It's not the address to riches or nuclear codes, but it is an e-mail address that is still active and no longer widely published anymore: support@blogger.com. Understand that just as it was five years ago when the e-mail address was easily found at the Blogger/Blogspot web pages, you won't get an individual response. You'll get an automated response just like in the old days. And just like in the old days, someone will eventually read it. Why is this issue? Starting on Friday, many users of Blogger/Blogspot began logging into their accounts to write a post only to get a message: "You have logged out from another location. Do you want to log in again?" From there, you would click "yes" or "close." If you clicked "close," it would loop to the same screen or log you out. If you clicked "yes," the same thing unless you were very quick and managed to click on an icon that might take you to a new page . . . where you would get the same message. In this community, Rebecca saw it first Friday evening. She was going to post in Google Chrome, her preferred browser, but got that message. She'd never seen it before and tried clicking "yes" several times before giving up on things getting better. At which point, she opened the browser Wyzo and was able to log into her account, click on "Post" and write an entry (" cancel 'up all night' already"). Cedric and Wally post on Saturdays as does C.I. Cedric called Wally as soon as he landed (Wally, Kat, Ava and C.I.) were flying back to California Saturday. Cedric explained what was happening to him and how, unlike with Rebecca, switching to a different browser didn't do any good. Wally tried on his iPhone and got the same problem. So they broke out the laptops. By multi-tabbing (at an extremely fast right) and responding "Yes" to that annoying question near instantly, C.I. was able to get several post screens up for Wally. (Should this happen to you, check to see first if you can type in the title space? If you can't, don't bother typing in the space for the post. Yes, you can type there but you won't be able to save or to publish what you type. It will be lost. However, if you can type in the title space, you can type a post -- just hit "Close" and not "Yes" over and over as the question pops up -- and it will let you either save or publish it.) C.I. e-mailed her Saturday entries to Th e Common Ills and did so because of this problem Blogger/Blogspot was having. To our surprise, the problem continues today. Researching the issue on Saturday, we discovered that although Blogger has refused to list it as a "known issue," it has been happening to many since Friday (a few before that). Let's clarify a few things for the know-it-alls. 1) Don't suggest: Use another browser. That no longer works. 2) Don't suggest: Restart your computer. Doesn't change anything. 3) Don't suggest: Restart your modem. Doesn't change anything. 4) Don't suggest: Clear your history. Doesn't change anything. 5) Don't suggest: Change the password on your Google account. Doesn't change anything. 6) Don't suggest a combination of any of the above or doing all of the above. Doesn't change anything. If that's not clear, maybe rissmeek put it best, "I've restarted, cleared cache, tried different browsers, and changed password." All without success. Also don't ask, "Do you have a custom domain address?" People who do and people who don't are having the same problem. Or as Mickey Garrotte put it Saturday, "Have tried everything suggested here. Problem persists." Don't expect a lot of patience either. In fact, patience seemed to be in short supply yesterday when the problem was over 24 hours old. As Tara Lain explained, "Frustration! It's been going on for two days." pamaris wondered, "For goodness sakes what are we supposed to do about this?" From above, Google did not deign to answer. imappet wrote, "Google should respond to this rather than just leave people hanging." DrGizmore wondered, "Where are the Google tech? Why are they not listening to us?" jfreeman3 noted, "I will just add my voice to the frustration of this exact same problem and that there is no google tech helping." Some voice that they'll move over to WordPress or Tumblr. Some feel that Google's spread itself to thing (RobinArt, "And see nothing from Google/Blogger about it. It's beyond frustrating that Google keeps buying up products and then offering no tech support."). For those of us who've been with Blogger/Blogspot for a number of years, it's a little hard to think of suddenly going elsewhere. But maybe it's time? We can remember a period in 2005 when Blogger/Blogspot was down for 36 hours. We can remember in 2005 when 8 hour outages were common place and seemed to occur several times a month. Those were eventually fixed -- even before Blogger moved to Beta mode. And there's an effort to hold onto that hope but, to quote Kate Cordero's comment in the discussion group today, "For Flippin sake it's been 3 DAYS!!!! WHEN IS THE PROBLEM GOING TO GET FIXED?" Agreed. And we would suggest everyone having this problem -- or who had it but no longer does -- feel free to use the Blogger e-mail address we supplied. Yes, you will only get an automated message, but someone working for Google will have to spend time reading the message at some point. | 