Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Blog Problems?

Enwe comments:
Hi Richard,

I have some problems with your weblog. It always takes very long to get from one post to the comments - or BTW to get to your weblog. Ten minutes ago I wanted to get from this post to the comment section and I had to wait three minutes... Has anyone [else had] the same problems?

Jonathan then confirmed this. If others could give me a bit more detail about the problems, that might help. Leave a comment here, or if the comments aren't working, send me an email.

I think Blogger comments in general may be having technical problems - they currently won't load for me either (unless I wait 5 minutes!), but it's not just this blog... I visited a couple of other blogs that use Blogger comments (including Jonathan's own), and they seemed just as bad. I wrote to the tech guys at Blogger.com, in case they didn't already know about it. Hopefully they'll fix things soon.

How long has this problem been going on? I thought things were fine yesterday, but I'm not sure if Enwe's "always" means "every time I try it now", or something more long-term?

Also, does the problem extend beyond the 'post a comment' page at all? Enwe seemed to be suggesting the main page was taking a long time to load too. If others have noticed the same, could you tell me what it loads before freezing up? I sometimes notice a delay when the sidebar gets to the 'site stats' section, because the TTLB ecosystem script doesn't always work. Other potential delayers might include the 'recent comments' or 'sideblog' scripts. Alternatively, you might find nothing loads at all; or else the entire sidebar loads but then delays before displaying the main section (i.e. blog posts).

If I knew which of these sections was causing the problems, then that could help me fix them, if need be. So, do let me know!

P.S. I did notice yesterday it was taking a long time to publish my new posts. Perhaps the entire Blogger database is having a bad day (or two).

Update: [8pm] Everything seems to be working again now (for me at least).

8 comments:

  1. I've never had an issue with your main page/post pages loading. Blogger has had some issues with response time for the comment-related things. There will be an upgrade in just a little bit (see status.blogger.com) and I would imagine things would get immensely better then. It's been a bad day-and-a-half for Blogger servers, yes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've always had some amount of difficulty viewing your blog. Sometimes the main page doesn't load completely; sometimes the sidebar swells to fill half the page. Comments load slowly. (I use Internet Explorer.) It's never been a huge problem, though. Think of it as a way to weed out the impatient!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi David, sorry to hear that - I can't imagine what would cause those problems. But what are you doing with I.E.? Get Firefox!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Richard, today I have the same problems as yesterday. (And I use Firefox. :-) )

    ReplyDelete
  5. Enwe, do you have any problems with the main page, or is it just slow-loading comments?

    I just got an email from Tom telling me that the main page freezes for him when it gets to the 'recent comments' section.

    If many others have similar problems, I might have to change to a new (simpler) template, with no hacks or anything to stuff it up...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Richard, let me describe my problems: I type the URL (of your weblog). Then I push the "return"-Button and have to wait about 30 seconds until the main page of your weblog appears. (During this time my browser tells me that he is wating for haloscan.com) Posting the daily overviews I wanna follow the permalinks. Then I have to wait more than 30 seconds - sometimes two or three minutes. And if I want get back from the permalink-site to the main site then I have to wait again.

    I think that the problem is the sidebar. - I didn't have this waiting times with my old Blogger-weblog.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Damn, that sounds like a real nuisance. I've now gotten rid of Haloscan trackbacks, so hopefully that'll help things load slightly faster.

    Have you always had these problems with my blog, or just in the last couple of days?

    If it was a sidebar problem then you should at least notice *some* of the page loading before it freezes. (E.g. Tom finds it freezes once it gets up to the 'recent comments' section - I hope no-one else has had the same problem?)

    But if the entire page is failing to load in a timely fashion (i.e. you don't even get the first few sections of the sidebar displaying), I'm not sure why that would be...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yep, you're right. Today, there are no waiting times any more (at least for me).

    ReplyDelete

Visitors: check my comments policy first.
Non-Blogger users: If the comment form isn't working for you, email me your comment and I can post it on your behalf. (If your comment is too long, first try breaking it into two parts.)

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.