When typing or trying to use the ! it never works. I have to go to the communities from my instance then find it then I can see it and subscribe. When i logged out for testing i couldn't do anything either. is this normal. or are the servers full right now since the migration from Reddit?
If you're the first person on your instance to look up that particular sub (community) from a different instance, it will take 10-30 seconds to before it shows up in your search, and you might need to hit search again. Or, after your first search, go to Commities -> All and search again, it should be there immediately
It's a known bug, the developers are looking to streamline the process
Don't know. I'm new here. I created my sub already. I think even I posted this when I didn't know how to use lemmy. Now I'm up and about using it like a pro 😃
Yeah I found that just searching for the URL of the community would show it, while searching for [email protected] wouldn't, even though both will federate the community from a different instance.
I haven't tried that way because it seems very tedious to do on mobile so this is how I do it:
I go here https://browse.feddit.de/ copy the link (by clicking the name) and put it in the search bar. Sometimes does it take 30 Seconds. But it is pretty quick. But I may click twice just in case.
I'm having a lot of trouble trying to understand why you attempted, what happened, and how that violated your expectations. But check out https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/61827. It's the gold standard guide for how to discover new communities in ways that DO work.