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Sunday, December 14, 2008
Problems leaving comments here?
TypePad is making some improvements under the hood, and I think some of them may be causing conflicts with some of the customized templates I'm using for my comments. At least as I perceive the problem, it starts with the moment I click on the data entry field for the comment text — that's where I start getting odd behavior, anyway.
A few readers have emailed me to indicate that they've had similar problems; but a few readers are still managing to post comments.
For those who are still managing to see their comments posted, I wonder if you're seeing any of the weird behavior (as compared to how my comments were working, say, two weeks ago). If so, feel free to post a description of what you're seeing as a comment to this post.
Or feel free to use this post to test whether or not you can post a comment.
TypePad's customer service folks are very responsive, so I'm hoping the problem can be diagnosed and fixed in short order.
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UPDATE (Sun Dec 14 @ 10:55pm): TypePad's support folks say the bug (as illustrated by this screencap) "is a known issue which [TypePad is] working to resolve this coming week." In the meantime, it seems that the best way to work around the bug is this:
Click within the comment text entry field (which will start the bugged behavior, complete with whirling and never-stopping "progress" icons).
Click on the "View an alternate" hyperlink, which will cause an error box to appear saying that "You cannot leave an empty comment" error box to appear; click the "OK" button in that error box.
The randomized verification text will then appear. Re-type the characters you see into the small text entry field just below them, but don't click any buttons yet.
Click again inside the comment text entry field and type your actual comment text. If you click the "Preview" button, a preview of your comment will indeed appear, just below the bold-faced "Previewing Your Comment" headline.
When you're satisfied that your comment says what you want it to say, click the "Continue" button just below the verification text entry box — not either of the "Post" buttons.
That should post your comment within a few seconds. But the screen won't automatically refresh to show the new page with your comment as posted. (This is causing lots of duplicate comments at the moment, and understandably so.) Instead, you have to manually refresh your browser to display the new page.
I'm confident that the TypePad folks will have this sorted out in short order so that this work-around will no longer be needed. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.
Posted by Beldar at 01:55 PM in Weblogs | Permalink
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Comments
(1) Larry Sheldon made the following comment | Dec 14, 2008 2:56:02 PM | Permalink
Yeah, odd behaviour.
Not sure what happened, actually. Looks like it thinks I hit "Post", but I dint, and there is no captcha toy presented.
(2) Gregory Koster made the following comment | Dec 14, 2008 3:17:41 PM | Permalink
Dear Mr. Dyer: On Friday I started to post a reply to Ms. Herman, and after typing about two sentences, was suddenly jerked into the "type the gibberish that is in the box so we know you are human" screen, no more typing permitted. Argued with the mighty devil machine. Fat lot of good that did. Gave up. Didn't realize that TypePad is run by the same gang who are "cleaning up" Blago questions that the citizenry are trying to ask The One at The One's transition website. The next four years promise to be the funniest administration since Grant's, if you like sour, cynical humor. Even the Bumpkin's 1977-81 follies will be edged out by this devil's stew of cupidity, witlessness, provinciality, arrogance, and blame shifting. I think the best spirit is to laugh a lot. That or hang yourself.
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
(3) Beldar made the following comment | Dec 14, 2008 3:50:44 PM | Permalink
Mr. Koster, there are few products or services that have given me as much cost-effective satisfaction over the last five years as have the TypePad folks with theirs. I'm sure they'll help sort out this problem, which more than likely is of my making (from my recent efforts to improve the comments formatting) in the first instance.
The "Continue" button, after clicking the "View an alternate [verification code]" link, seems to be working better than either "Post" button, at least for me. But then it doesn't return me to a refreshed screen that shows the comment as posted. (That in turn leads people into multi-posting the same comment.)
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