Missing comments
It appears that some comments are not getting through. JA has seen the same problem Appears to be bloggeritis. UPDATE: MT has the bug too.
UPDATE: July 8 This appears to have been resolved by Blogger. Thanks to Hank and Timothy for their efforts, which Eli suspects spurred the big B a bit.
Posts
27 comments:
I had some odd experiences along these lines.
Someone by the name of Dan had posted a comment over here in the...
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2008
Believing ten impossible things before breakfast
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/10/believing-ten-impossible-things-before.html
... and the mention of the role of redundancy in science got me to thinking about consilience, the unity of knowledge and so forth, so I began writing a comment that started by thanking Dan for calling my attention to the post, and by the time I had gotten done writing a comment, saying everything I had to say it was fairly long. I tried posting it but got back some message about it being to long to load. So I broke it into two parts and posted one after the other.
That worked fine except then the original post appeared. So I deleted it. Then all my comments were gone. I figured that my post might have brought in a little too much, trying to make the connections between too many different subjects -- and well, bipolars tend to do that some times. So I figured it might have seemed a little crazy and offended you. Your blog, your choice -- and maybe it was a little off the wall.
But then a couple of hours later my comments showed up, but then Dan's was gone. At that point I was thinking, "Now isn't this going to make me look silly! People are going to think that I am responding to invisible friends leaving invisible comments. And at that point I couldn't remember Dan's last name, so how was I to say any differently?
Then I took a look at what I had written, and although I thought that I could have improved on one thing or another -- that bit about Zen, for example, but doesn't it always work that way? -- I couldn't see what Dan found so problematic that he would have deleted his comment rather than have it associated with mine and make me look like a fool. But just now I went back and his comment is back up.
Thank God -- no one is going to think I'm crazy!
Ok, I got back...
"Google Error
"<H1>Request-URI Too Large</H1>
"The requested URL <code>/gadgets/ifr</code>... is too large to process."
... when I posted the above message. The error message appears on the "?ShowComment"-page that appears just after posting a comment. Presumably this is where links to other comments would appear, but it is on the left hand side, not the right hand side. Might be a clue, so now I am posting what I have found in case it might help. I am going to copy the above comment (in case it might disappear on me) then go to the static page (nothing after the html extension) then post what I found.
Wish me luck as there is a good chance you won't see this message...
As you may or may not be able to see I had posted the bit about the error message, deleted it, then posted it again after making a slight correction.
However, when posting the correction, I clicked Post Comment instead of Preview. I got back the bit about needing to prove I was human, then I filled out the "I am human" field, hit the post and got back a blank page.
So I hit the back button until I got back to Post A Comment, pasted in my comment about the error message, clicked preview, clicked inside the "I am human" field. The webpage immediately went blank again.
I clicked back until I was at the page that ended in the html extension (no "?showComment=..." after the html), then pasted my comment in again, clicked the preview, clicked into the "I am human" field. The page didn't suddenly disappear, so I entered the text, clicked the "Post Comment" and everything was just fine.
Maybe its fixed?
I found the following where Blogger/Blogspot tracks "Known Issues" but there isn't anything more recent than June 24th and it pertains to the editing of comments:
Known Issues for Blogger
http://knownissues.blogspot.com/
Eli just posted a comment (he erased it) as anonymous. It did not show immediately, but when he got out of RR, and signed in as ER, it was there. Posting as ER showed up immediately. Done on a Mac w Firefox
Most of the published comments never get through anyway.
I'm using Chrome on Windows 7 and I will be logging in, posting under my identity -- and I bet that this will show up right away but it won't show up on the left hand side as a link to this comment.
Bingo! I win.
AHA! suspect something connected to or fiddled with by the beta version of the TACO "Targeted Cookie Opt-out" extension for Firefox. I disabled that, restarted Firefox, and lo!
If people not using TACO are seeing the same problem, perhaps the problem is something Blogger/Google is doing with cookies or web beacons to track people -- plenty of other apps attempt to defeat the user tracking tools, which keep proliferating.
I'll check some of the other sites.
Sorry Hank,
The events that I described above are exactly the way that things happened -- including the moments of mild paranoia. I thought that including that bit made the story humorous -- and it helped flesh out what would otherwise have been a very dry narrative.
I have been experiencing the problems and I've been using Chrome, not FireFox. No extensions - other than something for tracking my waves. No Taco. And I have not been experiencing any problems with any of my other Google apps. Not Gmail, Wave or Google Docs. This looks like it is something specific to Blogger/Blogspot. And it does not look like it is a function of browser or browser extensions.
One more thing: I tried posting this comment just a few moments ago -- clicking Post Comment instead of preview. It did some sort of refresh on the webpage then went to a blank webpage. Couldn't get back the material, had to retype it. I am about to hit preview - but this time around I am copying the text to my clipboard.
