The Real Blogger Status

An old joke from Virginia, USA (when I lived there long ago). Q: How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? A: At least 3. One does the work, the others reminisce how great the old bulb was. And so will go the updated one. Q: How many Bloggers does it take to migrate a blog to the New Template 2006? A: At least 3. One does the work, the others reminisce how great Classic Blogger was. All joking aside, there are still those who need to move their blogs into New Blogger 2006. To do this, simply use the " Claim your blog: Get started with the new Blogger " Legacy Claim wizard. And, having moved your blog into the future, you probably should look at the template. If you've been admiring the shiny XML based gadgets on many Blogger blogs, you're going to want a blog with a layout template . And after migrating the blog to a layout template, you'll want to check out the new Designer Templates , currently in Draft (Blue) Blogger . But there will, for a ...

The migration to New Blogger 2006 is in its final stages. If you haven't gotten the monolithic demand, you will any day. Move your account to use the new Blogger No "Please", no "Soon". You may, for a limited amount of time, have one last chance. There are two possible web site addresses, to login from. http://www.blogger.com/home , where you are forced to migrate. http://www.blogger.com/ , where, if you have an unexpired cookie, appears to still lead to your Classic dashboard. Let's see how long the latter remains operational. And don't logout, or you're done. If you have a blog with team relationships, you would be very much better off migrating NOW, while you can plan the migration properly . But before you get to this point, please organise your accounts - make sure that all account names and passwords are up to date. You won't even be able to migrate your blog to WordPress , if your account / password isn't up to date. Now, some of ...

One of the complaints about the mysterious problem codes is that we have no glossary to explain what they mean. All that we really need, though, is the ability to associate the individual problems with each other, and distinguish the different problems from one another. We don't care about the universe of all possible problems, just the problem that we're looking at right now. If we're looking at someone who's reporting a bX-wj8w1r , maybe we want to see everybody else with the same problem. So we search on bX-wj8w1r . We can see all of the cases found, examine the stated symptoms en mass, and see what the actual problem is. Since we know that nobody describes their symptoms the same way, seeing all of the reports of the same problem, together, is much easier if we use the code. One of the problems with problem analysis is that dissimilar problems get lumped together, but similar problems are never reported together. It's impossible to analyse "login pr...

Last week, Blogger changed their system to issue mysterious strings of characters , when specific problems are encountered. The "bx-" codes are cryptic and mysterious, and have motivated much speculation. Problem Census - Blogger can see how many people are experiencing a given problem, and better prioritise resource allocation, to solve each problem. Peer Search - Any of us can search for others with our problem. Solution Search - Any of us, or Blogger, can learn if anybody has discovered a solution to a given problem. Solution Report - Blogger can report a solution, more effectively, if one is found. Problem Census - Blogger can see how many people are experiencing a given problem, and better prioritise resource allocation. Problems with more people reporting will receive more attention. Peer Search - Any of us can search for others with our problem. Misery loves company. Solution Search - Any of us, or Blogger, can find out if anybody has discovered a solution, o...

The American author Thomas Wolfe said You can’t go home again Well, you can't go back to Old Template 2006 Blogger, either. Move your account to use the new Blogger Not a lot of choice there. OK, I'm going. The last time I'll see this. The last time I'll see this. Several tense moments later, the email popped up on my screen. Welcome to the new Blogger. The last time I'll see this. But how to log back in? Not from the old shortcut, I see. The last time I'll see this. DOHH. Just load the blog, now, and use the link on the Navbar. So now, the real work begins. All the shiny features. Where to start??

It's not just a migration, it's now a stampede . The option disappeared today , leaving in its place Move your account to use the new Blogger No "Please", no "Soon". So how did I get here, to post this? Well, there are two possible web site addresses . Use the one, wisely. Nope, there's only going forward , now. I have to update all of my newly migrated blogs with the shiny New Blogger template features, when I'm not busy helping with the stampede , that is. (Edit 1/26 13:00): Here is the first and only acknowledgment, to date , by Blogger. We are beginning to require a portion of Blogger accounts to switch to the new version of Blogger. This is necessary in order for us to soon be able to retire the old version of Blogger. The first time you see this message, you will have the option to skip it and access your blog on the old system, but after that you will be required to switch. (Edit 1/26 15:00): Publicly published instructions, in Blogger He...

I don't know what to say about the name Blogger Status - except that it must have been named that way on purpose. Or did it become that way because of the acronym? The chicken, or the egg? Who will ever know? I've been writing about Blogger Status for months. One of the problems with Blogger is The Silence . And The Silence never goes away . This is merely the episode of January 23, 2007. It would appear that some Blogger employees are at the beach this week. So the server outage of January 22 Where to chip in money... Help, I'm getting 502 errors... What is going on with these servers? never even made it onto Blogger Status . (Edit 1/24 12:30): Bet you saw this a bit too? Not even a day up. What we see is Blogger is undergoing unscheduled maintenance this morning. We hope to resume service shortly. and when it finally comes up, the BS Message of the day New Blogger has had troubles this morning, which you may have seen with slow requests and 502 error pages. No shi...

We see various problem reports in Blogger Help Group. My blog is gone. My blog is half gone. My blog is not found. I'm being told that I'm not supposed to see my blog. There's nothing there. All of these complaints may, or may not, come from any of several problems. Active Filtering Passive Filtering Local Filtering Network Problems Diagnosing The Problem More Information Active Filtering You may try to view your blog (or maybe go to Blogger, to setup your blog), and get 403 Forbidden This is, most likely, a Blogger problem (or a problem with your host, if your blog is hosted outside Blogger). You could get something like "403 Forbidden". It may say "Bad customer! Naughty!", or something similar. Some ISPs, possibly influenced by political pressure, are filtering some websites, or all of Blog*Spot . There are two ways of filtering Internet traffic. Each have different technologies, and different results. Active filtering. Passive filtering. Active fi...

Exciting news here. It appears that Blogger, in an effort to make it possible to handle the ever increasing problem level, is now issuing problem codes, rather than diagnostic messages, when specific problems are experienced. The old familiar, monolithic 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. appears to have been replaced by some very unique error codes.

In Blogger Help Group: Scheduled Blogger Outage Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 , Helper warns us Just wanted to give you all a heads-up that the old Blogger will be down for a couple hours tomorrow (Tuesday, January 9th, 2007). This scheduled outage applies to the old Blogger from 7:45am-9:45am PST. You will not be able to post to old Blogger blogs or access any old Blogger blogs on Blog*Spot during this time. We also will not be allowing any new accounts or new blogs to be created on the new Blogger during this outage. Google Groups will be also be undergoing planned maintenance on Tuesday the 9th. Accordingly, some features may be temporarily unavailable (including the Blogger Help Group). Old Blogger, New Blogger, and Blogger Help Group all down at the same time. Might be a good day to take off. >> Top

Until this week, if you wanted to have a Blogger blog, you had two choices - host the blog on Blog*Spot (as a subdomain of Blog*Spot.com), or host it offsite (with your choice of domain). Now, there's a third choice - have a blog hosted by Blog*Spot, but with the domain name of your choice . All of the features of New Blogger, under your custom domain name. But beware, this is yet another Beta product (if not by name, by nature), and various problems have been identified , to date.