I ranted yesterday about the crazy problems over at WordPress.
If you are a blogger, you know what problems I am talking about . . . non-spam comments ending up in the spam folder, endless follow-up comments via email if you, God forbid, forget to unclick that little box, etc.
Here is an issue I haven’t seen mentioned. Is this happening to anyone else?
You read a great blog post, formulate a pithy comment, press “Post Comment,” and then POOF. Your comment disappears and doesn’t show up as being posted?
For those of you I follow and you haven’t heard from me, I apologize. I’ve commented. I really have. I promise.
I am going to stop wasting my time and attempting to comment until this issue is resolved.
But tell me, is the “disappearing comment act” happening to you too?
WordPress dashboard interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Robin Coyle 
Haven’t had any of those problems.
You are lucky Russel. It has been a nightmare.
I’m in this crazy boat as well, grrrr…
Grrr is right. I hope this gets cleared up soon. What a pain.
Totally happened to me too. And i had… just as you said, the perfect ‘pithy’ comment that just rang with zest… to vanish. I just didnt have it in me again to conjure up that much zeal again about something i had just said. Really discouraging to comment when you dont know if it is a total waist of time (unless you are aware enough to copy the comment text first. I have not been able to remember thus far to do so.) … i better do it now! Just incase 😉
it worked!! i didnt have to repaste my reply! hurrah!
What a relief!!
Sent from my iPad
Pingback: I’ll Be Back If/When the WordPress Issues Are Resolved « Robin Coyle
Yes, and it often says I’ve already commented when I haven’t.
Same problem here! Maddening.
Yes. I’m really sick of it. I also hate what they’ve done to the tags pages. Now they’re just on my “reader” in this boring linear format and it makes it much harder to choose what I want to read and it’s killed my traffic – my blog is new and I don’t have many followers, I rely on the tag pages for readership.
I haven’t had any problems with comments (have you tried using a different browser?) but even without those problems WordPress is a bit shitty.
I had the CSS upgrade for a day before I sent it back because it is so, so unbelievably bad. my husband is a web developer and even he was pulling his hair out.
Bloody WordPress. I still think it’s better than Blogger though.
I was so excited when I thought it was a browser issue. Nope. Used different brower – SAME F issue.
I haven’t looked in Spam, yet, but I’m on my way there now. This is such a major pain in the ass!
Can I come over to your house for a good cry. Seriously. This is terrible.
Of course you can! In fact, if you want to write a witty, cutting guest post about this whole thing, I’d love to run it! I still forget — so I’ve bookmarked the Reader Page, and just group delete them all. Mine is gone because I went to Settings/Discussion and unchecked the three boxes just before the Gravatar — removed the follow buttons altogether from each post. Hopefully people will see it at the Top Of The Home Page! 😎
I’d love to write a cutting guest post for you but won’t have time until I am home from this trip. HOPEFULLY, the problems will be resolved by then. Fingers-crossed!
Have a lovely trip and we’ll tallk when you’ve settled back home! 😎
Pingback: Day 130..#Dear WordPress.. « Confessions of an Apple Junkie
Your comments on my blog ended up in my spam folder. Not sure what is going on? Haven’t had any problems myself – just with your comments. I’m sorry.
Lindsey
About to give up!!!! But I am stubborn, so won’t. Sorry if I don’t get around to your posts for a while…………poor John, George, Paul, and Ringo.
They’ll be there waiting for you 😀
Lindsey
I’ve experienced the follow up comment box being ticked by default (& having to remember to untick it) and on blogs it’s not default ticked but is for others. I only had one legit comment so far end up in spam but it was mine back to a regular commenter, to which she had responded… After I used even less tags (soon will be using none if the trend continues) my blog posts, I think, are now appearing as I’m getting likes & follows from new bloggers 🙂 I don’t know that these are browser issues as I’m guessing we all use various browsers. And, yes if I’m interested to follow the comments I keep the original email from the post & go back later. My Topics & Reader were still dodgy as of yesterday. Hope it gets better 🙂
So less tags helps? Hmm….everything is just weird. Sales of antidepressant drugs must have skyrocketed lately.
Yep, I’m back to 6 tags & am getting responses from non-existing followers to new posts on elladee_images where I hadn’t been a few days ago with 10 tags, prior to that 10 tags was ok. Also prior to using 10 tags when I first started WP blog posts I was using more than 10 with no issues until randomly my posts stopped appearing in Topics & when I read the fine print on WP it said no more than 10 tags & 1 category… oh dear, I think I need a glass of wine 🙂
I’ve found if you don’t tick it you get some, not all, comments. Some comments don’t get to you. The only thing I found in my spam box was me, my own comments.
I have two other blogs because these things will crash. I know blogger better and have fewer problems like this, but I have to re-post. as it will wipe out your blogs but not your drafts. I still like blogger better and have a bigger following, but some people on blogger can’t post on worrdpress and people on wordpress can’t post on blogger.
And yeah those eternal comments. sheesh!
So you are spam on your own blog like I am spam on my blog . . . an apparently everyone else’s?
