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Blogger Issuing Diagnostic Codes

In the not so distant past, and not nearly rarely enough, you might be updating, or possibly viewing, your blog, and you'd see a monolithic error message that frequently made many bloggers want to tear their hair out by the roots.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.
If you've been blogging for any past amount of time, I'm sure that you remember seeing that, more than once.

On January 17, 2007, all of that ended. Blogger replaced that single and incredibly annoying message with an almost infinitely large series of error codes. Very simple, that. Each possible failure point in the Blogger codebase was assigned a different bX- code, essentially replacing the old "We apologize for the inconvenience ..." message with individual failure point codes.

For all of their simplicity though, many bloggers don't seem to see the forest for the trees.
it's disheartening to see that the bx error code problems are still existing.
Many bloggers seem to associate some major significance to these codes. Some even compile a list of codes, as if listing enough codes will help them understand the secrets of the universe. Letting somebody "look at my code list" is of special social significance.

There is no special meaning to any code.

Long ago, people who worked with the major computer operating system in the universe (think "IBM" mainframe) would maintain a library of code manuals. A significant quantity of these manuals would be incredibly large glossaries of system termination codes. Each code would have a special significance, such as attempting to enter a date with an alphabetic character. Seeing a given code for a specific database entry, a database engineer would look up the code in the reference manual, then patch the record in error accordingly, and the problem would be solved.

The bX- codes have no similar significance. They are simply unique codes, which identify each individual point of abnormal termination. There's no secret glossary assigning the cause for any single code, just a pointer to the individual termination point in the Blogger codebase. When enough bloggers report a given code, a Blogger employee simply examines the termination point, and using the diagnostic information hopefully provided by the bloggers problem reports, makes a diagnosis of the problem cause.

In some cases, this will lead to solution of a given problem, and cessation of that bX- code from further observation. However, just as repairing an aged engine with a few new parts, this may fix an immediate symptom but other parts are sure to fail later. You will see one bX- code become popular for a while, then be replaced by others. This isn't a random scenario - it's natural.

Just because one bX- code stops being reported, and another (or a few more) different codes are now reported doesn't necessarily mean that Blogger fixed one problem, and caused another (or a few more). They may have just defined a few more termination points (with additional codes) in an effort to further isolate a problem. Updating your list with a few more codes doesn't mean you are doing anything to help.

Let Blogger maintain the bX- codes, and stop wasting everybody's time with claiming to know what some codes mean, and how to get a special key sequence that lets you bypass the error code screen.

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