Glitches

Sometimes, I wonder

~ beetleypete ~ 92 Comments

I am a well-organised blogger. I work hard at it, I enjoy my main hobby, and I love the community.

But recently, I have started to wonder if WordPress is actually worth our custom and our dedication.

Too many glitches. Too much rubbish about the Block Editor and business customers. Too many comments gone to Spam, or found in Spam.

There are days when I just think about bowing out, saying farewell, and finding something else to occupy my time. And with every glitch and annoyance, that feeling becomes stronger, believe me.

Today is one of ‘those’ days.

How hard can it be for WordPress to just run our blogs easily? If they spent less time pandering to business customers and phone users, I am certain that we would have less problems as bloggers.

As I approach my tenth year of blogging, I am growing weary of paying for a Premium service that they cannot be bothered to provide, just because I am a private, ‘hobby’ blogger. I feel close to breaking point, I really do. After a happy week, WordPress has pissed me off completely this Sunday.

Anyone else as fed up as I am?

New Followers: Thanks And Apologies

~ beetleypete ~ 7 Comments

This is by way of information to all the people who have recently followed my blog.

I no longer get notification of new followers by email, only in the sidebar. Then the sidebar does not allow me to comment about that at the moment. I usually visit the blog of anyone who follows mine, and leave a comment thanking them. Due to recent glitches, that is no longer possible.

So if you have recently followed this blog, please be aware that it is appreciated, and you have my thanks for doing so.

WordPress Glitches

~ beetleypete ~ 43 Comments

Just to let you know, my blog has been suffering from some WP glitches this weekend.

Some followers have been appearing as ‘Anonymous’ when they have left a comment.

Using the notification sidebar to reply to comments has made those comments disappear, though my reply has appeared on the blog.

A few comments from regular readers have been found in the Spam or Trash folders.

I have been asked to approve comments from people who regularly comment, even if they do not contain links.

So if my replies are delayed, or your comment is missing, you know why.

WordPress Glitches

~ beetleypete ~ 93 Comments

Every user of this platform will be aware of WordPress’s famous glitches. They usually happen when WP is making behind the scenes changes, and can be very annoying. Some of them stick around afterwards, and remain a constant irritation.

Unable to like a post or comment.

This is a common problem. Many times during a week, I am unable to ‘Like’ a comment left on one of my posts. Some followers mention in the comments that they have been unable to leave a like on one of my posts too. A simple fix that works for me is to just refresh the page on the screen, using Ctrl+R. So far, this has worked every time, though I am not sure how you would do this on a phone or tab. Maybe pull down the screen from the top to reload the page?

Disapearing comments.

Quite often, I will leave a fairly lengthy comment on a blog post, only to watch it disappear when I click on ‘Post Comment’. Sometimes, I will go as far as to contact the blogger concerned, to let them know I tried to comment. Occasionally, they will find my comment in their Spam folder, for reasons unknown to both of us. But one quick fix is to leave an additional comment on the post. Just one letter or number will do, and I tend to use a simple full stop. When you send that second comment, the first one almost always appears above it. This works for me at least 90% of the time.

WordPress slowdowns.

Some days when WP is ‘fiddling in the background’, the blog slows down noticeably. I will reply to a comment, and then watch as it takes what feels like a very long time for that reply to appear on my blog. Or if I am working on a draft, it takes twice as long to save it. When this happens, I just close down the page , and then click back on the shortcut to open WordPress again. This usually solves the slowdown immediately.

Just a few tips that might help some of you, based on my 8 years of constant frustration with being a WordPress blogger.

Fresh Start

~ beetleypete ~ 24 Comments

After all my issues with WordPress today, they finally sorted it out, and even admitted that it was them. So not me, nor Microsoft then.

But by the time it got sorted, I had to take Ollie out, and then drive down to town to the cinema, to see ‘1917’.

I am just back, and found over 60 posts listed in my email. I am never going to be able to catch up with them, so have just deleted them all, I’m afraid.
I will do my best to answer all your comments on my posts though.

And there is no episode of “Home About Six’ today, either. Apologies to those reading that.

