A reminder to move to smaller instances for a better experience
A reminder that this constant advice people blindly parrot to install and flock to smaller instance has now created something like 1000 new servers in 50 days that are poorly run and already going offline as quickly as they went online.
Github Issue 2910 is the kind of PostgreSQL problems that the developers ignored for months and people still defend the developer choices to have the code doing real-time counting of every single comment and post for numbers nobody needs to needs done in real-time.
PostgreSQL is voodoo to this project, they do everything they can to avoid going to !postgresql@lemmy.ml community and asking for help, learning 101 about how to fix their SQL TRIGGER logic like Github Issue 2910 spelled out June 4.
I know you are salty about how you are getting treated over at GitHub, but you should look at it objectively, Blaze is clearly advocating that people join top instances that’s not lemmy.world or lemmy.ml, not nobody instances that only have 1-2 users. They certainly aren’t going offline as quickly as they come online.
I know you are salty about how you are getting treated over at GitHub
No, it isn’t about my personal treatment. It’s about the cultist attitude you have towards Lemmy and the leaders without any ability to see what they are doing behind the scenes with the code. I know cults and religious faith is how many people enjoy the world.
A 2-line SQL TRIGGER removal takes about minutes to fix. It was crashing the entire site constantly. They sat by and asked for donations of money.
No, it’s everything to do about your personal treatment, stop deceiving yourself. Just because you claim you have autism doesn’t immediately grant you the right to be entitled. You don’t get your way so you spam create multiple issues to call out the developers, and you expect people to believe it isn’t personal for you?
If you aren’t happy with the Lemmy developers, fork the project, run your own fork, convince others to use your fork. It’s a FOSS world, no one has to do what you say, even if you claim to be autistic.
What is a SQL trigger and why is it taking down servers? Do you know how to fix it?
A 2-line SQL TRIGGER removal takes about minutes to fix.
Then go fix it and open a PR
A reminder that this constant advice people blindly parrot to install and flock to smaller instance has now created something like 1000 new servers in 50 days that are poorly run and already going offline as quickly as they went online.
And this will always… always be the biggest problem in the FOSS community.
“I dont like X, so I’m going to leave and make my own version of X”
So userbases get spread thin, manpower gets spread thin, developers get spread thin, and the user experiences degrades for everyone until it pushes them back to the bullshit websites and products.
For the rest of your post, I don’t know what that has to do with people aggreating on LW.
And, factually, the project leaders telling everyone to create 1000 new instances and shutting down sign-up on Lemmy.ml caused more performance problems.
They had a bug in their PostgreSQL TRIGGER logic where 1500 instances were updating + 1 comment and +1 post counting instead of WHERE site_id = 1, a single database row. So each new Lemmy server that went online made the table larger and crashes more frequent on lemmy.ml
The amount of disk writing by lemmy was ignored
They’ve neither told people to create 1000 new instances, nor have they closed signups on lemmy.ml.
Again, you should really stop revolving your entire life over one GitHub issue, and go touch grass.
The developers of Lemmy seem to make every effort they can to avoid using Lemmy itself to discuss their !postgresql@lemmy.ml learning 101. They have made massive mistakes in SQL TRIGGER logic that they avoided to such a degree that their social motives are in question now. Github Issue 2910 was opened June 4, almost a month before the Reddit API deadline, and they ignored it. Just like they hang out on Matrix Chat and don’t use Lemmy their own self to discuss code.
They have cultivated a kind of voodoo attitude towards PostgreSQL where people using Lemmy won’t actually scrutinize the Rust code or PostgreSQL tuning parameters.
This is exactly what federation is meant to solve: power in numbers without the centralization. Is that so hard to understand?
Sometimes I question why people not in favor of the decentralization are commenting on a Fediverse platform. Why not go to Tildes, Squabbles or another centralized alternative? There is plenty of fish in the sea.
A reminder that this constant advice people blindly parrot to install and flock to smaller instance has now created something like 1000 new servers in 50 days that are poorly run and already going offline as quickly as they went online.
I am always advocating for any of the top 25 instances that are not Lemmy.world or Lemmy.ml
For the rest of your post, I don’t know what that has to do with people aggreating on LW.
For the rest of your post, I don’t know what that has to do with people aggreating on LW.
aggregation refers to the lemmy database tables, site_ aggregates, community, person. The SQL TRIGGER logic lemmy_server uses that has been the source of so many crashes the past 60+ days.
I mean having a bunch of new servers is not a problem. Just choose one that’s been up for a while and more stable.
Please come to lemmy.today if you like a small fast instance with no downvotes.
