Webfinger Endpoint unavailable

@puck the issue is currently being discussed here: https://github.com/pfefferle/wordpress-activitypub/discussions/155

Thanks @ricmac

@puck any update on the issue?

No. That link wasn’t helpful.

What is the plugin supposed to be doing to ./well-known ? Is it changing .htaccess to redirect to its own files, or is it putting files in there?

Either way I’m happy to do this manually if someone just provides the details of what it should be.

@pfefferle ditto for me — no resolution. I replied to Tim: “I tried several specific [htaccess] redirects, but I think my web host (Hostinger) disallows any messing with the well-known folder.”

Is there a solution that doesn’t require using the well-known folder?

Sadly not. WebFinger is no requirement from the ActivityPub spec but by Mastodon. It might be possible to follow your author URL on some platforms platforms, but that does not help a lot, because mastodon is most common these days.

There is an option described in the GitHub issues, that might work if nothing else work. It is Jacky and very limited but at least it might work.

https://github.com/pfefferle/wordpress-activitypub/issues/188

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Matthias Pfefferle.

@pfefferle the problem for me is that my web host does not allow me to make any changes or additions to the .well-known folder. I’m not sure if this is just an issue with my web host, or whether it affects others too (eg @puck said he uses Dreamhost). Ref:

“After finally asking the right question to Hostinger (thank you MrWhite!), they confirmed that making changes to the /.well-known folder is not possible on a shared hosting plan. Here is the official response I received:

The .well-known directory is server-default, so that is why overriding and making changes to it is not possible on a shared hosting plan, as important data/information is stored there. To make meaningful changes in this directory, you would need root access, which is only available on our VPS plans.”
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71442532/how-can-i-get-my-hostinger-shared-hosting-server-to-execute-htaccess-file-in-hi

Editing this, I thought this was my issue but apparently it wasn’t. I am using Hostinger but I am able to access the .well-known folder but there is only one file showing inside of it which is called “apple-developer-merchantid-domain-association”. There are no other files inside the folder from what I can see.

@ricmac I am using Hostinger as well but I have access to the .well-known folder and am able to add files and modify. Did you end up going with the VPS plan or finding any other workaround? Curious of any solutions you might have figured out since your last reply. I am using their Single Web Hosting Plan if that’s any help to you. I am able to access the .well-known folder with that plan and they have no restrictions on it.

@pfefferle EDIT: tagging you as I had commented in another thread with this issue. I contacted Hostinger support and this is what they said:

The .well-known directory is not disabled on our servers. I have also checked your files and it seems that it is even created and has a file inside, which is 10 months old, probably from a previous plugin.I would suggest trying reinstalling the webfinger plugin. Maybe that will resolve this issue </img>

I have already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin but that didn’t make any difference. Still experiencing the same issue which is:

WebFinger endpoint is not accessibleActivityPub

Your WebFinger endpoint https://manifestingalignment.com/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:[email protected] does not return valid JSON for application/jrd+json

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by aevisia.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by aevisia. Reason: My issue was not the same after all
• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by aevisia.

I am an active menber of the WordPress Hosting Community, so I try to contact someone from hostinger/bluehost, to maybe get this fixed or at least a workaround.

Sadly I am not able to do something here, because it seems to break at Webserver level and does not even routes to the WordPress installation.

@pfefferle Thank you so much for trying. I am in contact with Hostinger waiting to hear back from their technical support team on this. If any solution is found I will share it here for others.

@pfefferle?I just have one last question, is Webfinger supposed to work automatically as soon as it’s activated? Or are there configurations that need to be made? That part seems really unclear for people like me who are complete dummies with these things haha. ?? I am in contact with Hostinger and they are asking to see my configurations for Webfinger, and I don’t have any configurations for Webfinger because I didn’t see anywhere for configurations.

@aevisia WebFinger should work out of the box! There should be nothing to configure. The plugin uses the WordPress rewrite rule mechanism to create a ?virtual“ /.well-known/webfinger path.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Matthias Pfefferle.

And it works at least on the two shared hosting envs that I use (IONOS and uberspace) without doing/configuring anything!

@pfefferle
Thank you so much for your reply. I’m stumped! I’d really love to figure out what this error is I’m receiving. Would you be open to help me figure out what might be causing the issue? I was in contact with Hostinger and it doesn’t seem to be an issue with the SSL certificate, though, that seems to be the most common issue with other people who receive this error.

Hostinger support switched my SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt to Zero SSL in attempts to resolve the error, but it was unsuccessful. I even tried uninstalled my SSL certificate altogether to rule out it being an SSL conflict and this didn’t fix the issue either. I saw some people who have this error also don’t seem to have access to the .well-known file, which also is not my issue. I am able to access that directory just fine. The issue for me is there appears to be no files in there generated from the Webfinger plugin, which seems implied there is supposed to be something in there for Webfinger to create a path to.

I used the “Lookup Webfinger” search function on Webfinger.net and received the following error when I put in my username [email protected]

Request Log

01:28:38 Looking up WebFinger data for acct:[email protected]
01:28:38 GET https://manifestingalignment.com/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct%3Aaevisia%40manifestingalignment.com
01:28:39 Error getting JRD: 404 Not Found

JSON Resource Descriptor (JRD)

null

But when I go to this link here: https://manifestingalignment.com/wp-json/activitypub/1.0/webfinger?resource=acct%3Aaevisia%40manifestingalignment.com

It appears that there is information that is defined through activitypub and the webfinger. I don’t know if this means it is supposed to be working or not but maybe you have more insight on if this is relevant or not.

Also, when I look into the .well-known folder, it doesn’t look like any files were created at all from the WebFinger plugin that would give a path to connect with the plugin.

So if it isn’t an issue with SSL conflict, and the file just isn’t generating in the .well-known directory, is there anything else that could potentially cause this issue?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by aevisia.

Hey @aevisia the plugin does not create any folders. The .well-known/webfinger path is a virtual path, like the pretty-permalinks of WordPress. You can try to re-generate the permalinks by pressing the save button on the permalink settings page (you have to change nothing). Sadly I can not help in your case, because the URL https://manifestingalignment.com/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct%3Aaevisia%40manifestingalignment.com fails on the Web-Server level, otherwise you would see an (404) error of WordPress. To debug the Web-Server issue, only your Host could help.

I just contacted someone from hostinger, to maybe fix this issue. I hope they will answer soon.

It looks a bit like hostinger is prohibiting all .well-known links (at least for virtual paths)

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Matthias Pfefferle.