# Federation Troubleshooting **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Tags:** troubleshooting, writefreely, writeas\ **Created:** [December 14, 2018, 4:12pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227 "2018-12-14T16:12:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lhl](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/lhl/32/103_2.png) [@lhl](https://discuss.write.as/u/lhl)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/23 "2019-02-04T20:27:39Z")
I can confirm that all is as it should be. ---
**Author:** ![danielbowen](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/danielbowen/32/39_2.png) [@danielbowen](https://discuss.write.as/u/danielbowen)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/24 "2019-04-15T14:48:14Z")
A post was split to a new topic: [Unable to follow blog](https://discuss.write.as/t/unable-to-follow-blog/545) ---
**Author:** ![cjeller1592](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/cjeller1592/32/128_2.png) [@cjeller1592](https://discuss.write.as/u/cjeller1592)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 3:28pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/25 "2020-01-17T15:28:50Z")
Here is a Federation issue from @gendor regarding turning off Federation on Write.as: > I tried to disable federation on my blog while I was busy importing a bunch of posts and didn’t want to spam everybody’s timeline. I unchecked "Federation `@gendor@gerritniezen.com"` and clicked “Save changes”, but it kept on federating, and when I refreshed the customize page the checkbox was checked again. ---
**Author:** ![oldyogre](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/oldyogre/32/789_2.png) [@oldyogre](https://discuss.write.as/u/oldyogre)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2020, 11:33pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/26 "2020-11-18T23:33:30Z")
When I try to subscribe to my blog, it shows that I have sent a follow request, but I don’t know how to approve the follow request. My blog federation is @oldyogre@write.as, but I don’t know how to sign in anywhere as that identity and approve follow requests. I didn’t think I would have to, as the blog is public. Any guidance? ---
**Author:** ![sozialwelten](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/sozialwelten/32/1399_2.png) [@sozialwelten](https://discuss.write.as/u/sozialwelten)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2021, 6:17pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/27 "2021-11-26T18:17:14Z")
> [@matt](#): > > Any other issues you’ve run into? I’m not too happy with the text that is being shown on Mastodon as a preview. I do not understand what the rules are for text to be displayed on Mastodon. Does it always show the first paragraph? Why doesn’t it seem to work with links. Why can the text be over 500 characters, when it is a continuous paragraph? All in all it seems unpredictable unfortunately. I understand, that Mastodon is responsible for how it shows these write.as articles on the fediverse while using Mastodon. Still: is there a way to implement something in cooperation with Mastodon that could trigger the preview to end? Like an html code? Or some more information on when the preview is cut off and when it isn’t. Thank you 🖤 ---
**Author:** ![tobenschmidt](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/tobenschmidt/32/1593_2.png) [@tobenschmidt](https://discuss.write.as/u/tobenschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 1:01am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/28 "2022-11-03T01:01:13Z")
Federation doesn’t work for a while with my blog. I’m not sure but I believe it stopped working when I switched the domain from [tobenschmidt — Write.as](https://write.as/tobenschmidt/) to [https://tobenschmidt.writeas.com/](https://tobenschmidt.writeas.com/). Disabling federation and enabling it again didn’t help. Any hint what I can do to make this work again? ---
**Author:** ![tobenschmidt](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/tobenschmidt/32/1593_2.png) [@tobenschmidt](https://discuss.write.as/u/tobenschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2022, 6:36am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/29 "2022-11-08T06:36:47Z")
Ok, federation with my blog seems to be working again. I did a test with a very short blog post without images and it was posted to the fediverse as expected. I don’t know if this has been fixed or it worked because of the very short blog post. I’ll check this with the next regular blog post. ---
**Author:** ![atyh](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/atyh/32/2369_2.png) [@atyh](https://discuss.write.as/u/atyh)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2022, 5:27pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/30 "2022-11-08T17:27:55Z")
Attempts to follow being processed as follow requests rather than just following. With no way to approve a follow request in the writefreely interface. I thought it might be Pleroma specific, so I tested it on Mastodon, with the same result. I dug through the settings, the config.ini, the forum, and even the github code. Cant figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![paulusm](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/paulusm/32/3327_2.png) [@paulusm](https://discuss.write.as/u/paulusm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 5:11am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/31 "2023-10-26T05:11:24Z")
Same issue at @atyh here. I can see the profile in Mastodon but not the posts when I follow my Writefreely account. Not sure yet how to troubleshoot, but will try to look in logs. ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/32 "2024-05-11T12:09:33Z")
I’m in a tangle with managing my fediverse presence, please help 🙄 First issue: How (or where) do I edit the text displayed for a write.as account, for example this account. ![Screenshot 2024-05-11 at 12.53.28](https://discuss.write.as/uploads/default/original/2X/8/86363eeb58d4746a58e33adeef0fc85c71a77631.png) Just like a regular mastodon account, I’ve tried to log in to mastodon instance @write.as with user identity @papers but this doesn’t seem to give me access to an account. ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 12:10pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/33 "2024-05-11T12:10:06Z")
Second issue: How do I read any replies to toots on this account? Specifically any DM responses. Obviously, I’m interested in reading any comments folks make on my blog posts. Don’t I need to log in as \, to read responses to ‘me’? Sorry to be so naive. ---
