Mastodon Imports fail with error

[obenland]

Quick summary

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/functions.php:557

Stack trace: 
#0 /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/functions.php(538): Activitypub\extract_recipients_from_activity_property('bto', Array) 
#1 /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/functions.php(608): Activitypub\extract_recipients_from_activity(Array) 
#2 /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/wp-admin/import/class-mastodon.php(287): Activitypub\is_activity_public(Array) 
#3 /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/wp-admin/import/class-mastodon.php(247): Activitypub\WP_Admin\Import\Mastodon::import_posts() 
#4 /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/wp-admin/import/class-mastodon.php(82): Activitypub\WP_Admin\Import\Mastodon::import() 
#5 /var/www/html/wp-admin/admin.php(365): Activitypub\WP_Admin\Import\Mastodon::dispatch() 
#6 {main} thrown in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-activitypub/includes/functions.php on line 557

See https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-mastodon-beta/page/2/#post-18701387

Steps to reproduce

Try to import a mastodon zip file.

Site owner impact

More than 60% of the total website/platform users

Severity

Minor

What other impact(s) does this issue have?

No response

If a workaround is available, please outline it here.

No response

[Jiwoon-Kim]

Question:
Isn't the Mastodon import feature primarily intended for archiving purposes — similar to import-from-Facebook — rather than for actual Fediverse account migration?
If it’s about data sovereignty, wouldn’t that be something more appropriate for Jetpack to handle, rather than the ActivityPub plugin?
https://wordpress.com/support/import/import-from-facebook/

For example, in the case of a PeerTube migration, there could be dependencies related to VideoPress and the user’s hosting plan, right?
https://wordpress.com/support/import-from-youtube/

[pfefferle]

Why not? https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/#export

[Jiwoon-Kim]

There’s nothing inherently impossible about it, but I think profile redirection and data import/export are slightly different in nature.
In this case, it’s not really about transferring data ownership between servers via the ActivityPub protocol — it’s more like copying data between platforms.
So, I’d say this is somewhat separate from the Fediverse itself.

If WordPress were able to change an author to a Mastodon account and modify the object’s origin accordingly, that would definitely fall within the scope of the ActivityPub plugin’s role.

[pfefferle]

But that is exactly what Mastodon recommends in their Move document!?

[Jiwoon-Kim]

Hmm… let’s imagine WordPress has actually implemented a real forum-style Group Actor, and a Lemmy user joins that group.
Now, suppose that Lemmy user decides to migrate their account to a WordPress account — in that case, I think the Move activity-related FEP could potentially apply.

That said, what’s certain for now is that there’s still no officially recognized single source of truth regarding account migration.
As far as I know, I haven’t seen anything fully standardized or formally defined about this either in the official specification or in any FEP.

[pfefferle]

Now you are mixing up a lot of different flows. This is not about the Move command itself! That needs to be discussed somewhere else!

The point is, that there is no other way to migrate Account data and posts other than Import/Export.

[Jiwoon-Kim]

When we typically create interactions between WordPress and Mastodon, it usually starts with following our own account.
As a result, I assume that the remote Activities and Objects generated from our Mastodon account would already be accumulated in the WordPress inbox.
Then, if we export data from Mastodon and import it into WordPress afterward… wouldn’t that lead to duplicate objects being created?

[pfefferle]

It is about your own profile, why should that data be in the WordPress inbox? How likely is it, that a user has a WordPress blog and a Mastodon Account, to use them to talk to themselves?

[Jiwoon-Kim]

In fact, Mastodon currently doesn’t support exporting media or posts — only follows and bookmarks are practically transferable during migration.
And those are simple enough that they can be handled manually if necessary.

And the archive feature was never designed for federation purposes in the first place, was it?

[Jiwoon-Kim]

So if the purpose of importing Mastodon posts and media into WordPress is archiving rather than actual profile migration,
it might actually make more sense to assign them to a permanent inbox or tag them under a remote profile instead.