Nothing more frustrating than taking the time to formulate a thoughtful response, only to watch it vanish before your eyes. I am not above shaking my fists at the computer screen. It helps. 😉
Blessings,
Cara
I shook my fist, swore like a sailor, and threw my computer out the window. With what I have been through, I should have then taken a baseball bat and beat the thing to a pulp.
So many people I want to say “great blog, thanks for the award, whatever” too and I am now afraid. I AM SPAM!
I’m trying anything and everything: eyes peeled and ears open. I just want this to be over. Such a headache.
Oh, thank you so much for eyes and ears peeled. I want it to be over too. How is your traffic thru all this?
I moved to WordPress because I heard great reviews. The wheels do seem to be coming a bit loose though.;(
Wheels loose, or better said, fallen off. What a mess. Are you managing ok?
Yes, I think so. I just have to concentrate more. 😉
Reblogged this on Sarchasm2 and commented:
I had to re-blog this because sometimes I write beautiful long comments and when I press the button poooooofffff gone in a flash to a spam box, trash box or outer space for all I know. Check your spam box regularly and “Not spam” those which you want to keep. What an extra pain in the ass
Thanks for the re-blog. Thank GOD we have each other!
comments disappear only on some blogs and those ones are usually found in the bloggers spam box
Yeah. It is all random.
Here’s something to help people who visit your blog, at least:
Thanks for putting this up. It helped me with the “comment issue” but can I whine some more about my I AM NOTHING BUT SPAM issue?
Sure 🙂
No, my own comments are okay, but yours disappear into my spam folder.
As my kids would say . . . what the F………?
Readers of my blog have reported their comments disappearing into the ether. And I tend to find them in the spam folder. So I do try and spend some time sorting through my spam everyday looking out for genuine comments. Thought it was just Akismet acting up, but it does get annoying, especially if it’s the same person’s comments that keeps getting spammed.
Incidentally, I’ve got a self-hosted (.org) WordPress site, so it looks like the problems are not limited to WordPress.com. 😦
Oh phew. I am not the only one? Small comfort, right?
I am going to let things ride out a bit for two reasons. I am visiting family and I am fried by WordPress and need a break. Blogging was supposed to be fun, and this. . . it ain’t. What a waste of time.
Strange you say this, because your recent comment ended up in our spam filter!
Damn it all to hell!
I’m so sorry Robin but that actually made me laugh out loud!!
Yeah smarty pants. Have it happen to you and you will be asking me to make a Margarita to ease the pain. Happy to do it. Blended, or on the rocks?
Hahaah! 😀 Yum yes please!
Hi Robin,
I’m sorry you are having these problems. It is very frustrating. On my end, I have not experienced any of the problems you mention, though I have experienced others not mentioned. To WordPress’s credit, they take problems very seriously and respond relatively quickly with individualized attention if you send them an email via their contact form. I do not pay for any upgraded service. I’m a peon (sp.?) and have received the very best attention to and correction of my problems. But I don’t wait too long before letting them know.
You mentioned in your previous post that you are contemplating switching platforms. I strongly advise against it. Blogger is worse than anything you’ve yet experienced with WordPress. I’ve know a few writers who have converted from Blogger simply because there is no support and it is so difficult to use.
For what it’s worth, I recommend explaining your struggles and being open to them helping you to figure it out. I have nothing but the best to say and would not use any other platform for my blogs.
I hope it works out for the best. Hang in there. No tech stuff is without a boatload of crap — the minute we switch from doing things on our own, we invite in a whole host of demons that would never have been there in the first place. It comes with the territory.
Yes, since looking into moving, I have seen horrible reviews about other platforms. I’ll stick with WordPress because until now, they have been good to me.
I posted my problem on the WP forum in two places so let’s see if that goes anywhere.
For now, I am Spam to the world. Ah me. So many blogs stacked up and I want to respond, but can’t.
I don’t have the e-mail anymore but ntexas99 sent instructions May 4th at 10.05 PM and it seems to have fixed the problem for me. Also no e-mails for a couple of days (except for a handful). Now I’m back in business again. Also, I don’t have the two boxes to click below post comment and I’ve noticed a few other people don’t either. I’ve just had to switch boxes before sending this.
Will it ever end? I discovered that the world now considers me SPAM. What a sad lot I am.
I comment and off it goes into SPAM land. Now, how do I tell the world I am not SPAM I am?
Glad to hear you are back in business. Phew.
Hi,
The link I gave you yesterday to the WP forum where everyone is complaining about the comments explains how you can turn off notify by e-mails to all blogs. There are still complaints coming through and staff said in the forum that is will be temp.
Some sites that you may have already commented on and unticked the notify will stay unticked.
There have also been complaints in the forums of people loosing their comments, but I didn’t read what was being said about that. You can only reach support in the forums at the moment.
I just posted my question in two places on the forum. It is so maddening that I now am not able to post comments on other people’s blog . . . like yours for example.
Fortunately, I’m not having any real problems other than my dissatisfaction with the comment following by email. I’ve noticed that for some blogs it’s NOT checked, but it still is for others. My guess is they just haven’t got it connected to all the themes or everyone’s accounts yet.
