The Real Blogger Status

The "Forgot?" blog control recovery wizard is sensitive to team blogs - and to the access level owned by the existing members in the team blogs. If the team has only one administrator, that one administrator cannot delete or demote himself , using the dashboard Permissions wizard. If the one administrator deletes his Blogger / Google account, on the other hand, a team blog is left with no administrator. You can't have a blog for long, without an administrator. So when a team blog member requests recovery, "Forgot?" checks the team blog members - and if no administrator is found, sends recovery email to all of the authors .

We see many complaints, worded in various ways, about "missing" blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . My blog is not on my dashboard! or I logged in this morning, and I see Create your blog now You are not an author on any blogs yet ... Help! There are many reasons for these reports - and not all may be what they seem . The causes of "missing" blogs vary widely, from blogs deleted by Blogger (or the owner) to blogs owned under another account (the claimant or a third party). Chances for recovery may vary, similarly.

Occasionally, we see real confusion, involving the email address. I can login to Blogger - but I can only change my email address, or remove myself from the blog. This is a blog owner who is logged in as a blog author, who now sees just two dashboard menu pages. Posts Settings In many cases, this will be a blog owner who is trying to recover access to the blog , having forgotten the account name - or who is inadvertently using a second Blogger account . Running afoul of the Blogger / Google blind login , the would be owner has just managed to login - but sees a very empty dashboard. And, the confusion may not end there.

Blog owners continue to forget the account name and / or password of their Blogger accounts, then demand alternate recovery options. Every week, we see the reports in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , claiming that changing their email - or getting a new phone - caused somebody to unfairly lose access to her / his blog. Too many blog owners refuse to understand that the email address and phone number are simply backdoor accesses to their Blogger accounts .

Every week, we see the anguished cry of blog owners, who don't have access to maintain, or publish to, their blogs. Help me! My email address changed last month, I dropped my phone into the sink, and now I can't sign in to my blog! If you look at the fine print, you see the full story.

We see periodic concern, expressed in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , over apparent visitor access to blog maintenance wizards, using the Quick Edit icons. I found this entry, in my StatCounter log. How did this person get access to my blog? http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7834826019588534175&postID=890014875501476492&from=pencil Was my blog hacked? This may not be a justified reason to panic, however. One may first wish to check that Stats (or whatever visitor log is in use , in this case) is properly configured, to not track your own activity . The link that you see may reflect your activity. Even if the visitor log entry in question does not appear to reflect your own activity - even when allowing for the vagaries of geo location , you may still do well to remain calm.

We have known, for a while, that every Blogger blog has to have at least one administrator . That rule is enforced by the Permissions wizard, which gives any administrator the choice to demote or remove any administrator, from the Permissions list - but only when there is at least one other administrator in the list. When the Permissions list is displayed, if there are at least two members with administrative authority, each administrator entry, in the list, has a link to demote or remove that member. If there is only one member with administrative authority, there is no such link - and that member can be neither demoted or removed from the list. As long as only the Permissions wizard is used, to demote or remove administrators, this article would be meaningless (see the above link). But, there is another way for administrators to be removed - and this occasionally leaves blogs with no administrator.

The question of disposition of blogs, left behind by deceased blog owners, comes up in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , from time to time. As Blogger blogs - and similar Google products - become mature, and as more people who publish Blogger blogs become susceptible to old age and death, this problem will become more critical. As recently as 2010, in order to assume control (or request deletion) of such a blog, Blogger required only a faxed copy of the death certificate. In 2013, Google refined the recovery process, and added additional requirements for account recovery.

We see occasional confusion in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? about gaining (or re gaining) access to a given blog. I made my buddy an administrator - and now, I can't control the blog. Who do I contact to get this corrected? and I was reader of a blog which is now private. Can Blogger provide me contact to the blog owner? Not everybody realises that Blogger does not provide blog access / membership control.

