The mo'Times

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Wednesday, 03 December 2008
Keep the bugs reports coming, folks

Thanks for the input so far, and please continue to let me know where you find the problems.

Some common issues you may encounter are: seeing an older version of your blog online... in this case, just try posting a new post or updating your template by adding or removing a space or something innocuous.

But you don't even see the post editor, you may respond! In those rare cases, you must empty the cache of your browser. On Windows hitting the F5 key a couple of times may do the trick. If you don't know how to empty your cache or "Temporary Internet Files" in some versions of Explorer, let me know and I'll explain it.

And don't forget to breathe deeply, in with the good and out with the bad...

posted by: howard at 09:59 | link | comments (58) |


Comments:
#1  03 December 2008 - 10:04
 
Cool. I am not worried. I have discovered that I can leave comments, so the good news is that I can communicate with friends. Now what about mac users? How can I post, or will that resolve itself later? In any case, you folks have done a good job. I remember when Mo'time first began. What ... four or five years ago, or more? This is the place where I meet the best quality of people and where I feel the most comfortable. It's a family here for those of us who have been here a while.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#2  03 December 2008 - 10:45
 
:)

As for Mac users, myself included, the fancy schmancy text editor for posts is finally available for Safari in this version. This is a new feature. Previously, Mac users had to use Firefox to see the editor.

Aloha, if you don't see it, I would suggest that you go to the "Safari" menu on the top menu bar, the column all the way to the left on the very top of the screen, and choose the menu item "Empty cache", it should be the 7th item down.

Then go to your blogs posting place to wait for the editor to appear.

Does it work for you?
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#3  03 December 2008 - 11:23
 
Thanks Howard. It worked. I posted, therefore I am.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#4  03 December 2008 - 16:59
 
This is just some weirdness. I keep my momail tidy deleting everything weekly but now at the bottom of my inbox mails a momail One sent from Sept 2005 has shown up, again! Already read it years ago and deleted it. Where has it been? I do a lot of banking online do you think you could restore my 2005 balance? It was much healthier than my 2008 bottom line. thanks
User: rustymadgal Contact me View user's mediablog rustymadgal
#5  04 December 2008 - 14:20
 
"Edit your email address
Confirmation failed!!!
Your confirmation is not valid, please try again or contact site administrators."

Hmm, this showed up as I tried to validate my new e-mail adress through the link :/
User: Muualla Contact me View user's mediablog Muualla
#6  05 December 2008 - 00:50
 
Hi Muualla, I'm not sure what you need to do with your email address. Is the problem still, well, a problem? :)
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#7  05 December 2008 - 19:35
 
Ciao Howard. I have a problem when I write my posts. When I attempt to make a paragraph (pressing the "return" button would create one line of space between the paragraphs) it skips two lines instead of one. See my latest post to see what I mean. This is happening on Safari. I am going to see if I can post on Firefox now that I have cleared my cache.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#8  05 December 2008 - 20:22
 
Howard, I just this minute noticed the "tell a friend" link in the Comments section. Great idea! You might recall, I was looking for something like that last year. Glad to see it now.

One small thing: when I post, there is no clear indication that the process is finished. In the old version, I'd get a "posted successfully" message. It didn't always work, but at least it let me know when to start wishing that I had copied my post before hitting "submit".
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#9  05 December 2008 - 22:54
 
I have the same problem as Cooper, i.e., it isn't clear if it was posted successfully. I also need to figure out how to open a window when I want to navigate between my home page and the digest or my preview comments page. It used to do that in Firefox, but it no longer does. Thank you for working so hard, Howard.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#10  05 December 2008 - 22:58
 
Hey, keep the bug reports and suggestions coming! That's the best way to help Mo'time improve.

Roma: the double-space problem can probably be resolved (I said probably!) by going to the editor, looking for the link on the upper right of the editor, "Post settings". Click it and a popup will pop up. The 2nd setting is "Change 'returns' to (BR):" and is most likely set to "No". Be more positive, change it to "Yes" and then click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the window. Let me know if that helps.

CooperG: Tell a friend is the anglo-friendly version of Segnala il post! Glad you like it. If you want credit for the suggestion, you've got it.

