FAQ / Friendica

Common questions for Friendica:

User FAQ

Are there any clients for Friendica I can use?

Friendica is using a Twitter/GNU Social compatible API as well as a Mastodon compatible API, which means you can use any Mastodon/Twitter/GNU Social client for your platform as long as you can change the API path in its settings. Here is a list of known working clients:

Android

SailfishOS

iOS

Linux

macOS

Windows

Web Frontend

Why do I get warnings about SSL certificates?

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a technology to encrypt data transfer between computers. Sometimes your browser warns you about a missing or invalid certificate. These warnings can have three reasons:

  1. The server you are connected to doesn't offer SSL encryption.
  2. The server has a self-signed certificate (not recommended).
  3. The certificate is expired.

We recommend to talk to the admin(s) of the affected friendica server. (Admins, please see the respective section of the admin manual.)

How can I upload images, files, links, videos and sound files to posts?

You can upload images from your computer using the [editor](help/Text_editor). An overview of all uploaded images is listed at *example.com/photos/profilename*. On that page, you can also upload images directly and choose if your contacts will receive a message about this upload.

Generally, you can attach any kind of file to a post. This is possible by using the “paper-clip”-symbol in the editor. These files will be linked to your post and can be downloaded by your contacts. But it's not possible to get a preview for these items. Because of this, this upload method is only recommended for office or zipped files. If you want to share content from Dropbox, Nextcloud or any other filehoster), use the “link”-button (chain-symbol).

When you're adding URLs of other webpages with the “link”-button, Friendica tries to create a small preview. If this doesn't work, try to add the link by typing: 

[url=http://example.com]self-chosen name[/url]

.

You can also add video and audio files to posts. However, instead of a direct upload you have to use one of the following methods:

  1. Add the video or audio link of a hoster (Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud and anyone else with oembed/opengraph-support). Videos will be shown with a preview image you can click on to start. SoundCloud directly inserts a player to your post.
  2. If you have your own server, you can upload multimedia files via FTP and insert the URL.

Friendica uses HTML5 for embedding content. Therefore, the supported files are dependent on your browser and operating system. Some supported file types are WebM, MP4, MP3 and OGG. See Wikipedia for more of them video, audio.

How can I view Friendica in a certain language?

You can do this by adding the `lang` parameter to the url in your url bar. The data in the parameter is a ISO 639-1 code. A question mark is required for the separation between url and parameters.

For example if you want to see https://example.com/profile/example in German you have to add ?lang=de to the URL: https://example.com/profile/example?lang=de. When a certain language is forced, the language remains until session is closed.

What is the difference between blocked|ignored|archived|hidden contacts?

We prevent direct communication with blocked contacts. They are not included in delivery, and their own posts to you are not imported. However their conversations with your friends will still be visible in your stream. If you remove a contact completely, they can send you another friend request. Blocked contacts cannot do this. They cannot communicate with you directly, only through friends.

Ignored contacts are included in delivery - they will receive your posts and private messages. However we do not import their posts or private messages to you. Like blocking, you will still see this person's comments to posts made by your friends. An addon called “blockem” can be installed to collapse/hide all posts from a particular person in your stream if you desire complete blocking of an individual, including his/her conversations with your other friends.

An archived contact means that communication is not possible and will not be attempted. (Perhaps the person moved to a new site and removed the old profile.) However unlike blocking, existing posts this person made before being archived will be visible in your stream.

A hidden contact will not be displayed in any “friend list” (except to you). However a hidden contact will appear normally in conversations and this may expose his/her hidden status to anybody who can see the conversation.

What happens when an account is removed?

If you remove your account, it will be scheduled for permanent deletion in *seven days*. As soon as you activate the deletion process you won't be able to login any more. Only the administrator of your node can halt this process prior to permanent deletion.

After the elapsed time of seven days, all your posts, messages, photos, and personal information stored on your node will be deleted. Your node will also issue removal requests to all your contacts; this will also remove your profile from the global directory if you are listed. Your username cannot be reissued for future sign-ups for security reasons.

Can I follow a hashtag?

Yes. Simply add the hash tag to your saved searches. The posts will appear on your network page. For technical reasons, your answers to such posts won't appear on the “personal” tab in the network page and the whole thread isn't accessible via the API.

How to create a RSS feed of the stream?

If you want to share your public page via rss you can use one of the following links:

The RSS feed of your posts is available at 

example.com//feed/[nickname]/posts

For example the feed of the Friendica Support forum can be found at https://forum.friendi.ca/feed/helpers/posts.

The RSS feed of the conversations at your site, including your postings and the comments is located at 

example.com/feed/profilename/comments

Where I can find help?

If you have problems with your Friendica page, you can ask the community at the Friendica Support Group. If you can't use your default profile you can use an account at a public site list.

In case you do not want to set up another account on Friendica, you can also use one of the following channels to reach out for help:

Admin FAQ

How can I check if my mail setup works for Friendica?

Friendica uses the php mail() command which uses the servers abilities to send emails. Alternatively you can use an external SMTP server with the phpmailer addon.

If you encounter problems with the mail() command of php, you could try this guide to troubleshoot common issues with PHP Mail.

If your servers mail setup does not work, you can use the PHPMailer addon to use an external SMTP server.

Can I configure multiple domains with the same code instance?

No, this function is no longer supported as of Friendica 3.3 onwards.

Where can I find the source code of friendica, addons and themes?

You can find the main repository at github.com/friendica/friendica or git.friendi.ca/friendica/friendica. There you will always find the current stable version of friendica.

Addons are listed at github.com/friendica/friendica-addons or git.friendi.ca/friendica/friendica-addons.

Themes are available in the view/themes directory of the core repository. If you have created your own theme and want to promote it, please feel free to contact us! Older themes that are no longer supported can be found in a separate repository.

I've changed my email address now the admin panel is gone?

Have a look into your config/local.config.php and fix your email address there.

Can there be more then one admin for a node?

Yes. You just have to list more then one email address in the config/local.config.php file. The listed emails need to be separated by a comma.

The Database structure seems not to be updated. What can I do?

Please have a look at the Admin panel under [DB updates](/admin/dbsync/) and follow the link to *check database structure*. This will start a background process to check if the structure is up to the current definition.

You can manually execute the structure update from the CLI in the base directory of your Friendica installation by running the following command: 

  bin/console dbstructure update

if there occur any errors, please contact the [support forum](https://forum.friendi.ca/profile/helpers).

Can I customize the landing page of my Friendica server?

Yes you can! Create a file called home.html in the root directory of your Friendica installation. To add some styling to the contents of that page, you can use CSS which you can place in the home.css file.

  • Last modified: 2022-06-23 16:00