Let's say a user wants to join a dedicated /kbin instance for audio fiction. There are a variety of magazines on that instance, by genre, title, new releases, etc. It's a nifty theoretical instance. ๐
But this user wants to do more than just interact with the magazines and people on that instance. They want to use their account on this /kbin instance to follow accounts not on that server. So maybe @fraser@m.universetoday.com because they are quite interested in Astronomy, @effinbirds@mastodon.social because they like funny birds talking shit, and @ernest@kbin.social because they are interested in learning more about /kbin. Again, they want to follow all three of those accounts with the account they made on this not-so-mythical audio fiction-centetric /kbin server.
Can they? How do they search for, find, and follow those accounts because those accounts are not (yet, at least) "connected" to the unnamed (it's hotaudiofiction.social) /kbin instance?
And if they can, how would they see the posts from those un-connected accounts? Like, where is the "timeline" view in /kbin?
It works now, and I believe that's general fediverse behavior.
From what I've read, it's normal that a first attempt at accessing a user or magazine from a not-yet-federated instance WILL fail. But your instance will start federating then, and subsequent attempts are most likely going to succeed (as this one did for me).
I don't know though if this behavior (instance starts federating after failed access) happens when accessing the url directly too, or if it's specifically built into the search (the magnifying glass in the top right).
So no, it's not a configuration error I think.