The Real Blogger Status

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.

The Followers gadget was recently changed - and not for the better . Find the Followers (aka "Google Friend Connect") gadget, on this blog. Look for "Follow Me" near the top of the sidebar. Click on any icon in the community display - or click on on the community "pop out" window icon at the top right of the gadget. See how it now opens all Followers content, where the gadget is located?

This week, we're seeing a noticeable increase in reports about problems with reading list content. People are, once again, reporting empty reading lists - and many deny the suggestion that computers used by the readers might have anything to do with the problem. Neither filtered cookies / scripts, nor using the wrong Blogger account, appears to be involved in some of this weeks problems. One account owner reported having cleaned her Reading List - and after having removed just one entry from the list, the Reading List content became visible, again. This suggests that the owner may be following too many blogs - or possibly, following one blog which recently increased feed size. Either could be true, based upon the common complaint. I didn't change anything! It just stopped working, last week, on its own!!

We're seeing an occasional report, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken , about inability to manage the Reading List, using the dashboard "Manage Blogs I'm Following" wizard. Clicking on the dashboard "gear" icon to the right of "Reading List", one should expect to see a list of Followed blogs, in the familiar menu. In some cases, what is seen will be bad news. We are unable to load your FriendConnect data at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again shortly. Upon trying again, the same error is frequently seen, repeatedly.

We are observing owners of a few Blogger blogs reporting that the popular Google Friend Connect accessory, as suggested last year , recently stopped working, on their blogs. I have a Blogger blog but I'm using a custom domain (not purchased through Blogger though) - and my Google Friend Connect is gone now, just like they announced it, concerning the other non-Blogger blogs. From a brief check of several blogs reporting this change, it appears that blogs published to non BlogSpot URLs, using custom domain publishing with incorrect DNS setups , are being treated as non Blogger blogs. The Following / Google Friend Connect accessory, on those blogs, is now stopped.

This month, the new Blogger browser support policy goes into effect. Starting next month Blogger.com will only support modern browsers. This week, we're seeing new reports of problems with posting comments . It's possible that these newly reported problems, as well as other problems reported with Following, and with Stats, are partially caused by lack of support for older browsers.

The Followers gadget is a Blogger / Google accessory that has a long history of problems. In April / May 2011, we had numerous reports from blog owners, whose Followers gadget was visible to nobody, either themselves or their guests. Nobody can see my Followers! Blogger fixed that problem - but the problems, like some battery powered toys, just keep coming, and coming.

A little over two years ago, I wrote about Following, and an odd detail . I clicked on the users picture. Where is the button to Block the user? People, even when logged in to Blogger, as an administrator of their own blog, were being treated as a Guest, when using Following on that blog. I attributed that oddity to the fact that Following was served inside an iframe , which made the Blogger login cookie irrelevant to Following, since Following is served from a separate domain . The navbar, another fascinating artifact of Blogger life, is another iframe hosted feature - but it is served from "blogger.com", the main Blogger domain . Recently, I discovered that this was no longer the case.