The Real Blogger Status

My Blog Is Missing! Oh no! Generally, this refers to a deleted or hijacked / stolen blog. Other times, part of the blog is there, and the other part is not. This may be similar to the corrupted template problem , except part of the blog is clearly there, and looks just fine. WTF? In the latter case, neither the content nor the sidebar is actually missing. One or the other has simply slipped to the bottom of the page. Of course, it never occurs to somebody to scroll to the bottom in search of the missing content or sidebar. Why should it? It's called a sidebar because it's a BAR (column) that sits at the top of the page, beSIDE the column with the content (Posts). D'Ohh.

Sometimes, you have to drop back and kick. If you're reading this, please look in the sidebar for additional articles. If you can't find the bloody sidebar, which is why I'm doing this in the first place, please look at the very end of the page. Scroll all the way down. It's there, really! If you'd get Firefox , you wouldn't have problems like the sidebar issue. I'll still have to struggle with them, but you won't have to see them. I'll fix this real soon - I hope! Wish me luck!! Update, 3/31 12:30 : This is now fixed. Twas an interesting bit of code causing the problem, and I have no idea how long it's been a problem. Let's see what happens if we put the code in here: So all it was, was 2 little buttons. The first, Powered By Blogger, has been in there for a while, I have no idea how long. The second, I just added today, right after I added the Firefox link above. I think I will leave all of this, as a reminder to everybody to perio...

There are several ways to instinctively ask for help , in an online forum like Blogger Help Forum , don't allow the helpers to help you as effectively as they should. Let's see if we can identify some problem areas.

When I was young - back in the middle of the past century - I lived with my parents in rural Virginia. There were no real suburban areas then - just little towns with a an A&P or Piggly Wiggly for foods, Ben Franklin for toys and miscellaneous stuff, and Western Auto for auto parts and hardware. Sam Walton was just a kid then too, I guess. Anyway, the nearest town was the nascent metropolis of Richmond. It had a real urban downtown - with a Miller & Rhoads, and a Thalheimers (both chains now owned, I think, by Macys or Saks). And in the suburbs, a K-Mart. Now getting to Richmond was a couple hours of boredom on the country roads, and 2 hours in the car with my parents was like 6 hours nowadays - the car didn't have a radio, or air conditioning. But 1/2 hour outside the Richmond city limits was the K-Mart, and we would stop there first. After 2 hours in the car, K-Mart was always our favourite stop. But, we were always picky about actually buying anything there. For q...

I had a friend ask me that question, recently. Wanting to know why I try to help other Bloggers deal with the vagaries of Blogger. Why do you do this? The implied second question (neither spoken nor written, and it didn't need to be so either) was This isn't your problem. I had not a clue what to say. At the time, anyway. But as I reflected upon the question, many replies occurred to me. I wasn't affected by the "403 Forbidden" errors Monday, March 06, 2006 . I wasn't affected by the "403 Forbidden" errors Wednesday, March 08, 2006 . But I WAS affected two days later. My blog was unviewable for 4 DAYS . Friday, 3/10, I started my day. I had some spare time mid morning, and I added a couple paragraphs to one of my posts. I Published my updated post. And immediately discovered that I was now one of the lost. My updated post was not to be found. Just what I had been reading about for several days, but spared until that moment. 403 Forbidden I fo...

Pete says it's fixed . Let us pray. Image uploading #3 .

Looks like this is the problem of the week. Pete acknowledged this last weekend. Now we have other examples, in varying flavours . Diagnose the problem. Is anybody else able to see the blog? Many of the problems are seen only by the OP; others will post after with "I can see your blog fine". If so, clear cache and cookies , and restart the browser. If the blog is missing, and nobody can see it, is it a new blog? Are you maybe publishing thru Blogger to an offsite (non-Blogger) service? Log in directly to the Blogger dashboard, and see if the missing posts are in Draft form. If that's true, Blogger may have labeled your blog as a spam blog, which causes offsite published blogs to end up as Draft . If your posts are ending up as Draft, you'll not see them online. If the blog is missing from the Dashboard, see My blog disappeared from my account! . If the blog is visible from the dashboard, did you actually post anything? Did you Publish? If you have no posts,...