Thursday, June 28, 2018

Gee, Thanks, Blogger!

Call this a Public Service Announcement.  I am going to pass on some information from Blogger/Wordpress that has had my stymied for awhile and another fix for a problem from a change that will happen next week.

1. I haven't been able to get email notification on comments on my blog for weeks and the info on the forums and Blogger was no help.  This is from DJan's blog, DJan-ity,
and an easy fix, in case anyone else is having the same problem.  She says:
Open your blog dashboard, that is where the compose button sits and all those buttons are on the left, along with the list of your posts, published and drafts. Go down to Settings and click Email. If you were receiving emails of blog comments, your email address will be there in the box next to 'Comment notification email'. Delete your email address within the the box and at the top right, click 'Save Settings'. It has been suggested that you should close down and restart your computer. Do so if you wish. 
Then, go back to where you were at, Settings/Email and add your email address to the box 'Comment Notification Email' and again click Save Settings.You will receive an email and within the email there are two options. Select 'Subscribe'. Voila, you will now receive an email when someone comments on your blog. It may take a little time to start working though.

2. And I received this this morning from Silver Willow at A Gentle Breeze.  I hope I have forestalled another Blogger problem-to-be.

According to Blogger yesterday, Blogger blogs that don't change their https settings by the end of the month, well, in their words  "Otherwise your blog will no longer work properly in popular web browsers starting next month."

So/but don't worry.  I followed the easy directions, and within 5 minutes all was fixed and working properly.  But I want to explain to you here

1.  how to determine (if you don't know) if you need to do this,
2.  how to fix it if you do need to
3.  what to do if you have a private domain name and need to fix it to.  It's easy.  :)

First, this applies only to Blogger blogs.  But if you have a Wordpress.org or .com, you might want to check with them re https settings, if they aren't already set up.

To know if you, as a Blogger user, needs to do this, look at your url line.  Does it start with https?  If so, you must've made the changes Blogger told you to make and didn't ignore then 'x' out of the Admin Panel notice a couple months back.  But if you DON'T see 'https', please follow these directions.  Also, if you have a private domain, please still check the steps below, just to be sure.

1.  Go to your admin panel, and click 'settings' and then 'basic.'  
2.  Scroll down to 'https availability.'  
3.  In the first box, if it says 'no, change it to yes.  Then you will get a notice that it could take a few minutes to activate.  Wait a few minutes-up to five minutes, but it was only a few minutes for me.
4.  when it seems to be done (it will tell you to wait, otherwise), then click the 2nd box 'https redirect' to yes as well.  Once it takes a moment or two, to permanently change to 'yes', you are done.  There were no hiccups for me, and that's it.

Apparently this all has to do with the British or Europe changes taking place, web safety wise, next month, whether you live in that area or not.  So you definitely need to make sure you are set.

It seems like Blogger could do a better job of explaining fixes in plain English (or German. Or Dutch.  Or Urdu).  As explained above, it was easy and quick to do.  And hopefully next month my blog will still work now!  
Sunset last night from the beach last night after an afternoon storm.  

...and a box turtle in the driveway when we got home.

Aren't her colors and markings gorgeous?

16 comments:

  1. Beautiful turtle!

    My settings are automatic to https.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for that. I wondered where all the emails had gone!

    ReplyDelete
  3. At my advanced age I enjoy photographing turtles way above chickadees. Much easier to catch up to....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the heads up about the emailed comments. I have had that trouble for months it seems like. I switched over to comment moderation so I would get an email. I think I'll keep that for now but know now how to fix it if I want to change back to direct emailing of comments.
    I used Silver Willow's suggestion to change my url. It was only one step for some reason.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is making my headache. why can't blogger do this? Thanks for cluing me in on this one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for that information. Have fixed mine to https and so far no problems in commenting..at least I will know where to come for a fix if I do have trouble :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great photo, the markings are indeed beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the blogger explanations. I'm getting really tired of how blogger keeps changing things and making it harder to use.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Beautiful photos. The turtle is amazing! Thanks for the Wordpress info.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you so much for the information. Blogger is becoming somewhat frustrating lately.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for the public service announcement. Some of my blogs were changed and some we not so now they all are!
    I have never quite understood why people want email notifications of a comment...I just read mine...after three days mine go to moderation:)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for the information. My blog already says https but I haven't been receiving email notifications like I used to so I have done what you have suggested and I hope it starts to work soon.
    The turtle does have lovely markings, it looks like a foreign language.

    ReplyDelete
  13. These things are sent to try us... and then make us feel really good when we have sorted it all out :) I'm running both Blogger and WP at the mo and so the jury's out!
    Lucky that beautiful turtle made it safely across your road!
    Enjoy your Sunday
    Wren x

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks Cynthia - it seems that I needed to do these things. I'm generally pretty good at ignoring such notifications and then wondering why things don't work.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hey, THANKS Cynthia, your suggestion about unsubscribing and re-subscribing for email worked to fix my problem. I guess I am lazy when it comes to technology. Something goes wrong and I just find a work around instead of finding the problem. Anyway, back in business. That turtle is beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dear Cynthia, thank you for all this info. I copied it and will print it off so I can easily follow the directions. I'm totally inept at the computer unless I'm using Microsoft word on a manuscript. the Internet is mostly beyond me. So thanks again.

    Secondly, I looked and realized that I'd never signed up to follow you. I've done that now. It just took me about 6 months!!!! Peace.

    ReplyDelete