10 January 2015

TYWKIWDBI sometimes eats comments - updated


I've received emails from readers intermittently over the years, complaining that their efforts to leave a comment on TYWKIWDBI were thwarted by some cybersnafu.  I didn't have a good explanation for them.  But this past week the problem has happened to me several times when I was writing responses to other comments, and I realized it only happened under certain circumstances...

The commenting system allows one to sign in through a variety of profiles, or to do so anonymously.  Every time I've had my comment "vaporize", it occurred when I wrote the comment first and THEN went to the pull-down menu to sign in.  The system took me to the sign-in menu (for Google in my case), and after I signed in as Minnesotastan it returned me to the commenting area - but the comment was gone.  Long, detailed comments with links in several cases, which was so frustrating I yelled at the computer.

But now I know why it happens - for me at least.  I don't know if this happens with other sign-in profiles/ operating systems/ browser combinations.  I don't think it's a peculiarity of the way I have this blog set up.  I think it's a systemic fault.

If you sign in first, this problem should not occur.  But it might be a good idea - commenting on this blog or others, that when you write a long detailed comment, copy it first before hitting the "publish" button, so that if it is eaten you can quickly try again.

I'd welcome comments from other Blogspot bloggers.

Addendum:  I received the following information from a frustrated reader in Sweden:
For the longest time now though I have not been able to post comments, and it has annoyed me to no end.

After getting a job as a whatever-do-web-stuff-person I've learned a few things, and I checked the console when trying to post and saw that I got a whole lot of cross-domain errors. This results in all my form submissions to vanish into thin air, to much despair.

What causes this is that Blogspot, which resides on .com, automatically forwards me, who is in Sweden, to .se which breaks the comment form due to different top domains. Right now I would probably have to access the site by a proxy to be able to post.
See the rest of his comment (and other useful ones) in the comments below.  At the present time I'm reluctant to try to correct this by altering TYWKIWDBI's template, but I'll consider this while awaiting other feedback and comments.

22 comments:

  1. Well, it jyst ate my comment after I signed in with google first, so there is more than one cause.

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  2. What you described happened to me just yesterday on another *.blogspot.com blog. I will watch for this situation a lot more closely now.

    Thank you!

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  3. enter text here, then select a profile of 'anonymous' and, violas and violins! :-)

    oh, yes - it asks me to prove that i am not a robot. with my advanced 21st century audioanimatromics, that is easy to do.

    I-)

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  4. I haven't had any problem posting comments here in the past. (Shouldn't speak too soon...) I enter the text, and then under "Select profile" I put name/URL. Maybe if I selected something else under Select profile it wouldn't work properly?

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  5. I have encountered this problem frequently here. Sometimes I just go on without posting my comment and sometimes I try to recreate my comment, but it is a frustrating situation.

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  6. I've had it happen several times on this blog. This system is also incredibly picky with an interwoven web of cookies and multi-embedded JavaScript calls that run through a menagerie of advertiser sites. I would not want to be the one to try and have to troubleshoot this.

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    Replies
    1. Note: It ate this above comment before I reposed it.

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  7. the scripts are not smart enough to save your already typed-in comment text into a clipboard buffer and then reload them from that clipboard buffer once you have logged in. you would need an extra transaction where the typed-in comment text is saved on a server rather than on your local machine.

    I-)

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    1. You could program it either way. Client-side JavaScript could buffer the text during login and finish the submission. Server-side you can use any of the scripting languages to store a text buffer by session ID so that text is not lost during authentication. As the developer, I personally would prefer the JavaScript option as you want as many CPU cycles client-side as possible as long as it doesn't threaten security.

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  8. One of mine was eaten after I was signed in as well. It was in the fracking thread. I figured the problem may have been the HTML links.

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  9. This happened to me not the other day. It kept insisting that I identify myself by an old blog that is as decrepit as i am. Doing it as you suggested and it looks like it might work, we'll see! Nope it's only allowing me to be anonymous.

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  10. It works if I use the URL name option...glad we figured that out!

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  11. I regularly have comments eaten on blogspot blogs everywhere. I am always logged in, though, as I use gmail. I try to get into the habit of copying before publishing, but I sometimes forget and it seems that will be the time my words vanish!

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  12. You're not alone, a lot of sites do the same thing.

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  13. perhaps the workaround is to login first and then type in your comment?

    I-)

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    Replies
    1. Or just compose the response in a word processor, which has spelling check.

      I'll do that for long responses. For short ones that aren't worth going through 4 screens of identify verification, I'll just post anonymously.

      And yes, it's eaten several of my responses at one time or another. I usually just throw up my hands and stomp off....

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  14. Stan, we just need to keep feeding TYWKIWDBI. You feed us so much great information, the site is wanting us to give it extra food because we all make it work hard.

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  15. The keyboard shortcut for doing this every time is Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C. It's a reflex.

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  16. [I received the following comment via email from reader Andreas in Sweden. I'll post it here under his name because it is one of the most useful replies so far. - Minnesotastan]

    "I've been following your blog... for ages it feels like, I think I've been able to comment a few times also. For the longest time now though I have not been able to post comments, and it has annoyed me to no end.

    After getting a job as a whatever-do-web-stuff-person I've learned a few things, and I checked the console when trying to post and saw that I got a whole lot of cross-domain errors. This results in all my form submissions to vanish into thin air, to much despair.

    What causes this is that blogspot which resides on .com automatically forwards me, who is in Sweden, to .se which breaks the comment form due to different top domains. Right now I would probably have to access the site by a proxy to be able to post.

    Here is a link where they describe the issue and how to fix it: http://www.labnol.org/internet/prevent-blogger-country-redirection/21031/
    Apparently a single javascript tag is the solution, I'm not 100% sure if it actually works, but I figured you should at least be aware of the problem.

    Thank you for posting so many interesting things :)

    Cheers!

    //Andreas

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  17. [again - posted on Andreas' behalf]

    Yeah, still in comment limbo, to my own sadness :P Anyway, found a link with an adjusted version of the previous solution, where commenters say the old version does not work, it can be found here:

    http://jajodia-saket.sjbn.co/2012/03/how-to-stop-your-blogger-blog-from-getting-redirect-to-country-level-domain-cctld/

    Still an old page, but perhaps it will work anyway... hmm, seems to work when I added it to my own page:

    http://aaronsson.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-isnt-my-actual-blog.html

    Hard to tell if it will fix the comments though as I don't have the same form, oh well. Cheers! :)

    //Andreas

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