I've been self-hosting synapse for 6 years (? before vector) with small active group of about 30 non technical users. You've helped me to set up synapse all those years ago. I am super grateful for that and for your work.
But we've had issues over the years
Some issues i thought are happening because we are not always on the most up to date synapse (my problem) and clients expect version of the master instance but it seems happening even on the root instance:
- Verification issues that are impossible to understand even for me. Often it fails even you go through the process.
- In past year huge increase in amount of notifications. Everytime i log in i am greeted with "Review where you’re logged in Verify all your sessions to ensure your account & messages are safe".
- Some my users enabled e2e and randomly locked self out of rooms because they log out somewhere or updated client and couldn't back in.
All my users have similar problems and actually started avoid e2e on matrix now. It's shame because most of them are now also on Signal because they want e2e.
Other issues:
- I had to make special video tutorial for users to be able to register and log in at our own instance. They keep trying to log into matrix.org instance. Custom instance seems like something second tier in clients. It would be really nice if instead "login to matrix" vs "use custom server". It would be login to your server with multiple public servers as options by default and + button to add custom servers. More like you add services/logins in ios or something. It wouldn't feel like discrimination.
Overall i feel like there is some duality in Matrix goals. On one hand it markets federation and decentralization but on other hand it promotes matrix.org so it looks like is the only instance. It would be cool to support different servers to get some diversity (like this https://www.hello-matrix.net/public_servers.php is not on matrix.org page).
But we've had issues over the years
Some issues i thought are happening because we are not always on the most up to date synapse (my problem) and clients expect version of the master instance but it seems happening even on the root instance: - Verification issues that are impossible to understand even for me. Often it fails even you go through the process. - In past year huge increase in amount of notifications. Everytime i log in i am greeted with "Review where you’re logged in Verify all your sessions to ensure your account & messages are safe". - Some my users enabled e2e and randomly locked self out of rooms because they log out somewhere or updated client and couldn't back in.
All my users have similar problems and actually started avoid e2e on matrix now. It's shame because most of them are now also on Signal because they want e2e.
Other issues:
- I had to make special video tutorial for users to be able to register and log in at our own instance. They keep trying to log into matrix.org instance. Custom instance seems like something second tier in clients. It would be really nice if instead "login to matrix" vs "use custom server". It would be login to your server with multiple public servers as options by default and + button to add custom servers. More like you add services/logins in ios or something. It wouldn't feel like discrimination.
Overall i feel like there is some duality in Matrix goals. On one hand it markets federation and decentralization but on other hand it promotes matrix.org so it looks like is the only instance. It would be cool to support different servers to get some diversity (like this https://www.hello-matrix.net/public_servers.php is not on matrix.org page).