In the search bar, put an ! before the community like this: !vitahacks@lemmy.ml
Also, wait ten seconds after hitting enter on the search, it might just be slow.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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You're right, it IS a bit slow! I tried it again with another community I'm interested in and after it said "no results" I kind of assumed it was done searching, but after 5 or so seconds the community eventually popped up. This happened while trying on lemm.ee through a browser, not through the app I was using.
I've read the "!" tip many times, but it just doesn't work when using the Android app "Liftoff" or the webapp "Voyager" (yet). But in those apps one can set a search filter for communities when searching for something.
What did work was pressing on the hyperlink you generated when you typed the community with an "!" in front of it, so I guess that's another way to reach a community. Anyways, thanks for all your help!
The issue here is that there's a system for searching that was built with website use in mind, but all of the mobile apps have implemented search in their own special ways (or in some cases not implemented it at all). So where a couple of months ago we were able to confidently point people in the direction of the ! search (which is explained in the sidebar of communities on remote instances, so again fairly clear for website users), now it entirely depends on what sort of interface people are using and tech support is more complex.
But the general gist of what's happening, so you understand what's going on:
Your instance doesn't know about a community hosted elsewhere until at least one person from your instance has done a search for it. So in this case with vitahacks being so small, you were the first to try and access it from lemm.ee.
As you've seen, being the first to do the search means you'll first get no results, but then your instance will pull in and index the new community so it shows up after a short and confusing delay. Once someone from your instance actually subscribes to the community, that's when it'll show up in the All feed for all your instance-mates.
The specifics are gonna depend on which app you're in on any given day but I find that understanding the "why" of it helps cut down on frustration at least a little bit.
p.s. Welcome to Lemmy!
A very interesting read, and indeed that's exactly what I observed! Once I pressed on the !vitahacks@lemmy.ml hyperlink that @odium@programming.dev created, I might have "unlocked" (indexed?) it for lemm.ee because from that point on it found the community every time I searched for it in the search bar, even without being subscribed to it yet. Or maybe someone else had already searched for it after reading my post and was patient enough to let the indexing initiate. Anyways, it works, thanks for your explanation, hope this helps someone else too!