Every day, we get various impassioned pleas from blog owners (active, former, and would be), in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , requesting assistance. How do I get access to my blog, that I published 10 years ago? and How do I keep my blog from being visible in Google? and How do I contact the owner of a blog that was published 10 years ago (and never updated)? All of these are valid concerns - and answering one question sometimes involves referring to various other concerns .

The discussion about Blogger account and blog access recovery, and authentication requirements, never ends. Account / blog ownership recovery is not at all a simple issue. Occasionally, we see the extreme cases, and the frustration . I made two blogs for school in im pretty sure 2009, so three years later I am no longer at that school, and it was registered with that school email, therefore I have no access to this email anymore, and the email account has most likely been deleted. I really need to delete these blogs because there are photos of people on there and they dont want them there. My personal opinion is that the solution is obvious. If you cannot maintain either primary access (account name and password) or secondary access (access to a working email account) to your Blogger account , you should not publish a Blogger blog. My opinion is not always well received, in Blogger Help forum. Some people have criticised me for my apparent lack of compassion, for the improvident ...

If you believe some of the discussions in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? , a lot of Blogger blog owners are lining up at the gate - or will be doing that , starting 2011/12/05 23:59. For a number of technical and operational reasons, we’ve decided to finally end our support for migrating legacy accounts and blogs after December 5, 2011. Some discussions include speculation about deletion of blogs owned under legacy accounts, which will result in their personal dream URL being made available to them, finally.

I've explained the issues about Blogger account maintenance, and blog access, so many times. I've described it as possession being the law , or as reading between the lines , or even as responsible practice - and some people just don't understand these issues. Some people try to describe their problem, when they have a problem, as Blogger unlawfully stealing their possession. Blogger won't give me access to my blog - do I need a court order to get access to my blog, and to my content? At first glance, they have a point - Blogger has to give us access to our blogs, or they cease being our blogs. If you look closer though, there's a flaw in that reasoning.

A few months ago, a few Blogger blog owners were given important news which may not have pleased them. For a number of technical and operational reasons, we’ve decided to finally end our support for migrating legacy accounts and blogs after December 5, 2011 .

Almost daily, we see a confused query in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken I lost ownership access to my blog. Can Blogger restore my access? Not every blog owner realises that the Permissions wizard has a safeguard, ensuring that every blog will always have at least one administrator. Anybody who is the former owner is now a member of a team blog - and at least one other team member is an administrator.

Now that support for "legacy" Blogger accounts (accounts created before 2005, without Google account association) ends after this month , blog owners are trying to catch up. Some blog owners are reporting that, when trying to use the "Forgot?" wizard , they are seeing bX-2uckqc Blogger Support has accepted responsibility of the problem, and announced yesterday We're investigating reports of users seeing bX errors when using the recovery form found at http://blogger.com/forgot.g (Update 10/13): This code has been resolved . I was finally able to recover my blogs. >> Top

The process of transferring control of a blog , from one Blogger account to another, involves 4 distinct steps, using 2 different Blogger accounts, alternately. If you do any step out of sequence, or if you fail to properly keep the 2 Blogger accounts separate, you end up with a blog successfully controlled by neither account. There are 3 ways to keep the two Blogger accounts separate - and the easiest yet most reliable is to use two separate browsers.

We see evidence of confusion, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , from owners of private and team blogs. My friends have contacted me this week (only one week after receiving the invitation to my blog), saying that they could only access it once with the invitation - and now cannot sign in. These blog owners fail to observe that membership invitations have an expiry date, to prevent unwanted sharing of invitations .

We see this naive question, from time to time, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I? . I added my friend as an administrator, to my blog. He changed permissions, locked me out, and now I don't have access. Can Blogger get my blog back? Here, we have bad news for you.

Like problems with people who can't remember their GMail email addresses , we're seeing complaints from blog owners who never bothered to remember their non GMail based Blogger account name or password, and who now cannot login to Blogger . Help me! My previous email account is defunct, and now I can't access my blog! Everybody makes mistakes - and some mistakes must be resolved by the blog owners.