I've been noticing a lot more hanging follow requests with/from Lemmy since upgrading to 4.1. It's not consistent, though -- some Lemmy sites continue to process them fine, and some don't. I initially thought it had to do with the Lemmy version, but I'm seeing both behaviours from 0.19.9, so... *shrug*.

@eeeee follows do need to be accepted, although it's configurable. Most software auto accepts, but delays in messaging mean sometimes the requests or responses get lost.

Cancel that follow and try again, and it might be accepted.

You see the settings cog because you're an admin on your instance.

Thanks, I tried unfollowing and following again, but its always the same.
On this instance it says following and my one it says 'cancel follow request' although the pop up box said 'You are now follwing etc'

Edit: I tried from an non admin account on my instance, that does the normal follow/unfollow, like here.

So wheres the code that makes it different for admins, as that doesnt make any sense to have it different?

@eeeee there's no difference in follows if you're admin vs non-admin.