Biggest conclusion I can confidently say is that certain relays are not compatible with certain clients. I had this issue with Damus when the new update came out and this was never resolved. #[1] was talking about this too, but I think it was mostly dismissed. There is a relay compatibility issue which nobody seems to understand 🧐 nostr:note1xl9jxuq5zv4fe0a3wsjh6zc7gfc3r9pww69tuks2w7vhyeul6g7sal43jm
Discussion
I dont think this is a relay issue. Your follow list is emitted as an event, and clients are (supposed) to pull the most recent list emitted.
If the client doesnt get the newest one, due to a change in relay lists, or a bug in the client’s logic, and you follow someone new, the new follow gets added to the older list, which is then broadcasted to your current relays, and becomes your newest list. The follows added to your list between the one your client used and now become orphaned at that point.
In absence of an authoritative source of truth about what your “current” follow list looks like, there is a lot that can go wrong here.
For instance:
* using a desktop client on a computer with an incorrectly set clock can cause these events to look younger or older than they really are.
* significantly changing your relay list could change what the newest list seen by the client is.
* a client failing to update your follow list when it sees a newer event could result in an older list being used, then becoming the new list when you next follow someone.
One simple mitigation is to back up your follow list on a regular basis.
Clients should also notify users when their follow list shrinks between usages of an app, possibly with the option to restore the last list seen in that app.
Services like https://nostryfied.online also help by making sure your events are posted to as many relays as possible.
https://metadata.nostr.com/ allows you to make backups of your contacts list which can then be reverted.
Sorry for the data dump, but I hope its at least helpful. Absent a centralized source of truth, which is true of Nostr by default, there will always be unique challenges in keeping authoritative lists synced between apps.
Are you on my relay? I may be able to help you pull an older event and get some of your follows back.
I added your relay. I tried this backup before and wishlist but not sure if it worked. I did it from mobile, but trying again from desktop
When did you add my relay? You world have needed to be on it before losing followers.
Just added, so maybe next time 🤷♂️
If you are friendly with any of your other relay ops, they may be able to do this for you. Now that I think of it, that would make a nice web app.
#[4] might be able to help?
I think #[3] summarized it well but there are lots of weird edge cases/race conditions with follow lists and relays.
There was also a client putting npubs in kind3 events instead of hex for a while which was causing client parsing issues and broke several user’s follow lists.
I know nostrgram.co used to have a way to view your kind 3 event changes and restore old ones. I know there are several others.
Thanks for the response. I’m trying out nostrgram 🤙