Update: WordPress Blog Comments Issue Now Fixed
Update: 29 Aug, 2022
Woke up to some even better news from WordPress. They’ve now fixed the bug that has been plaguing a number of sites for the last week. I’ve run a few tests and am happy to report that all the comments I tried to leave went through without problems — even those on sites that were throwing up error messages a few days ago.
The issue of the unwanted email notifications also appears to have been resolved.
I hope this is the case for all of you who have experienced similar issues. I must say I’ve missed the lack of a full comment function so much. It’s the social interaction that keeps me interested in blogging and without it, well I’d just be talking to myself.
Update: 28 Aug 2022
Some good news from WordPress about the problem that has plagued many of our blog sites in recent days. (If you don’t know what this is all about, scroll down to the “What’s The Problem” section.)
I’m still having problems leaving comments on a large number of book blogs and having to use the work arounds described below.
But I’ve just heard from WordPress that they have now identified the bug that’s causing this issue. An email from one of their “Happiness Engineers” tells me that “The developers have found the issue and are working on releasing a fix soon. I don’t have an exact ETA, but we will email you once the fix has been released.”
Though it would be good to know how long it will take before we see normal service restored, at least the source of the problem is known.
On a related point, I know from all the Twitter chat that there is another issue that has materialised in recent days. Bloggers are now getting email notifications whenever there is a reply to a comment they’ve left on another blogger’s post. I’ve certainly noticed that happening in the last two days even though I haven’t requested a notification.
I’ve reported this new issue to WordPress and they advise us to take a look at our settings.
Go to your WordPress account.
In the menu on the left, scroll down to “Notifications” . Then on the menu along the top of the screen, select Comments. Here you can select your preferences.
When I checked mine, somehow it was set up for me to receive email notifications of “likes” and “replies”. I don’t recall ever doing that but have now changed the setting. I’m hoping that fixes the issue.
What’s the Problem?
First of all, my apologies to those of you who’ve encountered problems trying to leave a comment on this blog in recent days.
You may have seen this error message:
Over the past few days this error message has become an all too familiar sight for me when i’ve visited other blogs and tried to leave comments.
The first time it happened, I thought I’d done something wrong or there was a temporary glitch with that particular blog. But soon I was getting the exact same problem with other blogs. Not with all of them — just some.
Then I learned people were getting the same error message when they tried to leave a comment on BookerTalk.
The WordPress “happiness engineers” who picked up my help request, did they best. They ran some tests but couldn’t find any problem with my blog.
On their recommendation I cleared out the cache on my web browser and did a restart of the laptop. They even had me record a video showing step by step what I did to comment on blogs. None of this worked unfortunately.
It now seems I wasn’t the only WordPress user having problems. I’ve since heard some bloggers have found all their comments are coming through as from “anonymous” users.
WordPress have now confirmed that there is a bug in the system. I received this update today.
In the Meantime Try These Solutions
We don’t know how long it will take for this bug to be fixed. Hopefully only a day or so.
In the meantime I’ve found two ways to get around the glitch so you can continue to interact with blogs you enjoy following.
Use the WordPress Reader
I don’t use the reader to follow blogs because I find the Feedly newsreader gives me more flexibility. But I’ve discovered in recent days that if I access a blog directly from the WordPress Reader, then my comments are accepted. If I access the very same blog via Feedly, I get an error message when leaving a comment. So as a temporary measure I’ve reverted to using the Reader.
If you’ve not used the WordPress Reader, go to your WordPress dashboard and look on the top left of your screen -you should see the word “Reader”.
Click on that and you’ll see a screen with a box where you can search by name for a particular box. On the results page, click the blog you want, and hit “follow”. Any new posts from that blog will now be added to your feed. You can choose whether to receive any updates direct to your in box daily or weekly,
Log Out/Log In
If you don’t want to invest the time in setting up the Reader, there is another option available.
Visit a blog as you would normally, and type in your comment.
Before you hit the “Post comment” button, select the “Log Out” button just under your profile name. The immediately log back into WordPress using your WordPress user name and password. It’s a bit of a faff but it works — don’t ask me why !
Update: booksteacupreviews.com has left a comment here that there is another work around that might be easier than log in/log out. In the comment box, click on the word “change” – it’s to the right of the “logout” button as shown in the above image.
I’m Not Ignoring You!
Thank you to everyone who has let me know they’ve had a problem leaving a comment here on my blog. It meant I could show clearly to the WordPress engineers that this wasn’t an isolated issue.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to visit anywhere near as many blogs as I would normally, I’m not neglecting you but it takes me twice as long to write and submit one comment now so interaction has been lower than level. Rest assured I still love you all and am still reading your reviews and posts 🙂 Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.
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I haven’t had any problems commenting, but it may be because I primarily use the WordPress Reader. Glad to hear that the problem has been solved, though.
