@alan@www.wolfandraven.blog yeah, I'm attempting subscription from activitypub.space, it looks like the follow is sent through but the Accept fails signature verification... maybe.

Last attempt was 23:06 EDT or so

Just from another server (bb.devnull.land) :

2026-07-28T03:17:41.391Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/send] Successfully sent Follow to https://relay.argentwolf.org/inbox
2026-07-28T03:17:41.412Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Starting signature verification...
2026-07-28T03:17:41.413Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Signature verification failed.
2026-07-28T03:17:41.414Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [middleware/activitypub] HTTP signature verification failed.
2026-07-28T03:17:42.942Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Starting signature verification...
2026-07-28T03:17:42.944Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Signature verification failed.
2026-07-28T03:17:42.945Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [middleware/activitypub] HTTP signature verification failed.
2026-07-28T03:17:45.462Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Starting signature verification...
2026-07-28T03:17:45.464Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [activitypub/verify] Signature verification failed.
2026-07-28T03:17:45.465Z [4567/175118] - verbose: [middleware/activitypub] HTTP signature verification failed.

Log's pretty vague, but maybe that helps. I'll try to find another relay running ActivityRelay to test. Might be an incompatibility with that style entirely, who knows.

@alan Thanks for the extra info! Looking into it now!

@julian Thanks for the logs. I found two issues with the relay, working on fixing them! Once I get rc6-3 up and live, I'll be looking for another follow attempt!

Sadly no dice, but I will try again with some better logging in the morning. I'm curious to see what your Accept looks like <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f937.png?v=c7cc56fe415" title="" /> but I guess if it's failing signature validation then it's not even getting to that part.

@julian It looks like it worked to me.
bb.devnull.land shows as subscribed to the relay on relay.argentwolf.org.

But I see it's gone now.

The relay now accepts the NodeBB server actor, but both its outbound Accept and reciprocal Follow received HTTP 400, after which NodeBB sent Undo(Follow). Could you send the verbose bb.devnull.land logs from 2026-07-28 03:57:37 through 03:58:25 UTC, especially any activitypub/verify, middleware/activitypub, dispatcher, schema-validation, or inbox error lines? Also please include the exact NodeBB version.

I did, yes. I think the Follow is sent and now correctly processed by your relay, but the Accept that it sends back is not signed correctly. I will attempt to debug.

@julian I've identified that it's (currently) a key format issue. Nodebb wants the x509, not the legacy PKCS key format. Working on fixing that now.

@julian It's working from my test nodebb instance. Try to reconnect please and see if it's successful.

@alan@friendica.argentwolf.org well, good news, I'm now a follower... but bad news, that's not right behaviour on my end, so that's firmly on me <img class="not-responsive emoji" src="https://activitypub.space/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f613.png?v=c7cc56fe415" title="" />

But at least it sounds like I'm able to receive your activities now!