The Real Blogger Status

Some blog owners and readers prefer to ignore recommendations in Chrome - and block cookies and / or scripts. Blocking cookies can cause problems with many Blogger features - and blocking scripts will cause problems with both Blogger and with Google , and with various other websites. If you want to use Blogger and Google effectively, you need to allow cookies to be installed , and to allow scripts to be run , on your computer.

In a separate project, I was updating this blog - and in previewing my changes, I observed the familiar demur We're sorry. This gadget is configured incorrectly. ... In the sidebar, underneath "Follow Me". That sight made me wonder if the Followers gadget, when viewed in the live blog, would again work properly - when recently, I had begun wondering if the gadget would ever work, again . And, when I investigated, I found my musings were correct.

Last week, Google turned off the long deprecated Google Feed API . Among many Blogger features that were affected , were 4 identified gadgets. Feed Newsreel Slideshow Video Bar Several days after the API was turned off, Google realised their mistake, and turned it back on again. The Newsreel gadget, unfortunately, remains out of service - and we have seen many reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue .

Several owners of large blogs (500 posts and up) are reporting problems with indexing, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I have over 2500 posts, in my blog. Each sitemap page, which should contain 500 posts, shows only 150 posts. This reduces my indexed posts tremendously! This blog owner did nothing to cause this problem. Upon investigation, we have discovered that both blogs using the classic feed based sitemap , and the current automatically generated sitemap , are missing sitemap contents, equally.

Most of us who compose pages and posts in HTML mode are accustomed to the annoyance of the (Page / Post) Editor HTML syntax checker. Proper HTML syntax depends upon correctly paired HTML tags. You enter an opening tag, without a closing tag - and within seconds, the syntax checker pops up and alerts you to your mistake. You then enter a closing tag, and all is well. This might be a normal event, when formatting the page / post title . Until this week, the syntax checker gave us a brief one or two line advice, at the top of the page. Now, we see a full screen page of random text - and in some cases, no way to continue. The error message fills the screen, and we can't see the editor window - so we can't finish what we were doing.

If you like to multi task when using Blogger, you probably keep a few windows and tabs open, in the browser. If you have lots of tasks running simultaneously, and you try to Share to Google+ from the dashboard Posts page, you may click on the "Share" link, the "Share on Google+" window pops up, you watch the window load - and just as the window is almost complete, it vanishes.

Blog owners ask about Followers activity, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue . I can't Follow my Followers! They appear to be referring to the Followers gadget, which is currently useless for surfing.

We are seeing an increasing number of reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about problems accessing various dashboard features. Recently I have faced a problem on my blogs dashboard. The problem is Invalid Security Token Error 403 How do I solve this? This blog owner faces the latest variant of the long feared monolithic error, "403 Forbidden".

The Stats "Don't track ..." option continues to draw complaints. Various blog owners have recently complained, anew, that the previously reported low level problem is now affecting their blogs. The two problems, though having a common primary symptom, appear to have different victim populations. The previous problem seemed to primarily affect custom domain published blogs, this problem may be BlogSpot only. This problem, according to a majority of the blog owners reporting, appears to have started during the last two to three weeks. It may be wise, therefore, to treat this as a new problem.

We have a small but vocal group of blog owners, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , who report that they are unable to use Post Editor, to upload photos. When trying, they get an error Do you want to open or save resumable (1.61kb) from www.blogger.com? Right now, it appears that the problem is common to older versions of Internet Explorer.

This week, we have a number of reports , in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , from blog owners who like to monitor the Google+ +1 counts, for their posts, using the dashboard Posts list. The ability to observe, at a glance, the +1 count for any given group of posts is useful - and popular with some folks. I use it, myself, with newer posts in this blog. Unfortunately, my Posts list shows no +1 counts for recent posts, for some Posts lists.

Everybody who has owned or read a Blogger blog, for more than a week, surely knows about the infamous bX codes - and has probably asked how to fix one. Some people have fixed one - but immediately, seen another. Others have seen theirs go away, then later discovered that the blog is broken. Some folks see the errors as major problems, others minor annoyances . it's disheartening to see that the bx error code problems are still existing. Not everybody realises that the codes are not the problems - they are simply a method to identify the problems. Many Blogger problems cannot be identified easily in language.

The process of examining browser source listings for a blog, and of having a blog owner carefully examine blog template code, is an important part of diagnosing many Blogger problems. With blogs published to dynamic templates, neither source listings , nor template "Edit HTML" , contain as much useful information, as with blogs published to non dynamic templates. Dynamic templates reference scripts, that are hosted in external libraries - and that cannot be updated or viewed. The idea of having templates that were less customisable was originally supposed to encourage people to work on post content, and increase stability of their blogs - not create instability.

We have numerous problem reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , about a problem with the "Deleted blogs" section of the dashboard. I can't restore my deleted blog! and I can't request spam review! These owners are concerned, because the "Restore" and "Review" buttons appear to be broken. Nothing happens, when clicked.

We're seeing an occasional report from blog owners, trying to access the Blogger dashboard, using Firefox. I am trying to update my blog, and I get an error WARNING UNRESPONSIVE SCRIPT A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, open the script in the debugger, or let the script continue. I'm using Firefox, and I need help here! This has been a problem, for a few years - just a very low volume has been reported.

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , mentioning a badly shortened dashboard Reading List. When I want to read the list of the blogs I follow, I can only see 1 blog, instead of the usual 30. When I click on "Show more", nothing happens. A brief affinity analysis , of current forum reports, suggests that the affected blog owners are using Draft Blogger.

In 2006, we discovered an interesting feature of Blogger, which let us monitor blog publishing activity , in real time. Sometime last year, " Recently Updated Blogs " stopped working. Last month, we reported the outage, to Blogger. Recently, Blogger Support described "Recently Updated Blogs" as an "experimental" feature, which won't be restored, for reasons of privacy / security. R.I.P., R.U.B.

We've recently seen a few reports about problems with custom redirects , in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I want to redirect my blog URL to a static home page. With a redirect in place, mobile computer users can't access my blog. Mobile browsers display an error, mentioning too many redirects.

We're seeing a number of blog owners, reporting a new problem with their Blogger dashboards, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . I am seeing an new error in the Live Preview section of the Template Designer. The following errors were found: isExperimental : Required field must not be blank Upon examination of the URL window in the browser, the source of the problem is seen. draft.blogger.com /blogger.g?blogID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx#templatehtml It appears that we are seeing one more reason why routine use of Draft Blogger is not a good idea.

For over a week, we've had anxious blog owners unable to create or update the Text gadgets on their blogs. The "Save" button is not working, on my Text gadget! or maybe I see Javascript void(0) when hitting Save! Blogger actually fixed this problem, earlier this month - and it broke again, shortly afterwards. Not everybody understands that seeing "javascript:void(0);" is a symptom of the problem - not the problem itself. This problem, fortunately, has a reasonably effective workaround.