Ok, here it goes...
That worked -- but now I am editing. Have to hit preview again in order to get the "I am human" field.
... and of course to actually post your comment you have to preview, then enter the text in the "I am human" field without editing your message, and then to complete the process hit "Post Comment."
Tim, it may be Google is tweaking things at the same time as others are trying to change their tools! I don't think there's just one problem here.
I heard from the TACO developer, who wrote:
"...it looks to me like the comment box will not appear if the "Google Friend Connect" javascript tracker is blocked on the google group. Try going to this google group [I assume he understands this is Blogger, not Google's repackaged newsgroups] with TACO active, click on Tools->TACO->Site's Privacy Info and then make sure Google Friend Connect is unblocked. (I've attached a screenshot).
We've also seen issues with google groups if "GoogleSharing" is turned activated. (Googlesharing proxies google cookies to break search tracking and aggregation)....
http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/overview?hl=en"
---------
(I have several other tools that would also be blocking "Google Friend Connect" -- whatever that is --- I'd have blocked it by default if I saw it as an option somewhere til I had time to figure it out. I
Argh.
It's some combination of the settings
-- in NoScript for "gmodules"
-- in TACO for "GoogleFriendConnect"
-- in Blogger for being signed in to comment on a blog with a gmail address/name
I think ... and seems to be a rock-paper-scissors thing, or else the feedback about what's currently blocked/signed in isn't staying updated.
You are in contact with them? Well then all our digging into this isn't a waste. Then again can satisfying one's own curiosity really be a waste? But I'm sure they've got some pretty talented people looking into this grey and white box. Able to see more than I can, and at this point I don't know what to test, so I think I'll sit this out for a bit.
Hank wrote, "... in Blogger for being signed in to comment on a blog with a gmail address/name"
That much applies to me. Could try my Facebook though. But the problem seems sporadic -- even the blank page, sometimes. History dependent? Maybe -- but you have heard of superstitious rats I presume. The perform some actions, get a treat. The repeat the actions but then get rewarded at random moments. The series of actions that they perform in an attempt to get the reward becomes more and more elaborate over time. Running error? Something dependent upon the individual before you, etc.
I will give Facebook a try though.
Oops -- won't allow blockquote, using quote marks.
Oops! Facebook isn't an option. Doing Anonymous after having logged out.
I am trying the one thing that seems to be guaranteed to result in an error -- Post Comment without doing preview should cause a refresh of this page followed by a blank page.
Ok, it said that my comment was published after I hit post first. Don't see it at the moment, but at this point I will assume that it will show up on refresh. -- Timothy Chase
Yeah, I'm doing some tests for the TACO guy, who is in touch with the NoScript guy. And they're trying to figure out how the various Google/gmodule/friendconnect applications are connected or separate.
Huh... both of my comments directly above showed up immediately after I posted the last one. No refresh needed to make it show up. -- Timothy Chase
One thing that bugs me -- the page does that refresh prior to going to another page -- whether that page happens to be blank, or the actual destination either with or without your comment. Different event handlers may be triggering asynchronous processes in different orders, but in terms of the code programmers may be assuming that the processes take place in a specific order. What we may be seeing could be roughly equivalent to a running error sometimes encountered in desktop programming -- particularly with event-driven programming -- which is multithreaded under the hood. -- Timothy Chase
Testing after toggling "googlefriendconnect" off in TACO, with "gmodules" also blocked in NoScript.
ARRRGH. The above posting hung for a long time (compare that timestamp to this) while I tried other settings.
Eventually:
I go to TACO and "googlefriendconnect" is still blocked.
I check NoScript again and gmodules is still not listed.
I go to TACO and unblock "googlefriendconnect"
Nothing changes on the Blogger page.
I refresh the Blogger page.
The Blogger comment box returns -- and
ARRRGH
It still contains the posting I typed earlier, with a new word verification waiting. The Preview shows but the actual editing box is unavailable, I can't change what I typed, all I can do is post the comment.
DONE.
and this is the followup. It needed a new verification word typed in.
(okay, I'm done, I'm handing this over to the TACO support folks
One more try; the comment box was visible here.
I turned GoogleFriendConnect off in TACO.
I can still type.
Let's see if it will post, at 12:38
EDIT---> nope. I clicked "PostComment" and it disappeared and the comment box went away.
Once I turned "GoogleFriendConnect" back on in TACO, and refreshed the page, this same comment came back (and I see the Edit link now, little blue word in the corner and it works).
Ok, let's try posting it now.
Nope, of course it wants a new verification word.
Trying again
Testing for the new day ....
I swear it's Google, I saw the same problem of unavailable comments happen today at an librarian's blog (not on Blogger or any identifiable platform, just a website). lasted for a few hours then problem gone. Gmodules and other Google stuff was operating in the background on that site.
Sure it's not the work of the Black Knight
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