Also federates with all other instances.
I don’t understand the appeal of no downvotes. Do you really think it’s a good thing that trolls, bigots, dangerously wrong answers, general assholes, spam, etc can’t be downvoted? I won’t pretend downvotes aren’t misused sometimes, but their existence is critical for quality control.
Edit: wait, I just saw you post in another thread as an “enlightened centrist”, so I guess that explains it.
I saw it being misused on reddit a lot so I like it. It was common for people to use it as a “i disagree” button, which created a big echo chamber. I read that many people felt that there was no point even posting to a discussion since they knew they would be downvoted.
I think reddit really turned to shit, and I was hoping Lemmy could take another direction here. You can still upvote to support your opinions riding to the top without needing to downvote someone.
I understand this is a hot topic for many though. I guess it depends on what your previous experiences at reddit has been.
And also you mention the word quality control. I’m not sure the majority is some kind of a quality control. I rather hear people’s opinions and make up my own mind. It would feel weird to have other people push down comments I may want to read.
Not to mention the other instances have it enabled. So anytime federated with them can downvote them, but they can’t downvoted each other.
I can’t seem to find the source right now (so take this with a grain of salt), but someone did check the Lemmy codebase to look into this scenario - if an instance has downvotes disabled, it won’t propagate incoming downvotes.
I know that on my instance which does have downvotes enabled, if I check out any post from Beehaw (who does have downvotes disabled) there are zero downvotes on any comments as far as I can see.
Now I’m assuming this would only apply on communities hosted on that (or any downvote-disabled) instance, using my previous example if someone from Beehaw were to comment on a community originating lemmy.ml, I believe they could still have their comments downvoted since lemmy.ml would be “hosting” the comment, so to speak.
It’s not my instance, I just use it and like it. The instance lists only one admin. Is it common with several?
With very small instances (less than 100 members), yes, it’s usually the case.
The main risk is the admin disappearing overnight, which already happened in the past for some quite big instances (vlemmy.net)
Smaller instances are usually worse, in my experience
Lemmy’s machine-generated ORM SQL and hand-made flawed PostgreSQL TRIGGER logic is so bad, bloated. The developers on GitHub brag about “high performance”. It’s unbeliable.
In reality, small instances work because it has so many SQL performance problems that it mostly only is stable with little posts and comments in the database. They dd everything they could to avoid using Lemmy itself to discuss !lemmyperformance@lemmy.ml topics and hang out on Matrix Chat to avoid using the constantly-crashing servers they created.
If you go to a server with no users creating comments and posts and only has a tiny amount of data, it does crash a lot less.
You’re spamming this all over this thread. Why don’t you go create a PR instead? If you think you have a better solution then go discuss it with the people who have the full context and try to get it fixed instead of complaining here.
Why don’t you go create a PR instead?
It’s amazing how you have fallen hook line and sinker into believing that the problem is difficult to solve. It’s the agenda that is the problem.
They have people like you who will not read actual code to see that they only care about the fact that “Rust is cool programming language” and crashing code doesn’t get any priority.
They even started a new front-end Rust application this month, because they don’t care to bother with the core of the site, PostgreSQL doing INSERT and SELECT statements to load comments.
It’s amazing how you have fallen hook line and sinker into believing that the problem is difficult to solve. It’s the agenda that is the problem.
If the problem is easy to solve, then go solve it, open a PR, and come back here once you’ve done so.
If you’re going to signal that something needs to be done, and you want people to join you in supporting that belief, then actually put something forward that people can get behind. What would me getting angry alongside you actually accomplish? If there was a PR then the community could go and say “Here is a solution, here’s why we think it’s worth merging” and a discussion could actually be had.
Instead you’re just giving rhetoric about how they don’t want to solve this without any evidence, actually creating a PR and having it rejected would be all the anyone needs to see to support your opinion, so go do it.
They have people like you who will not read actual code to see that they only care about the fact that “Rust is cool programming language” and crashing code doesn’t get any priority.
I’ve have merged PR’s in the Lemmy repos. Don’t assume you know anything about me or my position, because you don’t. I don’t have any particular stance on Rust and if this is actually an issue it’s one I’d like to see resolved, so go open a PR and get the conversation started instead of whinging here.
They even started a new front-end Rust application this month, because they don’t care to bother with the core of the site
Are you referring to this repo that Dessalines forked and hasn’t made a single commit against? That hardly seems like they’re abandoning the current frontend and more like a dev messing around with various tech as we all do.
PostgreSQL doing INSERT and SELECT statements to load comments.
