We see evidence of occasional confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, about blog content responsibility.
One of my blog posts disappeared. I have tried every known recovery procedure. There is no way to actually contact anyone from Blogger Support.
Long ago, Blogger Support would provide assistance, in recovery of deleted posts. That service ended some time ago.
Blogger promises us that our blogs will be ours, forever - and that they will support that promise.
That promise is most likely to be upheld if we maintain control of our blogs - and of the content in the blogs.
Blogger will ensure that our blogs remain under our control - but we have to maintain the content. If we change or delete a post, Blogger is not going to second guess our intention, and revert our change, or un delete our deletion.
If we change a page or post, there are two possible recovery procedures.
- Undo the change - using the browser editor menu.
- Recover the contents - using search cache.
Undo the change - using the browser editor menu.
If you make a mistake, the Blogger post editor, like many edit windows, supports "Undo" aka "Ctrl - Z". You have to act immediately, though. If AutoSave becomes active, you may not get the chance.
Recover the contents - using search cache.
This is the procedure currently used, for recovering deleted pages and posts. It is most effective, for established (cached) pages and posts - draft and new pages and posts may not be found, in cache.
Our chances are otherwise limited.
Short of using undo or cache recovery, we may be out of luck - if we make a change that needs to be reversed. As long as we do not violate Content or TOS Guidelines, our content is ours - to have and to maintain.
As we publish our blogs, Blogger promises us that they will ensure our ownership, forever. That promise requires that we take responsibility for any mistakes - and that we take responsibility for the content in our blogs.
Recently, we've been seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, suggesting more problems with Post Editor, in Draft mode.I keep getting an error, when editing my posts.An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.
I am editing Draft posts, some of which are fairly large.
This blog owner is discussing yet another facet of the Post Editor feature, AutoSave.
Early AutoSave Experience
Long ago, people would report a different problem, when composing posts.When I compose my post, my typing is way ahead of what is displayed.
Blog owners, long ago, discovered that AutoSave, which applied to posts being composed before publishing, made their computers slow down. This made their on screen post content show noticeable delay, from their typing.
With newer and more powerful computers, and people who still type at the same speed, Post Editor slow down has become a thing of the past - but at a price.
With highway traffic engineering, a well known problem involves the regional effects of upgrading a local arterial street, to handle more traffic. This might improve traffic in your neighbourhood, but at the expense of another highway in the next city.
Similarly, upgrading the speed of your computer improves your Post Editor typing problem, but puts more load on the networks and Blogger servers. Thus we see the symptom, reported above.An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.
Pre AutoSave Experience
As you compose a post, what you type is saved on your computer - and displayed in Post Editor. This lets you see what you are typing, in a "what you see is what you get" display. If you hit "Save", periodically, what you have typed gets saved to the Blogger servers.
Originally, many blog authors did not think to Save, when composing a post. Some would just type - then eventually Publish, when convenient. This technique created two problems.- The longer an author waited before Publishing, or Saving, the greater the chance that something would happen with the computer being used, causing loss of what was being typed. And the greater the catatrophe from the loss.
- The longer the author waited before Publishing or Saving, the more work would be done by the Blogger servers, when the author finally did Save, then Publish.
Blogger added AutoSave to Post Editor, so the effects of Publishing massive amounts of unsaved post content would not affect Blogger resources so abruptly - and so less people would see their hard effort go down the drain.
Current AutoSave Experience
One known problem with AutoSave is that it generates load on the local computer, on the networks connecting to Blogger, and on the Blogger networks and servers - thus the slow typing problem, long ago.
Another problem is that it saves automatically (hence the name) - and for some people, who may have just cleared the contents of a post, AutoSave saving an empty post tends to cause a problem. The longer people work on pages or posts, without publishing, the greater the chance that this disaster may happen.
Unfortunately, having a more stable publishing process, thanks to the reverse effect of AutoSave, will just encourage people to take longer before Publishing or Saving. Thus the complaint.I was working on my new post for weeks. Right in the middle of highlighting a section for deletion, AutoSave kicked in, highlighted the whole post, deleted the highlighted section, and saved an empty post. How do I get my post back?