On the post confirmation, that's weird, it still works for me in Firefox. I get the canary yellow pop up that says "The post has been successfully published..." What browser and operating system are you using?
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#11  06 December 2008 - 05:21
 
IE7 for me. And before I take credit for Segnala il post, I'm sad to report it doesn't work very well. The email I sent to myself was nonsense. That's how I knew it was from me.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#12  06 December 2008 - 07:45
 
I like it when you call me "Aloha," H!

Okay it works because I am now using wyslwyg editor (click on yes) and was already clicked on "use non-Ajax fix" and on "change returns to
.
*hugs*
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#13  06 December 2008 - 08:04
 
Um Howard? The font beneath my picture is way bigger than the font of the my post and my links, and my perfectionist personality is kind of obsessing on it.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#14  06 December 2008 - 09:06
 
Aloha! I like it better, too. Yes I have that same streak and that problem is already on the to do list.

CC: noted, will fix (Tuesday, along with Wimpy's payback).
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#15  09 December 2008 - 05:20
 
similar troubles with returns. and now i have 3 posts that it won't publish or let me delete. rather frustrating. putting text in a blog should not be this difficult.

i like the new interface for motime editing with my mac - just don't like the results i'm getting.
User: bluematrix Contact me View user's mediablog bluematrix
#16  09 December 2008 - 07:26
 
Hi Howard,
Just a little problem. I'm showing I have a new unread mo'mail, but I go into the inbox, and I've already read all the msgs in there.

thanks
--Steel
User: mars310 Contact me View user's mediablog mars310
#17  09 December 2008 - 11:20
 
Tim, sorry about the troubles, of course it shouldn't be difficult, these are bugs that we work to fix.

(The update was not mainly about the new look, but it was a complete update of the platform on which Motime runs so that it will be easier to add new features.)

Are you using Safari or Firefox? Did you try the fix indicated in comment #10 (for Safari?)

I'm sorry that I don't understand exactly what you mean about the 3 posts that you can't do anything with. Could you describe the problem in more detail, please? What happens exactly when you try to publish the post? What happens when you attempt to delete?

User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#18  09 December 2008 - 11:22
 
Steel, that is probably related to the infamous "session" problem that logs you out of Motime unexpectedly. For the moment, just be a patient, and it should correct itself in a day or 2 without your having to do anything. (If you know how to empty the cache of your browser, that would be a good thing to do about now, and eliminate the "motime.com" cookies, too if you can.)
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#19  09 December 2008 - 13:56
 
I have had multiple postings of the same post in my digest from several Mo'timers - in one case sent every 1 minute...
User: Frewin Contact me View user's mediablog Frewin
#20  09 December 2008 - 14:30
 
Frewin, I believe that is the result of said Mo'timers repeatedly posting the same post because they did not see it appearing on the blog. That's my current theory, anyway.

I am subscribed to my own posts, too, in order to double-check the functionality and have not seen any post repeated. Yet. I'll keep an eye out for such happenings...
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#21  09 December 2008 - 22:09
 
High priority bug here, Howard, drop everything and pay attention.

I use the Manage Comments page to find out which of my lazy non-Mo'time visitors have left a comment without signing their names. I filter their IP addresses in the author box. In the past, I could set the pages to 20 and filter the results, and it would stay that way while I flipped through old comments looking for a clue. Now, I can't get past page 1. All the filter info goes away, and the page resets to 1.

See? I told you this was important.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#22  09 December 2008 - 22:26
 
... and speaking of non-Mo'time visitors, here's what one of them left on another blogger's comment page (both Blogspot):
"PS: I can't post a comment on that lying bastards blog.
It keeps rejecting the comment, any ideas?"

Well, Howard? Any ideas?
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#23  10 December 2008 - 00:42
 
CooperG I like how you roll
User: rustymadgal Contact me View user's mediablog rustymadgal
#24  10 December 2008 - 00:59
 
Oy.

It's about 1am here and I'm in the office alone. When they come in and find me under the desk in the morning, I'll be sure to get these on the list. Once again, thanks for the reportage and sorry for the problems.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#25  10 December 2008 - 10:49
 
hey, I have a problem with RSS since the change. It doesn't work for any motime blogs I have in my reader. Do you have some advice? Thanks.
User: xAIFx Contact me View user's mediablog xAIFx
#26  10 December 2008 - 11:02
 
xAIFx: yes, I see that the server syndication.motime.com is not responding. I will look into this ASAP.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#27  10 December 2008 - 11:04
 
Cooper: what does rejecting comments mean? Do you have the Captcha enabled?

