For our third wildfire this month (and today being the 4th of the month yet!), we have a problem with Blogger, and Post Editor. When trying to upload a picture, the blogger sees
This image could not be uploaded due to an internal error.
One blogger reported seeing this error after installing a Pyzam template. From the volume of the posts in the forums, I don't think that's the only defining factor.
Some questions might be relevant, though. Answer as much as you can manage, please.- Does the blog have a Blogger standard, or third party, template?
- Does the blog have a Classic or Layouts template?
- Are you in Draft (Blue), or Standard (Orange) Blogger, when you see the error?
- Has this blog ever been customised using Draft (Blue) Blogger? If so, what changes were made?
- Are you using Page Elements, or Post Editor, when you are trying to upload?
- What browser (name and version) are you using?
- What operating system (name and version) are you using?
- What security programs or devices (anti-virus, for instance) do you use to protect yourself?
>> (Update 8/4 20:00): Blogger Employee Gatsby reports that they are working on the problem.
>> Forum thread links: bX-*00081
>> Copy this tag: bX-*00081
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Yesterday, as Blogger started to deal with the massive false positive spam blog problem and the forums started to calm down, another problem became visible. Dozens of bloggers reported an inability of their blogs to load, under Internet Explorer. Several of my blogs, including this one, were apparently affected.As the blog loaded, and toward the end, I would get a loud popup errorInternet Explorer cannot display the web page. Operation aborted.
and frequently the well known full page displayThe page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
The common factor in the problem reported involved the presence of SiteMeter code, on the blogs reported. All of my blogs, listed above, have that code too.
Given the choice of having a blog accessible only under Firefox (and trackable), or having a blog accessible under both Firefox and Internet Explorer (and not trackable), I chose the latter and removed my SiteMeter code. This was not a difficult task, I just cut the code from the widgets in the footer of each blog. And I saved the removed code, which was a good thing.
I simply edited the page element in the footer, at the bottom of the blog. Wherever your SiteMeter widget is, if you put the code into a page element, you can do the same.
<!-- Site Meter --> <script src="http://s17.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s17nitecruzr" type="text/javascript"></script>
<noscript><a href="http://s17.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s17nitecruzr" target="_top">
<img border="0" alt="Site Meter" src="http://s17.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s17nitecruzr"/></a></noscript><!-- Copyright (c)2006 Site Meter -->
and changed that to
<!-- Site Meter --> <!-- Copyright (c)2006 Site Meter -->
In the process of writing a problem report to SiteMeter, I needed an exact copy of the content of the popup error. Attempting to reproduce the error, I went back to my home blog (which I care about least, of the 3 above), and added the code back. Having reloaded the code, I reloaded the blog under Internet Explorer, and noted an oddity - no error popup.
I returned to my SiteMeter Statistics list, and observed that my visit was now visible in the visitor log. An hour later, I am now refreshing the "Who's On Your Site" display, and I see all 3 blogs represented again. Some entries include Internet Explorer, and multiple pages viewed, indicating successful loading of the blog.
> > (Update 8/2 13:00): SiteMeter states that they have resolved the problem.
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Since January 2008, Blogger has been working hard to keep hacking, porn, and spam out of the blogosphere. This work is not by humans, though, but by an army of unattended computers, called by many the Blogger anti-spam bot.
The anti-spam bot is not static. It has to be constantly updated, to keep up with constant activity by the producers of the many large splog farms that inhabit the blogosphere. It's going to produce false positives, as well as false negatives, and it's going to produce inconvenience to many bloggers.
This week, a recently applied update appears to have taken an excessive amount of innocent blogs with it. Major inconvenience to many. Can you say "egregious false positive rate"?
One blogger seems to have a way around the problem - at least to let your readers know what's going on.
If you still have access to your blog, you can still post a new widget at the top of your blog that contains text to tell your readers what has happened.
Using Page Elements, create a text widget with a brief message, and position the widget in a conspicuous place on the blog.
Note to Readers - Blogger's spam robot has run amok and has tagged 1000s of blogs, including this one, as "spam." Obviously, I am not a spam blog.
So, if you can't post but you can access the Layout wizard, you can at least let your readers know why you aren't posting.
As far as resolving this for your blog, I'm sure that you have done what a few other bloggers have instinctively done, and started the well known blog review request process.
In this case, and based upon the level of complaints seen so far, I suspect that's going to be a waste of time from you. Unless Blogger brings in extra staff, there's no way that they can review all of the requests generated by this experience. How long does a review requests typically take? Multiply that by 100 (minimum). Would you really want to wait that long?
> > (Update 17:00): Blogger admits to the problem, and implies that they are resolving it on their own.
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