Subscribe pending? - sh.itjust.works

What does it mean and how do I fix it?

I believe it just means that the instance you tried to subscribe to hasn't responded to the federation request yet. Just wait a while and it'll resolve itself, assuming they haven't blocked you or something (and assuming that instance isn't down).
And if it doesn't work itself out in "a while", it's safe to click pending to unsub and then try to resub again. Though doing this a million times in a row while lemmy.ml is groaning under load is probably not helpful.
I'm guessing you're seeing this on non-local communities? I think it means you're local server hasn't started copying and caching that content yet. I haven't taken a look at that part of the code yet, so just a guess.
Yep. Mostly lemmy.ml for some reason, yet it's not every community.
Yeah, I have several pending subscriptions on lemmy.ml as well. It definitely seems to correlate with how overloaded the instance is.
Some servers, like lemmy.ml or beehaw are aching under their respective load, so everything takes a while. Couldn't even log into lemmy.world, which is why I wandered off to sh.itjust.works
I love this community and I hope it continues putting people off with its name.
The name and logo make it extra awesome :D
Yeah haha, if anything I think it's an attractor
I signed up because of the name. Seemed like my fellow smartasses would be here.
I just spam the button until it works. This tactic hasn't failed me yet.
It means the server has too much load, spamming it isn't going to help that. You can just leave it like that and it'll show up in your communities as pending until it gets loaded.
Yes I know that, but perhaps the messenger pixies are dancing in my favor?
This did not work for me ;-(
I'm sorry. Perhaps it's anecdotal after all.
I've had pending subscriptions for 5 days now. Are things overloaded that badly?
Try cancelling and trying again.
Yep that did it. I had to do it like 5 times but eventually got subscribed. Thanks!

From what I gathered (that is, an internet search), it’s a glitch. Lemmy IS just a prototype that is being put through the meat grinder with all the Reddit refugees.

In my experience? It doesn’t even make a difference. You’ll see “subscribe pending” communities on your sub feed like normal.

If you unsub and resub a few times it should work anyway.