The Real Blogger Status

If you are still publishing your Blogger blog to an external, non Google server, using FTP , in spite of many recommendations , you are probably used to various advice, such as that which instructs you to contact the support staff for the host server , when problems are seen. Not everybody knows how to deal with server support personnel, though. The host server staff says they don't see any log errors. or I can update using FastFTP, with no problems. The problem must be with Blogger! These are common attitudes, which probably should be expected. Common or expected, they may not get your problem solved. The clues are in the server logs . What the host server support personnel see as "no log errors" may need to be interpreted properly. You pay them for service, so they work for you. FastFTP, and similar desktop clients, require a series of server profiles which you setup, by hand - one for each server. You have no problem with FastFTP because you configure FastFTP, spe...

Occasionally, a blogger reports a problem with FTP Publishing, and it turns out to be caused by changes made at the host server . Rarely, the host server staff admits to the problem promptly, and we can move on. Today, we got an answer back, and positive results , in the same day. I called Yahoo again. I pestered them and found out that there WAS a change on their side of things. I was able to resolve the issue. then later The change they made was that they now require the entire email address as the user name (username @yahoo.com ) whenever you're going FTP something. In Blogger, I made this change under: Settings - Publishing - FTP username . If you have a blog published to a Yahoo server, using FTP, and your publishing has stopped working this week, maybe this is why you're here. Check the settings for your blog , and contact the Yahoo support team . Verify the change, then update your settings. >> Top

This month, many bloggers are finding that their problems with FTP Publishing aren't all caused by Blogger. Many host server support teams, in an effort to protect their servers, are using IP filters in their firewalls. If you want to publish your blog to their server, the IP address of the sending computer has to be added , to a pass filter, in the firewall. All server support staff aren't aware of this issue, and recently we hear the repeated complaint I asked my server support team about my problem , and they said that they don't have a problem - so Blogger has to be the cause of the problem. What is Blogger doing about my problem? Many times, the diagnosis from the server support team is coming from their first level support staff. My observation has been that, frequently, the first priority of the first level support staff is to ensure that they have no problem, and to inform the customer that they have to go elsewhere (ie to Blogger Support) for relief of their pr...

If you have a server that is used to host web sites, you need to protect the server, and the web sites, from malicious access. One of the easiest ways to protect the server is to deny update access to computers with unknown IP addresses. As long as your clients publish from computers with known IP addresses, and those computers are never used by people with malicious intent, this is a good strategy. If you're publishing your Blogger blog by FTP to a remote host server, and the host server protects itself by an IP filter, the filter has to allow access to any computers used by Blogger for FTP transfer. A list of IP addresses is provided in Blogger Help: Can I use Blogger if my server is restricted by IP address or behind a firewall? . The IPs provided are: 74.125.66.132 74.125.112.132 It's not clear whether those 2 addresses completely replace the previously defined addresses: 66.102.15.83 216.34.7.186 64.233.166.192-207 64.233.178.192-207 During the past couple weeks, severa...

This month, we continue to see reports of several frequent symptoms, causing much anguish in bloggers who publish their blogs by FTP. The well known Your publish is taking longer than expected. To continue waiting for it to finish, click here. and ConnectException: Connection timed out. and a variant of the latter FTPConnectionClosedException: Connection closed without indication. But this month, there is hope. Several workarounds for these symptoms have been discovered by various relieved bloggers. Change the Blogger setting for FTP Server. Ensure that the host server is setup to support PASV FTP. Ensure that your firewall IP address filter is up to date. In several cases, bloggers have found use of the domain name, as opposed to the host server IP address, in the blog (Settings - Publishing - ) "FTP Server" setting , to resolve the problem. In one case, the reverse was true - changing from the server name (domain name?) to an IP address provided relief from the proble...

So once again this week, we have various bloggers, publishing (wanting to do so, any way) to remote servers using FTP, and complaining of the well known error Your publish is taking longer than expected. Sometimes, having reported this to Blogger, a Blogger employee will come back almost immediately with We reset the server, and you should be good to go. Other times, this symptom will drag on for days, and weeks. Occasionally - and keep an open mind here - problems with the host server can contribute to this error. While awaiting action by Blogger, you might do yourself and others a favour, and provide details of your problem (as best you are able). Name of host server and connection type (FTP / SFTP). Geographical location of host server. Path, within the FTP server, of the blog. URL of blog. Name of template. How many posts in the blog? How many posts / days of posts in the main page ? How many photos (average / best guess) in a typical post? How many photos (best guess) in the blo...

