Approve follow request Redux

Hi – yes the other site @gridman is referring to is mine, @simon@moelrhos.uk. Also on 6.1. We’ve both followed the other with our Mastodon accounts, both of us get the ‘request pending’ for following in each case…

The bug seems to happen quite a few times ??

WordPress should auto-accept all request and there is no way to approve pending requests. I am not sure why this happens on some blogs, but I will investigate. Can you give me some infos about your hosting env?

moelrhos.uk is one blog on a multisite instance (I probably should have mentioned it before). The ActivityPub Plugin is not network active, I have activated just for this site (also Webfinger).

I’m hosted on TSO Host, Apache 2.4.54, PHP 7.4.29, MySQL 5.7.39-cll-lve.

I’ll mirror Simon’s information there. My host (HostMonster) is running at Apache 2.4.53, PHP 7.3.33, and mySQL 5.7.23-23

If there’s anything specific info that will help, please let me know. I didn’t want to dump everything from sysinfo for obvious reasons in a public forum.

Thinking back on the person in the previous thread that indicated that they resolved the problem by disabling a security plug-in, and based on your description of how it should work, it does sound like it might be some security block preventing the follow request from reaching the server/plugin.

Could there be something in .htaccess or somewhere similar that might block such a request?

I should add that looking in WordPress at Users -> Followers (Fediverse) shows “No items found”

I think it’s a caching issue with Mastodon, CloudFlare, or etc. I suggest this because:

1. I get different results when using the same Mastodon account to follow different WordPress authors (in the same time period).
2. I get different results when following the same WordPress author using two different Mastodon servers (in the same time period).
3. The problem resolves itself if I leave it alone (t>2hrs?).
4. When it resolves on Mastodon (follow approved), it resolves on WordPress at the same time (follower listed in Admin).

I see that accounts which followed before a post was propagated see it, even it is unpublished, but accounts which followed after do not. I don’t know if that’s diagnostic (CloudFlare?) or not.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by OpenDNA.

Thanks, OpenDNA, that gave me a couple of things to look at; however, I have tried different WP users, two different WP installs, and two different fediverse servers, plus I have left some of the follow requests in place for days, with no different result.

@gridman @simonwood Check your blogs’ followers now. I’ve followed both (or so my Mastodon says). If you cancel your follow requests and try again, it may work now.

Sorry. @pfefferle, I’m sure that’s not helpful to squashing the glitch.

@opendna Thanks for that. I don’t see a way from within WordPress to see the number of followers. When I look at the profile via my Mastodon account it’s still saying 0 followers. When I cancel and try to follow again, I’m still seeing ‘Withdraw Follow Request’ rather than ‘Unfollow’ when I reload after following.

I had a similar issue, but I’ve tracked it down to mod_security running on my server and not allowing the ActivityPub content type of application/activity+json . If you have “root” level access to your server (or can contact your server admin), then my blog post at https://blog.rac.me.uk/2022/11/10/activitypub-for-wordpress-how-to-fix-modsecurity-to-make-it-work/ may be of use.

Same issue for me on shared hosting (no root access)…

Sorry @opendna, still no followers, but thanks for checking.

@pfefferle Given @rbairwell ‘s fix and a few scattered other mentions of this problem I’ve seen online, it keeps sounding like it is a firewall/application firewall issue.

Given that some of us do not have root access, and help desks at hosting companies can be notoriously lacking, is there any way this could be simplified for them?

In other words, is the a concise description of what needs to be able to pass the firewall?

Perhaps if we had done thing to hand them and say, “can you do this for me site, please?” they might be able to do something?

I found a WP security plugin that make this issue happens : Apocalypse Meow.

On one of my websites, disabling this extension worked, but for another, the problem persists. In both cases, these are WPs with shared hosting…

Not a complaint, nor a solution, but a note from the field –

I’m having similar symptoms, followers awaiting approval. I am running WordPress 6.1.1 on the hosting service Bluehost, with no security related plugins.

I wanted to explore @rbairwell’s solution. However, I was not able to find any access to the area outlined, so I did a support chat with Bluehost. Their rep said they tried a few things, but I would need to look for a fix on the plugin side. I asked if there was something I might do, and they said they had no information on their side to help me.

Great idea for a plugin. I’ll keep an eye out for solutions. Happy the help troubleshoot if needed.

@johnno@john-norris.net