The Real Blogger Status

We're seeing a noticeable amount of noise today, from blog owners reporting that their blogs appear to be susceptible to antivirus detection - and others reporting that their readers are complaining of mysterious misdirection, when viewing their blogs. My blog is struggling to fully load, and hangs saying "Waiting for platotv . com" and "Waiting for directagain . net" and I'm getting warnings from Avast when I try to view my blog! Upon examination of the blogs affected, we see a large number which contain the "I'm An Instagram Addict!", or similar, gadget. Most blog owners who admit to having an Instagram gadget have reported relief, having removed the gadget in question. We're still looking, to see where these dodgy gadgets are coming from. (Update 2012/10/08): We are now seeing suggestions from various people, representing themselves as employees of "BadgePLZ", suggesting that the problems with their code has been fixed. I...

We're seeing evidence of confusion, in Blogger Help Forums, from blog owners who read the out of date instructions, about using "Buy a domain". We see considerable confusion, where people using that feature insist that they don't have to add a "CNAME" . In other cases, people using the Blogger / GoDaddy DNS Configuration wizard will think that the second "CNAME" is being added for them. (Update 2013/09): The second "CNAME" won't be required, in all cases. If you don't see instructions for adding a second "CNAME", focus your efforts on getting the domain working, with righteous base DNS addresses ,

One oddity, observed by a few blog owners, is that even after adding the "CNAME" to verify domain ownership, not every blog owner is able to see theirs successfully verified. I added both "CNAME"s - and I'm still getting "Error 12" when I try to publish. There are several "common sense" rules , that not everybody observes. The new "CNAME" can't use the example values. The new "CNAME" has to be a "CNAME". Don't let your registrar add a "TXT" instead. The new "CNAME" has to be specific to the URL in question. Enter your published URL precisely, into "Advanced settings". The new "CNAME" has to be added with attention to domain manager address entry convention . Even with these rules observed, there are still a small handful of unsuccessful blog owners, seeing "Error 12" - or "Error 32". One of the possible reasons for these last few hold outs, I...

Ever since Blogger finally restored the custom domain publishing feature , blog owners have been asking about the addition to the domain setup process - the new "CNAME". Do I really need this? My old blogs don't have it, and they are fine. and My registrar won't let me add a second "CNAME" - they allow one "CNAME" / domain (my "www"). and My registrar won't allow long addresses, such as what you have for "Destination" / "Target" / "Points To". And we are learning that this requirement is going to be a problem for blog owners using some registrars, who can't provide this "CNAME" in their customers domains.

As we sift through the wreckage of the blogs damaged by the recent Blogger custom domain security issue, we note a significant omission. The " Buy a Domain For Your Blog " wizard is conspicuous in its absence. When I click on the Settings - Publishing options, I don't even have the option to check availability or purchase a domain name. Where is the "Buy a domain" display? Right now, it appears that "Buy a domain" was sacrificed, so that the general custom domain publishing feature could be restored more promptly (though not promptly enough , for many blog owners). There are several tasks that must be completed by "Buy a domain", which are complex - and the necessary coding simply could not be completed by Tuesday of this week. I saw one message of hope. We will be restoring the ability to purchase a custom domain from Blogger soon. We'll simply have to have faith, that they are working on this feature as we lament its current abs...

Several people are reporting seeing the New Blogger GUI in their dashboard - even when they did not intentionally upgrade. Possibly, this was forced by the necessary Custom Domain Authentication Feature , which is now operational - on the New GUI only. I am expecting my Blogger account to change, soon. Let's see if I get a "Your blog post published successfully!" display. So far, I am in Virginia - though I am thinking of a procedural workaround for that shortcoming. I realise that everybody won't have a workaround for their dislikes - though we have to be contemplative, and accept the changes . If you wish to make your feelings known, please post in the latest Problem Rollup: V4 I do not like the New Blogger Interface because ... >> Top

After a very stressful week , Blogger Engineering has restored the custom domain publishing option . Last week we encountered an issue that could affect Blogger users in the process of configuring a custom domain, during the verification of ownership of domains between the provider and Blogger. Blogs with previously configured custom domains were not affected. With the reason for disabling custom domain publishing being security, Blogger Engineering has added a step in the publishing process , to add a random token as a "CNAME", and verify your right to publish to your domain, from Blogger. You get the random token from the "settings instructions" document, " How do I use a custom domain name for my blog? ".