Or why Lemmy is too much like hard work

The sole admin of the first instance I joined (which isn’t small) has gone missing. So it’s been defederated by some other instances. Then re-federated by some of them.

So about six weeks ago I made an account with instance two, which seems to be well run BUT updates to the latest version so it doesn’t work with any of the third party apps I use.

Which wouldn’t be an issue except the Lemmy web UI works horribly on mobile. There’s a PWA but that hasn’t been updated and won’t now authenticate.

So I joined a third instance but that seems to have completely disappeared without warning.

I’d join Lemmy.world but it has regular resource issues and downtime. Plus moderation issues.

App 1 hasn’t seen any development for over three months and now barely functions.

App 2 which is apparently the second most popular app now only receives emergency fixes when it won’t work at all

Apps 3 and 4 throw authentication errors on any instance running above 0.18.4 because the developers are re-thinking.

As a user it’s almost enough to send me to Reddit.

  • FelipeFelop@feddit.ukOPEnglish
    213·
    1 year ago

    None of those apps cope with the changes. Which were introduced about three weeks ago in beta so plenty of time to update.

    Liftoff hasn’t had an update in three months and doesn’t work properly with anything above 0.18.3 and get worse as the version number increases.

    • ribboo@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Avalon works fine for me, and was updated just a couple of days ago. Voyager works good as well, though not as frequently updated lately.

      • FelipeFelop@feddit.ukOPEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        Check the liftoff developers chat. They know it isn’t working properly but have had PRs failing.

          • FelipeFelop@feddit.ukOPEnglish
            11·
            1 year ago

            That also needs updating. According to a post on Lemmy.ml all apps will need updating for 0.19 Some changes are also in 0.18.5 so most apps will need an update to work properly. (you might not be able to Login but if you’re already logged in you’ll see your feed but not the list of communities. The app will have needed to test against 0.18.4b8 or higher)

            • russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.netEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              Not sure where the information about 0.18.5 having breaking changes came from. The 0.18.5 release is just the federated deletion fix that was cherry-picked in.

              0.19 will definitely have breaking changes though, yes. In the admin matrix group there were quite a few people talking about accidentally leaving their instances on the latest docker tag which includes all of those breaking changes and no way to downgrade due to the DB structure changes. Maybe you're hearing about it from them?

              I updated my instance to 0.18.5 yesterday and have no problems with any of the apps. Re-logged into Thunder and can see my communities just fine.

              • FelipeFelop@feddit.ukOPEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                I’ve been told that 0.18.5 includes the changes from 0.18.4b8 that caused the last round of issues with some apps needing to be updated (eg Voyager) For example, Liftoff didn’t update so will have issues with 0.18.5

                According to development chat they can test against it on a test instance but PRs are failing.

                • russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.netEnglish
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  Seems like discussion of the version numbers is getting mixed up then. I just logged out of Liftoff and logged back in with zero issues on my instance running 0.18.5.

                  As you can see in the GitHub link I posted in my previous comment, there's only one major commit difference between 0.18.4 and .5, which fixes deletions not propagating correctly through Federation when an admin deletes a post who wasn't a mod of the community (but still an admin of the community's main instance) in question.