I have not had any problems with comments, leaving or receiving them. But my dashboard looks entirely different from yours, it doesn’t even offer a Notifications option. Mine is a Premium WordPress.com site but I have kept everything unchanged for several years in terms of layout and using the Classic Editor. I also use the WP Reader a lot and subscribe by email to the blogs I don’t want to miss. (Actually, before I push Send, a pop-up is blocking the WP icon, so manual details had to be added.
the Notifications function isn’t in dashboard (confusingly). I access it via my profile picture which sits at the top of my screen when I am on the dashboard. It then opens a different menu – the one I showed in the image.
🙌🎉😍
I’m also having trouble being randomly logged out of my site on my computer. I’ve contacted them. Also working to improve a small business’s social media and this hit just as I was getting started! And, here I am, having to fill in everything on your site to comment!! Ugh
I’m told the bug has now been fixed. Hope that’s true because it must have been hurting small businesses
Thanks for the update! One benefit to all this is that the amount of spam is significantly lower as well! So the bug must have affected them!
Always a silver lining 🙂
I don’t seem to be having these problems on my blog. I’ve had lots of comments recently, although another blogger told me it was affecting self-hosting blogs mainly. I’m not sure if that is true, but hope it gets fixed soon.
P.S – I had no problem leaving my comment. It worked like it should.
I’m not self hosted but am definitely impacted Hugh as are many others, regardless of whether they have a paid plan or the free hosting service. Other issues have now become apparent – some comments are getting through as “anonymous” and we’re getting emails every time someone does manage to leave a comment.
So glad you didn’t have a problem leaving your comment here
Hi! Hugh sent me here, because I’ve been having the same issues on my Roaming About blog. At first, every comment showed up as anonymous and I needed to moderate them as I have the setting “moderate first comment of a new commenter” engaged. The main problem with that was that I had no idea who the commenter was – all of them were regulars who’ve left comments for years.
So, I turned the setting “allow anonymous comments” off in my dashboard. I think it is phrased “name and email address are required when commenting” or something like that. This took care of the anonymous issue, but when someone commented next, the error message shown in your blog post showed up.
This had happened to me when commenting on other blogs and I used the workaround you mentioned – either signing out of WordPress and filling the fields in again, or erasing the auto-filled fields and trying again.
Let’s hope this issue will get fixed soon, because I don’t want everyone to go through all these steps before they comment. It would discourage the most patient reader!
Hi Liesbet. It’s been such a frustrating time hasn’t it and it is certainly hurting our blogs. The number of comments on my site has dropped significantly. I’m just about to post an update on the latest news from WP about this….
I certainly get an email every-time somebody leaves me a comment, but that’s because I chose that option in the settings of my blog. I like to know so that I can respond. The thought of not responding to comments left on my blog is something I do not like.
Fingers crossed that the issues you and some other bloggers are having with comments will get resolved.
I’ve just adjusted my settings as per advice from WordPress. I always look in the “notification” section the site (the little alarm bell at the top of the screen) so I know who is interacting with the site and also on other blogs. I just don’t want my phone constantly pinging
I’m glad to see this post has so many comments. 😉
It so odd that some people are not having any issues leaving comments when so many of us are …
Thanks for making this post. I had the same problem at a different blog, and I ended up emailing the blogger my comment. I’ll pass the info on to her.
I’m hoping that everyone who encounters a problem logs it with WordPress – the more complaints they get. the more likely they will give it serious attention
Thanks for sharing your work around. I had had this problem at only one WordPress blog and when I tried your work around, I got through at that blog.
Glad it worked for you Tracy, we may be stuck using this for a while
Not sure if my last comment worked but even when I logged in like option did not work. and the gravatar pop up covered the email address as I tried to enter
Ugh, sorry about that and the other problem you encountered with the like options. One suggestion has been made that instead of logging in and out, you hit “change” just before pressing submit on the comment
For the record your like function doesn’t work either. I’ve found this a problem. … and even though I am logged into my WP account I need to log in every time I want to comment
Yes, the glitch went on and on, but I think it is fixed now… I hope… maybe!
No such luck Davida, still getting issues
Yes, I know… Also… you seem to have a different version of WP than I do, because I don’t see these notification settings on mine. I hope they fix it soon.
Hm, I use one of the paid plans. Are you using the free version?
No, I pay for my version, but it is the old basic plan one. I think that will have to change in November when I renew my subscription.
Hm, curiouser and curiouser
I’ve had my comments on blogs I follow disappear over the last few days as well; I’m glad reader is working out–will be a great help till they work out what’s wrong
Are you still having problems?
I’ve actually just stuck to commenting through reader since then and that’s been working fine.