If you know what’s wrong, and you know how to fix it, then either put up or shut up. Go make a PR and fix the problem and show us that they rejected the PR because they’re not interested in improving performance. There’s folks like Phiresky actually making meaningful contributions to the backend to help improve Postgre performance, something both dessalines and nutomic have said they’re not well experts in. Be like Phiresky, actually put your code where your mouth is.
Lastly, I don’t know if you were aware of this, but the Lemmy devs don’t owe you anything. Even less so if you’re not actually contributing code or money to help move this project forward.
Oh geez, why would the Lemmy developers want to do any kind of discussions with you over at the !lemmyperformance@lemmy.ml community, which you moderate?
I see you think that their behavior has only been since June 2, 2023 when I created my account.
The problems with them avoiding Lemmy, “eating their own dog food”, to discuss !postgresql@lemmy.ml have noting to do with me. They hang out on Matrix Chat and do not ask for Rust or PostgreSQL help to their constantly crashing code.
Your style of arguing is to say I wear glasses and have “4 eyes”, childish. You obviously can’t go see they created a new Rust front-end on Github all on your own … and that it was not me personally who created GitHub issue 2910 on June 4, 2023 - almost a month before the Reddit API change.,
Is it the pro-China stance that you like about the developers?
Matrix is a better discussion platform than Lemmy, as one is messaging focused, and the other is a message board. Why are you against Matrix? There’s nothing to discuss on !postgresql@lemmy.world because as far as that community is concerned, it’s dead.
You call me childish when you were the one that retaliated against the developers by creating rubbish issues? Ironic.
What’s with you and your obsession with China? From how much are accusing people of being pro-china, you sure love being on @lemmy.ml, the instance run by the developers.
You’re rocketderp based on your instability I’m guessing? Looks like your the only one that is nonsensical in that thread. Your PR isn’t a PR. You were rushing to someone that was being helpful but you still acted like a child with your advise of GitHub bugs and PRs and not using them properly. The other person in agreement with you at least is calm and rational. I’m guessing you never worked on a group project before or have had anyone disagree with you. Your commits broke the pipeline. Someone even tried calling you down, but you wouldn’t listen.
You aren’t the victim here. You’re the bully.
You’re rocketderp based on your instability I’m guessing?
Yes. My name is Stephen Alfred Gutknecht. It is clearly detailed here on my profile that I am “RocketDerp” on GitHub.
Looks like your the only one that is nonsensical in that thread.
Issue 2910? The word “nonsense” is being discussed about a Lemmy TRIGGER on June 4, 2023.
I’m guessing you never worked on a group project before or have had anyone disagree with you.
You would be guessing wrong. Since late 2019 I am in constant mental anguish and barely surviving. My communications is a constant struggle and I openly disclose this so that it is understood, I am not attempting to cover it up.
I’m guessing you never worked on a group project before
The “i’m guessing” game. And I note you can’t actually cite the Github issues by number (2910) or keep details here in fact. A lot of “guessing” going on.
based on your instability I’m guessing?
“guessing” again. Should I guess you do not know how difficult or easy it is to remove a TRIGGER in PostgreSQL that is causing server crashes?
You aren’t the victim here.
Why do you think this is about “me”? I haven’t donated money to the project or had blind faith in the developers.
You’re the bully.
I’m beyond frustrated that they seem to be going so far out of their way to have servers crash that their motives for doing so need explanation. “Social hazing” is the best answer I can come up with. I’ve now outright asked why they are dong it, because the pattern of behavior with trying to let server crashes has been going on now for months.
I have to admit that it’s amazing the number of people they have attracted with the server crashing. It’s been a social experience in some ways like Elon Musk is doing with Twitter. Perhaps it bothers me when other people actually seem to enjoy it. That seems to be the hiveMind reaction here. In that sense, if it is “social hazing”, it has worked very well.
No.
The feature you suggest be ripped out is one that many people like. I’ve seen people say they hate Mastodon because “Likes” are only counted on the local server and they feel it’s useless. You can’t just suggest rip it out without a fix in its place.
Do we even know the read/write operations of the database are what’s pulling it down when it crashes? Sure it’s not the best code I’ve seen, but on large instances it still manages quite the uptime. Without insight into the cause of the crashes, you can’t honestly say “this, this right here.” Could it help? Probably. Do you need to suggest someone enjoys murdering people because they don’t immediately implement something? Probably not.
Just because you can’t think of another reason why they didn’t listen to you, it doesn’t mean that the one you thought of is correct. That’s not how logic works. It’s narcissistic to believe that you can think of every explanation for something that’s happening.
