Mastodon: follower migration: getting "new account is not back-referencing this account" error

[Maltimore]

Tried to set up account migration. I set up the back-reference from the new account ([email protected]):

then tried to move my followers to the new account from my old account ([email protected]):

And I'm getting the "new account is not back-referencing this account" error. Note that I took care to get the characters case-sensitive-wise correct.

Expected behaviour

Followers should've been moved.

Actual behaviour

Followers not moved.

Specifications

Both instances run Mastodon 3.0.1. Firefox 70 on Kubuntu 18.04.

[trwnh]

you need to set the account alias in both directions.

[Maltimore]

@trwnh that's what I did!
I now even set up an account redirect from the old account to the new account. It still does not work.
edit: First of all, thanks!
Ooh now I get it! Wow, the wording is very confusing. In order to create an account alias FROM my OLD account To my new account, I need to click on "To move FROM another account TO this one, first you need to create an account alias", so the opposite of what I want.

[bascht]

@Maltimore did you get this resolved in the end? I'm stuck with the same "is not back-referencing this account" error message while both old and new account have each other set as an alias now.

[Maltimore]

Yes! I got it resolved and it worked beautifully. But I've said it all in the last comment (before yours).
I still consider this a bug and think one of the maintainers should look into it.

[bascht]

@Maltimore Oooh – it just took a while for it to recognise the account alias on the other side. Now it also worked for me. There might be some caches involved.

At any rate, +1 for the UI issue here – it should list a proper "X isn't an alias of Y" error message.

[trwnh]

Accounts are cached for up to 2 days or until Update Person activity is received, so yes, it would probably be a good idea to refetch the remote account before checking for alsoKnownAs

[ccoenen]

I have been trying this for a few hours. Wording around this is not clear. Also that there's a cache involved is really not helping. Could the cache be invalidated automatically when trying to migrate?

[TheEvilSkeleton]

@Maltimore Oooh – it just took a while for it to recognise the account alias on the other side. Now it also worked for me. There might be some caches involved.

At any rate, +1 for the UI issue here – it should list a proper "X isn't an alias of Y" error message.

I created a merge request https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/13746. Hope they accept it.

[Maltimore]

Thanks @TheEvilSkeleton, but that's just part of the problem. This message is wrong:

It says: "To move from another account to this one, first you need to create an account alias." But what I actually need to do, is to do this on the old account and alias the new account.

[TheEvilSkeleton]

But what I actually need to do, is to do this _on the old account_ and alias the _new_ account.

Really? I thought I had to alias the new account to the old one. That's how I transferred my old account to the new one yesterday

[Maltimore]

Maybe this was a bug that was fixed in the meantime then. Or it didn't work when I tried back in October due to cache issues, and it was just a coincidence that it then worked when I set the alias in the forward-direction too. Anyways, I guess I'm going to close this issue then, given that you successfully migrated your followers yesterday.

[TheEvilSkeleton]

@Maltimore though what @trwnh said:

you need to set the account alias in both directions.

i'm guessing that you have to do both? i don't remember if i aliased the old account to the new one though, but since he said that, i think that i aliased the old account to the new one also, so i think that i should clarify that too. (IMO you should also reopen the issue because it still isn't clear yet)

@trwnh do we still have to alias in both directions?

[Maltimore]

Reopened @TheEvilSkeleton, Thanks for looking into this in detail.

[Gargron]

It says: "To move from another account to this one, first you need to create an account alias." But what I actually need to do, is to do this _on the old account_ and alias the _new_ account.

No, wrong. Create alias on new account pointing to the old account. On the old account, you just go straight to the "move to new account" screen and it works.

[Maltimore]

Okay, in that case the reason that it didn't work for me at first must've been caching issues. Closing again then :)