If it works for you, that’s fine. I find Reader a bit frustrating because I can’t delete items I am not interested in
I’ve now posted a link to your very useful blog to my readers. Hope that’s OK!
Absolutely fine Margaret – the more people are aware of this the better
My problems with your blog continue, and every day, more bloggers join my list of those with whom I can’t communicate. I hear from Susan that I am on the list of the ‘uncontactable’ too, though I do still get comments. Yours is a really useful post however – thank you.
I’m just about to do an update Margaret
I almost exclusively use the WP Reader to keep up to date with blogs I follow. It has its limitations (I can’t access certain features in posts such as polls, for example) but as a way of not appearing negligent of bloggers’ efforts it’s ideal – even though I often get behind with catching up to posts.
I used to use the Reader but I found it irritating that I couldn’t remove a post I wasn’t interested in. It just stays in the feed and you hav to scroll down to find the things that do interest me
Thanks for this Karen. I’ve had several people comment on this issue but so far (touch wood) have not seen it myself.
I will be trying out your site later on – hope I haven’t jinxed you
I’ve had this problem for awhile. I’m glad they’ve finally acknowledged the bug! Fingers crossed all will go well again soon. Thanks for the workaround tips.
Yours is one of the sites I had a problem with unfortunately Lory. So I passed on your url to WP but they told me they couldn’t look at it because you’re not a WP client
Fingers crossed it works out.
I clicked on ‘Change’ beside the log in /log out and re-entered by email and name to make this work.
Oh well at least that works though its a frustrating experience
I hope they find a solution though from the last email it doesn’t look like its going to be a rapid fix
Thanks for this, Karen. Very helpful post. I’ll stick to commenting through the Reader for now and will add a line to my next post.
Good idea about adding a sign off line to each post – I never thought about that
Interesting Karen … I have been having such problems commenting on WordPress blogs for most of this year. The Happiness Engineers tried very hard to help, but we got nowhere. I don’t even know where to start describing it, but:
– some blogs I could could comment on straightforwardly. Their blog knew me and it was easy.
– other blogs like yours here – I hope it works again this time – finds me as soon as I enter my email address, and then it fills in the rest of my details and I can usually comment
– still other blogs, I have to hand enter all my details (email address, name, website) and then it accepts me. – even others, I do all that and then when I comment, it makes me go through another sign into WP process, and then it works.
I have found a work around. If I see the little Follow … button on the bottom right, I click on it, and click the log in, and then it all works. I have to do that EVERY time for Lisa’s blog whereas once upon a time her blog knew me.
I don’t use Reader much at all but if I use that, or respond via Notifications on the app. it is usually all fine.
I have cleared my cache and history, logged in and out so many times.
My sense is that it is all so hard now with multiple platforms – desktops, laptops, apple mobile devices, all sorts of other mobile devices, and then everyone with different operating systems, some updated, some not – that it’s really difficult for programmers and trouble shooters to get it right!
I’ve been having the same frustrating experience as you for many months (even before this latest glitch).
Some blogs just recognise me as a WP user but others require another level of authentication – exactly the same issue as you’ve descried in your third example.
At first I thought the authentication requirement happened if I tried accessing the blog via my iPad when I was alredy logged in to WP via my laptop – in other words the system may have put a security measure in place.
But it happens also on the laptop so now I’m thinking it is something to do with the settings used by the blogger but without checking on multiple people and asking them to describe their settings I’ll never know if I’m right.
thanks for that tip about the “follow” button. I shall have to try that out.
I only ever access blogs through the WP app on my phone so this has not been an issue for me.
I’d find it so hard to rely on my phone not having mastered the art of typing quickly on the key pad.
I do absolutely everything on my phone these days and only ever use the laptop to write blog posts, many of which I’ve drafted on my phone anyway.
Gosh I don’t know how people can do that. I find it hard enough to do a simple text message because the phone wants to auto correct all the time (to the wrong word)
It’s just practice and pretty much every job in past 10 years has required me to work on the go with just a smartphone…
Also: you can turn autocorrect off.
I never realised that. I shall investigate…
I also had the same issue and one reader pointed it out to me about error. But that is solved by changing the credentials in “Change” beside (long in/Log out) below this comment field, like i did with this comment.
Thanks for that tip. I shall give it a go – hope is quicker than the log out/log in tip I shared
I’m commenting through the WP reader. I need to alert my followers as well! That explains why my WP tech person knew there was a problem but couldn’t see anything to fix. Hopefully it is resolved soon!
I also kept getting told that they couldn’t find a problem but I just persisted and sent them examples of messages I had from others. Then they started to get a few more clients flagging an issue. I don’t think its going to be fixed soon though
I also checked my stats for the last few months and August’s is less than half of my monthly average. So, yeah, there’s definitely a problem! So discouraging.
Yep mine are down markedly too