I have reported the comment management problem and hope to have it addressed as soon as possible, which sounds a little more doable than ASAP.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#28  11 December 2008 - 21:33
 
To be honest, I'm not sure what he meant. I'll drop him a line and ask him to try again. Meantime, I have tracked down the "Show Captcha" switch and changed it from Yes to No. Let's see if I get flooded with snappy new comments from people who thought I was ignoring them.

Thanks for your diligence on this, Howard, I'll let you know how it turns out.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#29  12 December 2008 - 11:43
 
CG: have you tried the comments thingie yet? Same? Better? Fixed?
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#30  12 December 2008 - 18:15
 
Ciao Howard. Just wanted to alert you that my Mo'mail keeps saying I have 2 emails, but I have read those emails already, several times actually hoping to make the damn red "2" go away. Not a big deal, but if you are seeking perfection, there's a bug for you to kill. :)
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#31  12 December 2008 - 22:38
 
Comments seem to be working, Howard. My Blogspot visitor managed to leave a comment, and confirms the problem is gone. Thanks for the fix, it was perfect.

Now a new problem (new to me, at least; I think others have mentioned it): It's 1pm Friday, and by my count I had 2 active posts in the last 7 days. That's confirmed by the counter next to my blog name. So I added a new post, which doesn't show. Added it again: still no show. Cleared my cache, added it again, and I still can't see it. But my counter now says I have 5 new posts. I've tried sneaking in through links on other sites, logging out and acting like a complete stranger, but whatever new posts have been added to my site aren't visible to me. Very frustrating.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#32  12 December 2008 - 22:45
 
Yes, Cooper, I went to see your post since it showed up on the community digest of my subscriptions, but no post was visible.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#33  12 December 2008 - 22:59
 
Funny, Aloha, I was just doing exactly the same thing on your blog, and noticed your counter had 5 posts as well, even though only 2-3 are current. You mentioned the delayed posting widget that's new, and maybe it is counting posts that you have set to publish in the future. I haven't used that, so I must have a different problem. Glad you checked, though, thanks for that :)
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#34  12 December 2008 - 23:04
 
2 more clues: I'm listed, just once, under Updated Blogs. Also, I got the same results with FireFox as I did with IE7.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#35  12 December 2008 - 23:31
 
This thread is really fun! :-(

Just a little premise, the team that I now have to fix everything now is not able to work under the same conditions as before, that is to work all night and weekends the way we used to be able to do. So now that we're into weekend time, I cannot promise much until Monday and for that I personally apologize. And for the fact that I'm not smart or powerful enough to actually fix what's broken.

Aloha: the Mo'mail counter problem is undoubtedly linked to the maddening "automatic" log out problem, the nasty bug that cuts off your logged in session without so much as a how-do-you-do. I'm really hoping that this will be figured out and fixed on Monday. Oftentimes, logging out and logging in again will fix the counter, but not all the time.

CG and Aloha, too: the delayed posting problem, leading to people multiple posting the same post seems to be relatively widespread, although I have not been able to duplicate it. You should definitely check if the post was accidentally set to post in the future, just to eliminate that as a cause. I think that database and, in turn, the digest list of the blogs that you subscribe to, publishes even "future" posts in real time. So that needs to be squished.

You guys have described the problem beautifully so that I can point the whiz kids to this for immediate attention, too.

Wow, I should get an ant farm going.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#36  12 December 2008 - 23:45
 
Cooper: I just check from my admin account and your last post was showing as "scheduled", meaning set for a future posting. I set it free. You should see it now.

Clicking the "edit" button in the edit view of your blog allows you to go in there and choose the "publish now" button and click save. But I note on my blog that it does not give me any feedback on a successful post in that mode. I now have a sneaking suspicion that the Publish options for some people have defaulted to "Publish on..."

For those who don't know how to get to the edit view, you can do that from the post editor by clicking on the blue "Edit blog" link on the upper right column of the screen or from the home page by clicking on the little gear icon and on the Edit blog link in the little popup window.