**Author:** ![PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/paoloamoroso/32/1659_2.png) [@PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/u/PaoloAmoroso)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2024, 8:50pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/34 "2024-05-11T20:50:51Z")
You can edit the description in your Write.as Customize page `https://write.as/me/c/YourUsername` under `Description (optional)`. As for comments, in short, you can’t read or interact with replies on your Write.as account. In [this post](https://journal.paoloamoroso.com/how-to-comment-on-paolo-amorosos-blog) I explained why and described a workaround @matt suggested. That said, Matt is planning to improve managing federated comments: > **[Matt Baer (@matt@writing.exchange)](https://writing.exchange/@matt/111970780309679911)** > > For federated comments on @write\_as, I'm gonna start with just exposing Remark.as comments to the fediverse. This should at least get the basic data there, though you still won't receive replies from Mastodon etc. > > Then I'll work on receiving replies... > **[Matt Baer (@matt@writing.exchange)](https://writing.exchange/@matt/112287862704377016)** > > Attached: 1 image > > Still in development, but got #ActivityPub replies working! Once it goes live, replies from the fediverse will show up on Remark.as. > > Last major issue is to add some basic moderation. Already got instance-level blocking done so I... ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/35 "2024-05-15T16:44:37Z")
> [@PaoloAmoroso](#): > > ou can edit the description in your Write.as Customize page `https://write.as/me/c/YourUsername` under `Description (optional)`. Thanks @PaoloAmoroso . I do have a short description that appears in blog posts. But I was hoping to do full profile management, as for a normal Mastodon account. Thanks for yr workaround. I guess I’m not too much interested in _Remark.as_. I’d rather be able to exploit my existing Following in Mastodon. So I’ll check out @matt 's work in progress, thanks. I do manually maintain a [mirror site](https://papers.wiki.foprop.org) in **federated wiki** for my [write.as blog](https://write.as/papers/) . And I might try to manually maintain a comments/dialogue page there. After all, I’m not expecting huge amounts of dialogue traffic, so manual reposting (from email, from Mastodon) might be sufficient? I have an interest in exploiting federated wiki as a public form of quite tight mutual ‘narrowcast’ collaboration through following and forking, designed to do different things than the ‘broadcast’ medium of a blog. ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 4:54pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/36 "2024-05-15T16:54:18Z")
> [@mike\_hales](#): > > I was hoping to do full profile management, as for a normal Mastodon account. Am I just being dumb? Is it possible for me to log in to Mastodon as @papers@write.as? And then (apart from managing my Mastodon profile for the blog) read all replies and favourites, and reply to them, from my write.as blog identity? All, inside normal Mastododon-space? Via an alias. ---
**Author:** ![PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/paoloamoroso/32/1659_2.png) [@PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/u/PaoloAmoroso)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 4:59pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/37 "2024-05-15T16:59:31Z")
It’s indeed not possible to sign into Mastodon as your Write.as account. And Write.as doesn’t provide profile management features beyond editing the blog description and setting the profile image via the favicon. ---
**Author:** ![nigel](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/nigel/32/3690_2.png) [@nigel](https://discuss.write.as/u/nigel)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 10:06am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/38 "2024-05-16T10:06:04Z")
Nope. They are completely separate accounts on separate servers. ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 11:59am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/39 "2024-05-16T11:59:49Z")
so… if someone replies to my blog’s toot, where do the replies go? Can anybody read them? The answer may well be in @matt 's posts above. But they’re a bit opaque to me. I’ll look at them again . ---
**Author:** ![PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/paoloamoroso/32/1659_2.png) [@PaoloAmoroso](https://discuss.write.as/u/PaoloAmoroso)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 12:13pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/40 "2024-05-16T12:13:58Z")
If someone replies to your blog’s toot the reply shows up only in the commenter’s Mastodon account and nowhere else. ---
**Author:** ![mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/mike_hales/32/31_2.png) [@mike\_hales](https://discuss.write.as/u/mike_hales)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/41 "2024-05-16T12:15:28Z")
ok, beginning to understand > **[Matt Baer (@matt@writing.exchange)](https://writing.exchange/@matt/112406132299907656)** > > @liaizon@wake.st so Remark.as is really just an experimental UI layer for commenting on Write.as-hosted posts. Behind the scenes, everything is Write.as/WriteFreely. > > When it's fully fleshed-out, I think all the social functionality you see in... Seems like this is close to release? 😀 It would make sense (to me) to run fediverse toot replies, to a blog’s fediverse toots, in the fediverse (ie Mastodon). But if, instead, fediverse replies are channeled into write.as space (as with a normal, non-federating blog) that’s rational, and workable. @matt How will your average fedizen, replying to a write.as toot, know that the conversation has branched into another space? ---
**Author:** ![nigel](https://discuss.write.as/user_avatar/discuss.write.as/nigel/32/3690_2.png) [@nigel](https://discuss.write.as/u/nigel)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 9:22am UTC](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227/42 "2024-05-17T09:22:21Z")
The same way you know it’s federated with any ActivityPub server I expect: most folks don’t. Some software (I know Akkoma does) shows the platform icon next to the username of a post, so that would make it clear that it’s not mastodon. I say Mastodon, because most folks using alternate platforms are a bit more aware of the various options. Oh wait, mastodon just displays a post link anyway instead of the post content. So I guess that would be clear enough 🤦 I personally like having replies/comments below a blog post - with me as the blog creator able to approve or remove posts as required. Threads of comments would be welcome, to me. [Previous page](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227.md?page=1) [Next page](https://discuss.write.as/t/federation-troubleshooting/227.md?page=3)