Quoting myself from a previous post:
First of all, it’s really fine to stay on LW for now, no need to rush anything. But if at some point you have some time for this, then read the following.
So, to pick your instance, you can have a look at https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list, filter by “1m” to see what are the most popular ones. As you can see, with a 27433 monthly users, Lemmy.world is by far the most popular, which is why you might experience some issues from time to time.
You should have a look at the next instances on the list. Short story: lemm.ee, sh.itjust.works, lemmy.one, sopuli.xyz and reddthat.com are solid choices.
You are looking at instances with quite a lot of people (the more people help with filling your “All” feed), just not the most populous one (lemmy.world), the original one (lemmy.ml), and instances that are too specific, either due to country or specific focus.
Long story:
spoiler
- lemmy.ml is the original insance, also quite crowded, not really the best choice
- lemm.ee can be nice, you can have a look at it and see how fast it is for you. The admin communicates a lot and is very helpful.
- sh.itjust.works had some rough time in the last few days. You might also not like the name, that’s okay.
- beehaw.org does not federate with the big instances, so if you go there, you will be in their own space. It can a valid choice, but please have a look at their guidelines first, they tend to moderate a lot. Can work for you, or not.
- feddit.de, lemmy.ca, discuss.tchncs.de, feddit.uk, aussie.zone are country specific instances, so probably not interesting to you if you are not from there
- lemmynsfw is a NSFW instance, probably not the one you want to move to
- programming.dev is an instance focused on programming
- lemmy.blahaj.zone is a pro queer instance
.
To migrate your settings (including subscriptions and blocked instances), you can use that script: https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim
I think there is a huge misconception many people have that a larger instance is more likely to stay around, but due to the nonlinear costs involved in hosting fediverse instances this is not true.
Basically there is a sweet-spot around a few thousand (~2500) members where costs are low enough for a single admin paying things out of their own pocket long term is possible, but also enough members willing to occasionally donate or contribute otherwise to cover costs.
If anyone’s looking, my instance is open for everyone and I plan on supporting it long-term. https://lemmings.world
To be honest, I know it’s a controversial view, but I would almost like to see Ruud and the LW admins block registrations for a while, along with a communication “Have a look at those other instances, they are well managed, you can access all of Lemmy just as well from there”
I’m not looking forward to 5 years from now, where instances like this are the mastodon.social of federated reddit-likes. As much as they should block registrations, I don’t think they will. …but I have a hat on stand by, just in case I need to eat it.
LASIM author here, ironically on my own alt: Just an FYI that support for Lemmy 0.18.3 is not yet out, but keep an eye out for it soon (I have it working on a branch but I need to test it more before release).
This is the first breaking API change since it’s creation, so here are the limitations:
- Old version (0.1.2) will only support API 0.18.1 and 0.18.2
- New version (0.2.0) will only support 0.18.3 (and above until there are more breaking API changes)
- Profiles downloaded with 0.1.2 (and below) will automatically be converted to work with 0.2.0.
So that all means:
- You can use the old LASIM to migrate between 0.18.2 Lemmy instances
- You can use the new LASIM to migrate between 0.18.3 Lemmy instances
- You can use the old LASIM to download from an 0.18.2 instance then use the new LASIM to upload to a 0.18.3 instance
- You cannot use the new LASIN to download from a 0.18.3 instance and then the old LASIM to upload to a 0.18.2 instance (unless you are comfortable doing some manual work editing the JSON file so “old LASIM” understands it).
This will be true of every release with breaking API changes.
EDIT: PR is out. Once it builds, I’ll publish a new release! https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim/pull/21
EDIT 2: Release is published! https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim/releases/tag/v0.2.0
Thank you for the heads up! You might want to add that to the ReadMe on your Github
Removed “and above” from page and instead added a note to always get the latest version if your version isn’t listed as supported explicitly.
Thanks for all your hard work on this. I’ve used lasim to transfer my subscriptions to my other accounts on other instances when the lemmy.world downtimes happened last week. I love the portability of the tool.
geddit.social is a another good server, I have alt there. It’s run by @stux@geddit.social who has his own hosting company and also hosts mstdn.social.
Fwiw, sh.itjust.works is a horrible name, but a great instance lol.
What’s funny though, I’m getting beehaw posts in my all feed since yesterday. No idea if they’ve refederated with us, or if it’s an artifact of connect (my app of choice), or what,
Interesting. You are still on the list of their blocked instances, so I’m not sure: https://beehaw.org/instances
Must be some kind of weirdness with the app then. Thanks for looking at that!