I'm going to bed!
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#37  13 December 2008 - 08:29
 
Deleted 3 posts tonight that had failed to appear several hours earlier. I left a 4th one up that already had comments attached. They were all pretty much identical posts, each one written because the previous one hadn't appeared.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#38  14 December 2008 - 09:20
 
I'm beginning to understand the problem, Howard. Sorry to be such a pest, but this might be revealing. With a new post, the radio buttons in the bottom right corner default to 'publish now'. You click 'Save', and it should publish right away, but sometimes it just goes out into the ozone and you never see it again. That same problem existed with the previous version. That is Bug no. 1, and the fact that it exists gets in the way of identifying the real problem.

Here's Bug no. 2: when you edit a post, the radio button defaults to 'publish on...', and it shows the date and time of the original post, which are clearly now in the past. No idea what might transpire in the poor addled brain of The Mo'Time Android when given this instruction, but if it were me I wouldn't know what to do. It occurs to me now that the problem with my last post was an edit, not an original post. Making edits default to 'publish now' should fix that. Even better would be a more positive confirmation that a post has been saved. There could even be a prompt to save your post until confirmation is received (here's what I do: write my post, click the Source button, and copy all the code to an open Notepad page. If there's a problem, I can c&p the whole thing, click Source again, and the post is restored).

All this aside, that new feature of delaying a post until a specified time is a very cool thing. I'm going to fiddle with that, and see how it works.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#39  14 December 2008 - 09:40
 
Okay, I am officially a raging hemorrhoid, and have nothing better to do than to annoy you, but I see this as good news. My moments-ago post did not show up. But I clicked 'Manage Posts', and see that it is scheduled to appear. The problem is clocks. There is a one-hour difference between Mo'Time's clock and my very own priceless Timex Indiglo. I will be fast asleep in an hour, but I fully expect my post to appear then. Not only that, I submitted a delayed post, and I see that there is an 8-hour difference there ... same as my separation from Italy. Conclusion: Mo'Time needs a clock-setting option on everyone's user page.

G'night.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#40  14 December 2008 - 19:00
 
Cooper: great job Sherlock. Each blog does have it's own time zone, actually. In the upgrade the time of the platform was changed from Italy (too provincial!) to UTC (wordly!). Perhaps this change made the system go crazy, thinking that all posts need to be posted in the future.

In any case, this is a great starting point to squishing this bothersome bug.

All other points duly noted. Sweet dreams.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#41  15 December 2008 - 16:54
 
I feel confident in declaring that the nasty forced log out bug is squished. Let me know if you don't agree!

The time machine post-delay bug is being worked on, as other the other little things you may or may not have noticed...
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#42  16 December 2008 - 10:33
 
Coop: on the default setting to "publish on" after editing a post, which you do each time on your contest posts, it's actually a feature, not a bug :)

The problem is that, as you point out, it seems illogical to schedule something in the past, Jules Verne notwithstanding.

This is the way that the engineers decided to preserve the original date and time of the post and, therefore, its position in your blog among the other posts.

I have suggested the following to solution to them and it seems that it has been accepted: When you edit a post, the default will always be "Publish now". Clicking "Save" (that I would like to change to "Publish") on an edited post will spawn a popup that asks, "Would like you keep the original time and date of this post, or change it to current time?" There would be 2 buttons, "Original time" and "Current time".

What do you think?
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#43  19 December 2008 - 01:22
 
Either one works, and I'm fine with the idea of preserving the original post time & date. It's simply a matter of knowing what to expect ... and now I do. Great work, Howard, thanks once again for your diligence.
User: coopergreen Contact me View user's mediablog coopergreen
#44  19 December 2008 - 08:28
 
I would really like to update my blog heading, but I did and it didn't. I followed directions, but it didn't save. It lied. :) Perception and all of that no longer suits my mood. Perhaps it will show up tomorrow? Time warp? *does the Rocky Horror Picture Show dance*
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#45  19 December 2008 - 11:07
 
Aloha, Aloha: I just tried changing the description on 2 different blogs and it seemed to work fine for me. You are speaking of the Description field in Blog-> Settings-> General Information, right?

Could you kindly try once more and report back? It should work immediately upon reloading your blog!
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#46  19 December 2008 - 14:07
 
I've read through all these comments, but to be honest, you all lost me after a bit.

