I use wefwef which is now voyager never had this issue.

Never actually chosen a language.

Many of the subs are empty because they were either created by squatters wanting to be uber mods of many subs or by the current reddit mods in case they wish to migrate in the future.

Website I can’t speak to as I use the app which I’ve had no issues with and is updated daily.

I’m also kinda lost on instance but I’m in lemmy.world and I seem to have all the important subs/whatever I want.