Blogspot and Server Access

As you may have noticed, this website is currently hosted by Blogspot. That's for a very simple reason - I wanted to start developing content, without worrying about page design, or about hosting and publishing. Admittedly, this entire website is ugly, and clunky. It doesn't have a polished look and feel, nor very many pretty pictures. Just content. I'm working on both issues - be patient please. Or leave me a message on My Guestbook, if the mood strikes you.

Anyway, to develop my content, I chose Blogspot. Blogspot is big, and has lots of bandwidth. And generally, this is beneficial.

But not always. Recently, I observed a problem. I would see one of several very odd errors when trying to publish articles, or update articles already published.

• This error I saw several days ago. It went away after several hours.
  

  
  Please republish your blog in 10 minutes.
  This post has been saved and your blog is still publicly viewable while we perform system enhancements.
  

  
  
• This error I saw a couple days ago. It did NOT go away, and I waited for about 8 hours before continuing.
  

  
  The server has encountered an error. A technician has been dispatched...
  

  
  
• Occasionally, I would attempt to refresh from the second error, and get a simple white screen (blank page).
  

Obviously, this was not an acceptable condition. Since I constantly make changes here, this website, at least as far as being updated when appropriate, was down for almost 2 days.

Then, I got analytical. I went to another computer on my LAN, and tried to update an article. Lo and behold, I was able to update from my other computers. Just not from my most productive computer, where all of my tools reside. Noting that I was looking at one computer only, I investigated further.

Looking at the cookies in Firefox, where I do my work, I noted a cookie for Blogger, titled "ServerID". I compared the ServerID for the problem computer, and noted that it was a different value from the others. I then deleted all Blogger cookies and restarted my browser. Upon trying to publish and update articles, I was then successful.

Since you are changing your Blogger server because the server is providing a corrupt (garbled / incomplete) copy of your blog, your browser cache will now have garbled / incomplete content. So, you also need to clear the cache.

For details on clearing Cache and Cookies, see The Real Blogger Status: Change Your Blogger Server.

Now, the problem server was "1291". After restarting Blogger, I am now on "1547". Obviously, they have one heck of a huge server farm. Knowing that, I don't think it all unlikely that hundreds of Bloggers might be blogging away with no problem, yet one or two have a problem like mine at any time.

So, if you use Blogger, and start getting an odd error condition like mine, and if your problem doesn't go away shortly, investigate, and take action. You may help a few folks, like you and me, if we can identify a pattern, or some consistency.

And, when you do note Blogger / Blogspot problems, publish a description of the problem and solution at Blogger Forums - Newbies, and at Google Blogger Help. You'll have to register (free!) to publish, but it's well worth your time. I promise.