I know it's been reported that the posts aren't always publishing. And I know you've said it's being worked on. But after that, what you're all saying gets a bit over my head, I guess.

So if you're still working on it, thank you! But in case it's something you thought was fixed...

For the past few mornings, I write a post, publish it, and it doesn't show up. I've been sure to check the settings. It's always set to the "publish now", but it doesn't. At least not until I go back into "manage posts", click the post, hit "publish", and then save. Unfortunately that makes it show up twice in the digest, but it's the only way I know of to get the post to actually publish.
I'm fine with it until I know how to do it correctly. I just hate that the few people who've subscribed to me have to wade through it all on their digests.
Am I doing something wrong? It's probably my fault. I'm clueless most of the time.
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#47  19 December 2008 - 18:43
 
It works! My bad.
User: RomaCittaEterna Contact me View user's mediablog RomaCittaEterna
#48  23 December 2008 - 15:42
 
If you guys already figured this out up there in all that jibberish, forgive me, but I just tried something and it worked.

Instead of making sure my option was set on "publish now", it was set to "publish on" with today's date and time... and it published right away! I didn't have to go in and do all that other stuff to it.

So am I just behind and we should have been doing that all the time?
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#49  23 December 2008 - 17:39
 
interesting! of course it should not work that way, it should be publish now, but it is interesting that the publish on works first time, everytime...

If any of the rest of you with the non-publish bug can try this (use "Publish on" right away before "Saving") and let me know, that would help us fix this.

I can't reproduce the problem on my computers, it just publishes right away...
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#50  31 December 2008 - 16:24
 
My email is still be nasty. All the words are jumbled together!
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#51  01 January 2009 - 14:48
 
Could you explain more? What email? Mo'mail? Could you paste in the jibberish in a comment? Or you could send me a Momail with the gobbledygook or you could send me a regular, old fashioned email to howard(a)motime.com with the jumble.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#52  03 January 2009 - 15:35
 
I guess that wasn't very specific, was it. I'm sorry, H. I might have been drugged when I left that comment! I'll try sending you a better detailed whine about it. :)
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#53  03 January 2009 - 15:43
 
Okay. I got to thinking maybe it was just something that happened when I opened Motime in my AOL browser so I tried it in IE before coming back to whine.

When mo'mail is sent to me, it's as if the email doesn't fit. It overlaps the layout. The email starts underneath the sender's name and the date but isn't contained in the email box. It continues under the "delete" and "reply" buttons and right on down over top the bottom navigations links. (FAQ, User's manual, etc) Like the email box doesn't stretch to fit the size of the email?

I'm sorry if not knowing technical terms is making it hard to understand me. I can send you a screen shot to your regular email if that would help.
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#54  07 January 2009 - 12:02
 
People are having trouble commenting on my blog now. It won't let them leave comments. ugh
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#55  07 January 2009 - 15:28
 
hey lady in the moon. sorry for your problems. let's start with the mo'mail problem. If anyone else who reads this has the same problem, now is the time to speak and to identify the browser and its version number, and your operating system, too. Example: Firefox 3.0.5 on Windows XP.

Please send the screenshot to me using regular email: howard(at)motime(dot)com

I'm afraid I'll need more specifics on the commenting issue, too. Are they Motimers or Mo'nonymousers? Are they not able to read and properly type in the funny looking text (aka captcha)?

Can you comment on your own blog? What are your comment settings found in the Blogs-> Connections-> Access panel?
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#56  08 January 2009 - 11:50
 
Howard, thank you for your help. I've sent the screenshot of an example of my mo'mail. Like I mentioned, I tried it in IE and aol. (Windows Vista Premium)

And as far as my comments go, I've checked every place I know and as far as I can tell, I have my controls set to allow user comments. But when I tried to leave one and both motimers and non-motimers have tried, it says no one is authorized.

I may be overlooking a setting considering I've never changed them, but I have no idea where that might be.
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
#57  08 January 2009 - 15:42
 
Got 'em.

Test the comments now... should be fixed.

As for the layout, still waiting for word from the boys.
User: howard Contact me View user's mediablog howard
#58  08 January 2009 - 19:34
 
H, it worked! I think my comments are fixed. Thank you!
User: Ladyinthemoon Contact me View user's mediablog Ladyinthemoon
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