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Diagnosing Problems With Blogger Comments

One monolithic complaint, frequently seen in Blogger Help Forum, is
My readers can't comment on my blog.
This complaint, as with many like it, could benefit from some structured diagnostic practice.

Start by observing the complaint level that's currently endemic in the forums. Sometimes, Blogger will cause their own problems (yes, this is known to happen), and you'll see a flood of complaints. Here, it is helpful to be familiar with the normal complaint level.

If you wait a while, say an hour or maybe a day, and don't see an increasing flood of complaints about comments, maybe the problem is with your blog, or with your computer (your readers computers).
  • Make sure that you have not enabled Google+ Comments.
  • Check the commenting settings on your blog.
    • Check the dashboard Settings - Posts and comments, for the blog.
    • Check the "Blog Posts" wizard. Look at the Post Page Options, and the comments link caption option (the 4th option). Make sure that option is enabled - and make sure that the caption hasn't been changed to something arbitrary, blank, or outrageous.
    • Edit the individual posts, and check the "Reader comments" setting, under "Post settings" - Options. If you disabled comments, for a single post, all subsequent posts will have comments disabled also - until you reset the per post setting.
  • If nobody can comment on your blog, check for post template corruption. If you're using a third party commenting platform, like Disqus, and you just migrated the blog to a custom domain - or changed the URL for any other reason, verify the URL in the Disqus setup or the blog code.
  • If you (and other administrators) can comment, but no guests can do so - and if you're using CAPTCHA (word puzzle) verification - check for proper comment form size.
  • If you have a private blog, note that selecting "Only members of this blog" for "Who Can Comment?" will leave your Designated Readers unable to comment. Readers are not blog members, for commenting permissions.
  • If some readers can comment on your blog, and others can't, have the readers with problems check their Blogger accounts and security settings.
  • If the problem is with your blog, and a solution is not immediately apparent, spend a few minutes and objectively evaluate your choice of comment form style, against the abilities of your readers.
  • If you are unable to comment on other peoples blogs, again check security filters and settings on your computer.
  • If neither of the above apply consistently, consider that you have a compound problem. Now, it's time to try peer support, and Blogger Help Forum.
Whatever you do, be methodical and objective. And when you do make your report in Blogger Help Forum, be a good blogger. Make your problem report complete, concise, and polite.

Comments

Alice Law said…
Dear Nitecruzr,

Hi, sorry to bother you! After I have accidentally clicked on the 'Link to post' button in other blogger's blog, I found I failed to view all the comments from my fellow bloggers in my full-page comment form! However I still receive comment notification from my fellow bloggers through email... please help!

Thank you!

Regards,
Alice Law
Nitecruzr said…
Alice,

Comments are a big problem, in general, today. I think Blogger has a lot of work to do, to fix the overall problem, before they'll be looking at any individual problems.
Tami said…
I notice that on your blog in the other pages, you have what appears to be multiple posts on these static pages. How did you do this? I notice after each "post" there are tags and comments. I cannot do this on my pages. Thank you!
Tami
Nitecruzr said…
Tami,

Those are not Pages gadgets, and the links are not to static pages. They are custom pages / posts indexes, and they link to various label searches and to main pages in other blogs.
I would also like my comments to show up like yours. I have a little blip that says 3 comments which you have to click on to read them everyone else's comments are right there to be read right below the post. It shouldn't be that hard to do! Nancy
Nitecruzr said…
Nancy,

You really should ask this in a new discussion in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, so we can diagnose the problem more effectively.
Vincy said…
This is a test
Velma said…
We're still experiencing commenting problems that seems more to do with Blogger bugs than anything our readers or writers are doing wrong.

Readers from different continents (North America, Europe, Africa) report problems with multiple browsers: IE, Firefox, and Opera. We don't know of any reports involving Safari, but that may be coincidence. Many reporting errors are seasoned bloggers themselves.

http://sleuthsayers.blogspot.com/
I can't reply or comment on my own blog. I try to. I type the words, choose an ID, and hit enter, and it just refreshes back to the comment window, never leaving my comment. It only seems to happen on my blog since 7/11/14. No settings have been altered. I do not have G+ comments enabled.

Suggestions?
Not that I am disagreeing with you, but if it's a cookie issue, how is it I can comment on other blogs, like this one. Wouldn't the cookie issue block me from commenting then, and showing up as me, as well?

And how would I go about correcting it?
Nitecruzr said…
Aidana,

An excellent question!

This blog uses a full page comment form. 99% of the problems, with commenting and filters, involve blogs which use the embedded form.

The Full Page form is least vulnerable (not totally invulnerable), of the 3 forms. Embedded, Full Page, and Pop Up forms are all vulnerable, to some extent.

But the problem also involves the clients (ie, the blog readers). Every different computer has a different combination of security accessories - and every different security accessory will have its own filters - and be subject to updates, by the provider. And every different filter will be triggered by different components in Blogger comments forms.

Both blogs subject to country code alias redirection, and those using custom domain publishing, will be affected by the filters too. Both involve blogs not accessed as "blogspot.com".

Do you see the number of possible combinations of problems?

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/11/blogger-layered-security-and-you.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2011/01/technical-sophistication-of-your-blogs.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/01/we-are-at-mercy-of-every-anti-malware.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2012/02/country-code-based-aliases-will.html

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2014/02/custom-domain-publishing-will.html
Wow ... I never really thought computers were that reliant on other computers.

However, thank you. The problem was resolved by changing my spybot settings of blocking third party browser cookies.

Thanks for all of the help :D

A

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