But a number of your comments have ended up in my spam queue and attached to clearly the wrong post. And at least one was supposed to be your response to my comment on YOUR blog!
Have you contacted technical support? I think there’s a problem with your account beyond the behind-the-scenes changes. They should be able to fix those for you!
I’ve gone technical support page and it says that unless you have paid for an upgraded site, they don’t have time to give technical support. Not very friendly of them, is it?
Not at all. How many people does that drive to other blog hosts?
Seriously.
This hasn’t happened to me. I wonder if it is related to the web browser you are using and some weird incompatibility errors.
Glad it hasn’t happened to you. I don’t think it is a compatibility issue because in the months I have been doing this crazy little thing called blogging, the disappearing comments didn’t happen.
You might be surprised, I have a friend who is a web developer and he sees things suddenly not work correctly when a minor update is applied to a particular web browser. That doesn’t mean it is the case here though.
Is there a way to fix it if it is a compatibility issue?
Only to use a different browser until the faulty one is updated. Most different browsers are free downloads and can import your bookmarks. It could be worth a try just to see if the problem stays or goes.
Robin, I’ve started to get a couple of problems myself, so I’m pretty sure it is not browser related. However it could be that your posts are suddenly going into peoples spam emails and therefore are not being published on the page straight away. I went into someones spam the other day, and this was someone’s who I had posted on several times before with no issues. He caught it pretty quick and let me know about it.
I’m glad, I think, that I am not the only one.But what to do?!?!
Mine got solved, it was just going into spam. That is why the posts seem to disappear. Look on my post for today, and there is a link for contacting akismet. Use the option for my comments are going into spam and fill the rest of the form out. Mine got resolved within 24 hours.
Hi Eliot – I submitted my spam problem to askimet. Did they contact you or did the problem mysteriously resolve itself?
I got an email reply along the lines of “sorry about that, you should be fine now”. I read somewhere that it could have been someone accidentally marking a comment as spam and you then get put in the akismet database. Or maybe they have some new spam identifier which needs a bit or ironing out.
The follow-up comments email box thing has been ridiculous
Traffic is kind of weird too. I dropped off by a lot over the last half of 2011. I’m just now getting back to about half of the hits I used to get per week. Even posts that reliably get a number of hits per day dropped off without explanation.
Strange, isn’t it? There is no explaining the evil wiles of WordPress.
It has happened to me. Yep, you type, you edit, you reread, change the tone, check a fact, check the spelling (bar checking the fact I found myself doing it for this comment) and Nothing. Not nice at all.
I have read the other comments and will have a word with Support if it happens again. Hang in there Ms. Coyle. When we suffer from programming difficulties, we suffer together.
From the comments I see that others, but not all are having this problem. Hence, all these comments showing up here.
Yes, at least we have good company as we suffer together. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen your blog in a while. Has WordPress unfollowed me from your blog? I’ll pop over to take a look.
Yup – I was unfollowed. Damn WordPress.
I’m relieved to say that I haven’t had that happen to me, yet.
Hopefully it is just a blip and will calm down. I have noticed that the Notify me of follow-up comments via email is UN-TICKED as I type this so maybe that is resolved too.
Yeah, I think THAT problem is resolved. Fingers crossed!
I’ve had the disappearing comment problem in the past, but it was fixed when I contacted support.
As for the disaster of comment e-mails clogging my inbox, I hope they fix or reverse that. It is so inconvenient and frustrating.
Before all this nonsense started, I told a friend about how user-friendly WordPress is. Now, I am not so sure.
There is comfort in knowing we are all in this together~!
Hasn’t happened to me. But luckily, my reader is working today. Before I went to bed, it told me I had some 30,000 plus posts to read!
Well then, you better get busy.
Glad to hear you haven’t had the disappearing comment problem.
No I haven’t had a disappearing comment problem myself – although out of habit, I always tend to highlight and copy any comments I type before posting just in case because I’ve had it happen on forums before!
That is a good idea. Especially if it is a long comment and you spent a lot of time on it.
I meant ‘haven’t had’
Ha ha! I knew what you meant.
I had this happened- yet. Fingers crossed
Phew for you! Have you had the other problems? Misery loves company, you know.
Again, I wish there was a ‘dislike’ button… I’m sorry you’re experiencing this nonsense. I don’t think my stuff is disappearing, but I’m never quite sure how some comments manage to be pre-approved while others have to wait for moderation. I realise once you’re in a conversation with somebody they come up automatically, but otherwise I’m just not sure why…
Not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but the blogger can set the comments to how he or she wants it (on their own site). For example, in the settings, you can choose to have all comments anyone leaves on your blog go to moderation first or none of them. Or you can set it so that once a new individual leaves a comment, it goes to moderation, but anytime after that this same person comes back and comments, it can be immediately published. Hope that helps. 🙂
Ahh, that does help, thank you. 🙂 I thought it was set to Moderate, but what you’ve just explained sounds like what I’m experiencing. I’ve maybe inadvertantly hit a button, or not, as the case may be! 🙂 Cheers!
Hi Carrie and Katy…what would we do without each other!?
🙂