Long ago, when you attempted a two factor authentication (account name / password) process with a server, the normal connection procedure would verify for the existence of a given account, and verify the password against that account. If either verification failed, a properly written server based script would tell the user what he was doing wrong - either "Invalid account" or "Invalid password". Then security experts realised that if you issue an error saying "Invalid account", you were, in effect telling a possible intruder what accounts did not exist on the server in question - enough connection attempts would then tell an intruder what accounts did exist. This is a known hacking technique, called by some security experts "account name mapping". Knowing the existing accounts, the hacker can then try to guess the passwords on those accounts. Some secure servers, made resistant to mapping, don't issue any error messages, they simply ignor...

Not all problems with FTP Publishing are caused by Blogger, directly or indirectly. Sometimes, the operators of the host servers, involved in the FTP publishing process, provide subtle yet significant clues to bigger problems. You have to keep your eyes open, though. Here is an example, with a customer of Network Solutions . My host is Network Solutions - yesterday they sent an e-mail reading We are aware of an issue with FTP and UNIX packages. They will generally deny the first connection, but allow subsequent connections. We are requesting that our customers attempt to connect to their server twice until we have a resolution. Blogger isn't going to (in reality, they can't, reliably ) tweak their FTP publishing process to repeatedly attempt a connection with a host server, just because the operators can't solve their own server problems. This is a case where the customers have to get involved, and convince the server operators to fix their server problems. >> (U...

Publishing a Blogger blog by FTP, to a third party server, presents a challenge, may I risk making an understatement. Bloggers choosing to host their blogs externally have traditionally been subject to numerous experiences , not all good. One of the least enjoyed is possibly seeing the advice Your publish is taking longer than expected. To continue waiting for it to finish, click here. It appears that a recent server change (some time in the last 3 to 6 months) at GoDaddy may be at least partially responsible for some of the FTP Publishing experiences, such as the latter advice. GoDaddy appears to have 3 server configurations right now. Linux, "hosting configuration 1.0", PHP 4.x. Linux, "hosting configuration 2.0", PHP 5.x. Windows, ASP.Net 1.1, IIS 6.0 . In at least one case, service moved from Linux configuration 1.0 to configuration 2.0 appears to be related to the symptom discussed above. According to the Original Poster in the thread linked above, service ...

Blogger is constantly fixing problems with FTP publishing, and more problems come up at the same time. Anybody who says that there is one problem, and waits for the one problem to be fixed, is assuring that the one problem won't ever be fixed . FTP Publishing involves scripted communication with hundreds of different "servers" (with Blogger acting like a "client") all over the world. Each different server, being owned by a different company, will be different from each other server; and each server will have different problems, which make the the Blogger scripts progressively more complex . Sometimes, changes by the server owner to some, though not all servers , may make a difference. And just because you were able to publish to your blog last week, that doesn't assure that you will be able to publish this week . Nor does it assure that somebody else will be able to publish today. What all of this means is that anybody who insists that his problem has t...

Many different reports are seen in the forums, this month, about problems with FTP publishing. The old "Your publish is taking longer than expected ..." error is reported a lot. Alternatively, some folks report seeing no error, yet their posts simply don't end up on the blog. Blogger Support will try to help you - really. As long as you report the problem objectively, and wait patiently. And they can help you best, when it's a problem that they can solve. Some problems they can't help you solve, or at least can't help you as easily as you can help yourself. Problems with FTP Settings are problems that you can solve, on your own, a lot quicker than Blogger can solve for you. If you have a problem with FTP Publishing, report the problem . And while you're waiting for their attention, spend some time diagnosing the problem on your own . I fished around and discovered that my host, pair.com, using the special additional login username and password that ...

Publishing a blog to an external server, using FTP , has always presented interesting challenges. I've been writing about those challenges for some time, and occasionally describing their seemingly random nature . This week, we see one example of the randomness, which is being experienced by those publishing to Yahoo Small Business . I got on the phone with Yahoo Small Business, and went through the trouble shooting process. ... One of the things about the Yahoo Small Business accounts is Yahoo teamed up with ATT SBC. With that team up, it created a weird log on user name, with two @@ in the user name to use FTP publishing. For example: you need both the [email address]@user-[email address] The solution, in this case, and recommended by Yahoo Small Business is to create another FTP User ID independent of the main User ID. In other words, Yahoo Small Business made a change, it wasn't successfully communicated to their customers, and it took a joint session between one custom...