diff --git a/app/lib/webfinger.rb b/app/lib/webfinger.rb
index aa5bcbe2a7b..67c62a27269 100644
--- a/app/lib/webfinger.rb
+++ b/app/lib/webfinger.rb
@@ -61,6 +61,8 @@ class Webfinger
     raise Webfinger::Error, "Invalid JSON in response for #{@uri}"
   rescue Addressable::URI::InvalidURIError
     raise Webfinger::Error, "Invalid URI for #{@uri}"
+  rescue *Mastodon::HTTP_CONNECTION_ERRORS => e
+    raise Webfinger::Error, "Error performing webfinger query for #{@uri}: #{e}"
   end
 
   private
diff --git a/app/models/remote_follow.rb b/app/models/remote_follow.rb
index f9719b86707..1022b9a4df1 100644
--- a/app/models/remote_follow.rb
+++ b/app/models/remote_follow.rb
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ class RemoteFollow
 
   def acct_resource
     @acct_resource ||= Webfinger.new("acct:#{acct}").perform
-  rescue Webfinger::Error, *Mastodon::HTTP_CONNECTION_ERRORS
+  rescue Webfinger::Error
     nil
   end