Commenting on Ye Olde Blogge – A Public Service Announcement

On By Widow BadassIn Hmmm?, NaBloPoMo

Around the time of April’s A to Z blogging challenge, I learned that a subset of the few people that actually read my blog – the commenters – couldn’t. I started having replying troubles around the same time. If you go back to my posts during that challenge, you can see all my little updates and PSAs as I worked through the problem. Spoiler: Unsuccessfully.

If I replied to someone from within ye olde blogge –  through the WordPress dashboard – no problem. If I tried to reply directly from the page, I usually got the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH. And my oh-so-carefully crafted and witty response had gone into the ether like mist on a July morning, just like it did for my commenters. GRRRRRRRRRR.

So I tried researching this problem through the good ol’ Interweb and came up with squat. Then I called Bluehost and Mr. Bluehost had no problem commenting on ye olde blogge no matter what web browser was employed. But of course you did. So no solutions found there.

This problem was so bad I wasn’t even getting spam anymore, and I complained about it to Mr. Bluehost and I think this gave him the laugh of his day if not his week.

I tried everything I could think of. I changed themes. I installed plugins. I removed plugins. I swore. I drank. I shook my tiny fist of rage at the screen. Then I begged its forgiveness. I burned incense and meditated on the problem. I laid offerings in front of the iMac. Nothing worked.

Fast forward to now – I AM back to getting spam again. Hoorah, I think?

So I thought the problem was fixed. But some other bloggers have been telling me it is still there.

So I reached out to Joanne of My Live Lived Full, who seems to have found a work-around. This is what she does, to successfully comment without triggering the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH:

What I have learned is:
1) if I see that my info has not auto filled in the comment section (i.e. my blog name, email address etc), I know that my comment will not post and I’ll get the white screen.  If I manually enter the data, the comment will not post.
 2) my work around is that I will return to your home page and then reopen the post from your home page.  It seems that every time I do that, my data will then auto fill and I can comment without issue.
I am sorry, dear Readers/Potential Commenters of Ye Olde Blogge, that I don’t have anything more to offer than this. And thank you Joanne, for sharing the secret to your commenting success.
I am contemplating moving to a paid theme at some point, in hopes problems like these will be non-existent, or at least fixable. And then I can access some support when these things arise, amiright?
Who uses a paid theme? I’d love to discuss this with you. Please leave me a comment shoot me an email.
Rock on,
The WB
P.S. And now I can’t seem to get the paragraph spacing to work after I inserted Joanne’s workaround notes so the bottom part of my post is all scrunched together. Fuck it, I gotta go to work. Sorry.

6 thoughts on “Commenting on Ye Olde Blogge – A Public Service Announcement”

    1. Widow Badass

      Me too – very grateful to Joanne! I knew you were trying, my friend. And I suspect others were as well, but had no other way to let me know.

      Reply

  2. … and as you can see by my comment today, my workaround still works 🙂

    I’m so thrilled that my non-techie brain came up with a *high tech* solution 😉

    If I had to guess about the source of the problem, I would think it has something to do with the email notification and the link it contains to your blog.
    If I go directly to your blog from the browser, it autofills my data and I can comment without issue. That would explain why the technician at Bluehost couldn’t replicate the problem. He’s not getting your email notifications.

    Reply
    1. Widow Badass

      A-HA! I think you may be onto something there Joanne. I will pursue this for a solution. Thanks again my friend! For a non-techie, you have given me so much more to work with than all the techies I have consulted about this.

      Reply

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