I will have a fresh start tomorrow morning, when hopefully WordPress will be stable.

Best wishes to everyone, Pete.

In case I go missing…

~ beetleypete ~ 73 Comments

After a lot of very frustrating fiddling around with WordPress today, I finally managed to access the ‘Live Chat’ feature with their help desk that comes with my paid plan.
I explained the issues, and got this.

Ok thanks. We were experiencing some issues earlier today which could be related to that but they should be resolved now. Have you tried within the last half hour or so?
This seems to be related to the cookie information and or cache in your browser. By testing in the incognito window it uses a fresh browser with no cookies or cache. By logging out and logging back in it will refresh the cookies for WordPress.com in your browser.

If that doesn’t work it may be required to clear the cache and cookies in the browser

I was also directed to log in using an ‘Incognito’ window. That worked, and I was able to leave a test comment elsewhere.

I now have to log off the WordPress platform, and clear the cookies and cache.

I have low confidence that I will ever be allowed back.

So if that happens, it was nice knowing you all. 🙂

WP glitches, and ‘Anonymous’ comments

~ beetleypete ~ 42 Comments

***Third post today already about issues with WordPress.***

I am now receiving blog comments from followers who are shown as ‘Anonymous’.

WordPress is picking and choosing who and where I am allowed to leave a comment.

I have over 40 posts in my inbox from blogs I follow that I cannot comment on, though it is allowing ‘Likes’, for some reason.

These regular glitches are not acceptable to me, especially as I have a paid plan for blogging on WP.

I am refusing to get stressed about it, but I am also sick and tired of WP doing this stuff.

They have little regard for their bloggers and ‘customers’, and never bother to let us know when they are experiencing these issues, or messing around behind the scenes and creating problems.

A message to you all at WordPress. “NOT GOOD ENOUGH. DO BETTER!”

The Great Anonymous Glitch

~ beetleypete ~ 17 Comments

Frank was one of the first of my followers to become ‘Anonymous’ He has been on the case, and here are his conclusions.

toritto

Well, you all know that some of us have recently been experiencing the Great Anonymous Glitch; when we tried to leave a comment we were coming up as “anonymous” rather than in our normal Word Press handles.

It started for me about a week ago.

So I did the usual things I do for Word Press glitches.  I signed out and in again.  No luck.

I tried what Pete tried with Gravatar.  It didn’t  work for me.  I got an “Oops!  Something is wrong.”   I expected to hear further from Gravatar, but didn’t.

https://beetleypete.com/2019/10/22/anonymous-a-gravatar-issue/

So I posted my problem in the public forum for support on Word Press:

https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/commenting-on-wordpress-blogs-4/#post-3383172<br

Next day I got an email query from WP staff:  could I show them an instance where I had posted and come up anonymous?

I did.  I led them to  Pete’s site where he first outlined the problem and where…

View original post 246 more words

‘Anonymous’: A Gravatar Issue?

~ beetleypete ~ 74 Comments

Following on from my two posts about people having problems with leaving comments, or being shown as ‘Anonymous’, I have some first-hand experience to report today.

As I tried to leave a comment on Sue Judd’s blog this morning, I noticed that my dog gravatar had disappeared, and there were three lines for me to fill in, in order to be able to leave a comment.

Before falling into the trap of becoming ‘anonymous’, I clicked on the generic gravatar symbol shown, just out of curiosity.

That took me to the Gravtar website, and my own account. I was instructed to select a photo from those I have used in the past. After choosing the current one, I was then asked to provide an email address that ‘matched’ the photo. I selected the email I use for blogging, and received a message, ‘Details updated successfully’. When I clicked to save and finish, there was a message at the top of the screen.

‘We are sorry that this was necessary, it is our fault, not yours’.
This indicated to me that they are aware of the problem.

I then went back to Sue’s blog, and left a comment as normal, checking back later to make sure it had appeared.

So I am now confused. On one hand, it seemed to be a browser problem. Yet my own experience today, using the preferred Chrome browser, threw up the same glitch, courtesy of Gravatar.

This seems set to run and run…
I hope someone at WordPress is paying attention.