And for this unhappy author, there can be no helpful answer.
Future AutoSave Prognoses
For a while, I've been suggesting that when possible, you should publish a post immediately, then continue editing your post after publishing - since AutoSave only affects post editing, before the initial Publish. Recently, I discovered that it may be possible to use Google Docs as a Content Management System, for long term post development.
A third possibility is that you compose your unpublished posts in HTML mode, instead of Compose mode. The effects of AutoSave, in HTML mode, are not as objectionable. Some of my posts, I might develop for a week or two before Publishing, using HTML mode. If you use this technique, and you include anchor links in your posts, beware of switching back and forth between Compose and HTML.
A fourth alternative, use of Microsoft Word instead of Google Docs, is known to cause problems with auto pagination and with various posts newsfeed accessories. We do not recommend use of Microsoft Word.
However you develop a post, the longer you wait before Publishing, the greater the chance that AutoSave will make you unhappy - either by sudden destruction of your post - or by contributing to the latest symptom.An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.
Publish sooner, develop offline, or become a victim.
Ever since AutoSave was developed, and added to posts being edited, people have been having problems when editing un published posts.
We see periodic cries of anguish, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue. I had been working on this post, for weeks! Just as I selected a portion to delete, AutoSave kicked in, highlighted the whole post, and saved an empty post!!
andI was working on this post, along with another member of the team. We keep making changes, and erasing each others changes!!!
Blogger allows long period editing of un published posts - and they provide team blog ownership - but you'll do better to not use either possibility, with any important projects.
I've been warning people, for a long time, that Blogger is not a Content Management System.
Blogger provides neither Draft mode edits, nor team membership, as compared to a CMS. Both Draft editing, and team blog membership, provides potential for loss of content, that only you (the original blog owner) will be able to recover.
AutoSave, And Editing A Draft Post
We've known about AutoSave, and it's ability to destroy carefully edited posts, for years. AutoSave is known for it's tendency to cause the entire post to be highlighted - and, after you just pressed delete, to save a newly deleted, empty post.
If you, as the author, have been working on a post for days - or weeks, and you save an empty post, your work is now gone. And Draft mode provides no consistent ability to recover previous versions of the post.
Team Membership
Team membership provides either authors (who can only edit their own posts), or administrators (who can edit, and destroy, everything). There is no middle ground.
If you want to have people able to collaboratively edit a post, you have to make them all administrators. When you do that, every team members absolutely must be someone whom you can trust.
If one team member takes it upon herself (himself) to take over the blog, and remove the other members (and you), this is a problem that you must handle - since you made the decision to give control of the blog, to that person. Blogger Support cannot get involved, legally, since it is (was) your blog.
And, even if team members play by the rules, two people, editing the same post, can easily interfere with each other. The Blogger post editor provides no ability for two team members to edit the same post, simultaneously.
Use Google Drive For Collaborative, Long Term Editing
Having noted the limitations, Google has provided a solution. Google Drive provides a real, Content Management System approach to long term, group development of documents, with version based recovery.
Just start a document, and invite people to help you edit the document. When the document is ready, embed it into your blog. You, and your team, can work on the document - and your only very trusted blog administrators can work on your blog.
If you don't like the embedding options, you can download the document as Rich Text or Plain Text, then copy the text into a new blog post and format the post as you like. If AutoSave misbehaves, you have the original Drive document, as a backup.
You can keep the blog, and the document, separate. When you embed the document, you can let some people continue to edit, while others can read the blog / document, as developed - and the general public can, as you like, be unable to view either one. And your trusted administrators / webmasters can develop the host blog.
Blogger and Google Drive, together, provide interesting possibilities. Imagine the possibilities. Use Google Drive, For Team Document Development Use Google Drive, To Develop Important And Group Documents Use Google Drive, To Develop Important And Group Documents
