I’m also adding a warning message if you have neither ActivityPub nor cross-posting enabled so that people know the reply won’t go anywhere useful (except Micro.blog).

15

Now replies on Masto are showing up in a timely fashion on Micro.blog. Thanks.

16

Glad to hear that’s working now! I’ve also deployed the fix for sending replies when ActivityPub is disabled.

17

Uh-oh. I think I spoke too soon. Replies are now running three hours behind. Or, more precisely, replies posted to me within the past three hours on Mastodon are not appearing on the Micro.blog timeline.

In other news: I’ve switched on the ActivityPub endpoint for Micro.blog because why not?

Thanks.

18

Is anyone else seeing these kind of delays? The only explanation I have is that something like this is happening:

  • Don’t sign in to Micro.blog for a few hours. Micro.blog is not checking replies for you during this time because you aren’t using it.
  • Sign in and check Mentions. Nothing new yet, but Micro.blog realizes it needs to check for new replies.
  • Micro.blog adds new replies from Mastodon to Mentions. But if you don’t reload the page, you won’t see them until next time you use Micro.blog.

Does that make sense?

If this is what is happening, I can fix it, but I am a little worried about hitting the Mastodon API over and over when you aren’t actively using Micro.blog.

19

I have not, but since I check like 2 times a day and mostly via RSS, I’m not confident I would notice.

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20

I check a few times a day. I exclusively use the web interface and shut the tab when I’m done checking.

So yes, @manton, I think you’re describing my situation.

In other news: Replies-to-replies from the micro.blog timeline now seem to be appearing on the Mastodon timeline — I’ll keep an eye on things to be sure — but they’re coming from my micro.blog account, not my mastodon account, even if the original reply was a reply to a post I made from Mastodon. This is not a big deal, but it seems that if the original post was on Mastodon, then the reply should be from Mastodon.

1 Like