Defederating servers / Blocking users from Fediverse

[crakila@community.nodebb.org]

Hello. :wave:

I have been trying to filter out some of the foreign language posts that come from the Fediverse.
I have been using the "Filtering" to defederate instances. (In most cases, these are single-user instance bot accounts.)
Even if I add in an instance to the list, and separate it with a line break, posts from that instance will still appear.
Is it because I am using a relay?

Example: I have fairy.id listed as a server in the Filtering box.

But their posts still appear.
(I added the server to the Filtering box yesterday. Restarted NodeBB in that time)

Additionally, how do I block/perma mute a Fediverse account for the entire website without blocking the entire instance?
Seems like 'Delete Account' is the way, but perhaps I am missing something obvious, and I am just blind, lol.

[julian@activitypub.space]

That's a really good question! It might be that posts are still leaking through due to some other reason (maybe relays, maybe something else).

I'll have to audit the instance deny-list code and double check.

As for blocking individual users, there is no way to do this instance-wide yet. However that is a good idea, I will look into implementing this.

[julian@activitypub.space]

FWIW deleting an account won't block the user from coming back. If you navigate back to their profile (via direct link or clicked link, or if they're mentioned, etc.) NodeBB will just pull their account info in again.

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

Crakila Can you please try again with the latest develop commit? I updated the blocking logic to handle both activity retrieval and sending. Prior to this, it was only checking the domain on incoming activities.

I don't know whether this would explain why the posts from fairy.id still show up for you, but it's worth a shot.

[crakila@community.nodebb.org]

julian I switched over to the latest develop commit last night and left it to see if that post from fairy.id would reappear.
Now, posts are not coming into recent?cid=-1, except for profiles that I am following and any boosted posts from those followed profiles.

I have hit 'Rebuild & Restart' and even done ./nodebb stop and ./nodebb start

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

Crakila odd, nothing from relays anymore? I didn't touch that code :thinking_face:

That's the only other way content would come in besides follow relationships...

[crakila@community.nodebb.org]

julian After playing around with the different branches over the last day or so, It seems that new posts are not coming in from relays.
'Remote Categories' and followed profiles are working fine.

I reverted to the main v4.5.1 release and after an hour or so, posts started to come in, but not as many.
So before I went to bed, I switched it back to the develop branch. As of this morning, there are no new posts from relays.

I was able to get some logs.
I have seen the 'Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of ' before and ignored it since it posts were coming in.

2025-09-21T06:25:08.856Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert  (Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:28:52.515Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert 	(Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:30:08.120Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert 	(Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:31:41.071Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert 	(Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:33:25.827Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert 	(Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:34:48.177Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Could not assert 	(Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'startsWith')).
2025-09-21T06:37:08.556Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T07:24:43.908Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T07:39:49.680Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T08:41:10.163Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T09:05:09.607Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T09:12:26.511Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T09:57:06.940Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 
2025-09-21T10:12:10.390Z [4567/6524] - warn: [activitypub/notes.assert] Unable to acquire lock, skipping processing of 

[crakila@community.nodebb.org]

Sorry for double-posting:

I hadn't made any changes since my last post, but posts are coming in as normal now and I am still on the develop commit.
Very temperamental lol. Now to monitor it and see if I see any fairy.id posts.

[julian@activitypub.space]

crakila@community.nodebb.org ok! 😂

How many relays have you subscribed to, just wondering?

[crakila@community.nodebb.org]

julian@activitypub.space I am subscribed to 4 relays:

https://relay.minecloud.ro/actor
https://relay.publicsquare.global/actor
https://relay.infosec.exchange/actor
https://rel.re/actor

I did have others added that sat at 'Pending' for days (I guess some relay admin are not monitoring requests), but they have been removed.