Search is basically limited to what's already federated to or hosted on this server. However if you go find the community you're interested on another server you can look for it from here with a full "path" and it will start federation to this server.
When you get the name on another server, it might look like one of the following (could be Kbin or Lemmy. I don't know if this Lemmy group even exists):
https://kbin.social/m/dwarffortress/m/[email protected]https://lemmy.world/c/dwarffortress/c/[email protected]@[email protected][email protected][email protected](not common)[email protected](not common)
In Kbin you would search for these as:
In Lemmy they would be searched for as:
Keep in mind that the following apply:
- your server has to have not blocked federation from the sever hosting the group
- the server hosting the group has to have not blocked federation from your server
- if your server has never federated with the other instance before it will say nothing was found, but silently start the federation process in the background. Once it has federated (no visible indication, time to do so is based on server load), the group will show up in search results
EDIT: add quoting to block autolinking full text
EDIT2: Clarify federation is opt-out
That seems to be "normal" behavior for both Lemmy and Kbin currently. When an instance that isn't already federated to the server is queried, it starts the federation process which can take awhile. Unfortunately no indication in the GUI seems to happen when it does this versus simply being unable to find it.