Hope it’s the real fix
During this time of blog cache snafus, a couple of people wrote to ask if I was okay, because they hadn’t seen a new post here since last Friday. That’s how severe the cache problem was for a few people. But a lot more people had a more minor form of it, and couldn’t see new posts and/or comments to a certain extent, either.
Bummer.
Well, it’s nice to know I’ve been missed. But the situation on the blog was completely unacceptable. People need updates, but they kept seeing the old cache instead of the new entries and didn’t even know what if anything was missing.
Well, it’s a lot better now. Whether it’s all better I’m not 100% sure, but time will tell. Please report to me pronto if you have any problem with new comments not showing up, or if there are disagreements between how many comments are listed in the number at the end of each post and how many can actually be viewed on that post, or if there is any day when by evening there are no posts at all or just one post (except Sunday; I usually take that day off).
As for what happened and how it got fixed—if in fact it is totally fixed—I’ve been working on the problem for four days now, looking up possible solutions online and calling my host repeatedly. The host support people kept denying they had anything to do with it, and the first couple of people I spoke to (after the usual looong wait times) not only denied it was their fault but just shrugged it off and said I should put up a note on the blog that everyone who reads it should use a certain browser, a browser I’d determined didn’t have the problem.
Inane, to say the least. I had patiently explained it was a problem on all browsers. But even if there had been an unaffected browser, can you imagine a blog that can only be viewed on one browser? Only the most faithful readers would stay, and new readers wouldn’t even find it in the first place.
After a lot of research on my part I kept coming up against the idea that it had to be a hosting problem, or at least mainly a hosting problem. I’ll skip the reasons why I concluded that. And so, after several more calls and many hours spent each day in this endeavor (by me, not by the host), they finally found a weird piece of code they had inadvertently and mistakenly inserted that was causing cached versions of my blog to “stick.”
I think it’s fixed now. At least, it’s fixed on my computer and on the computers of several friends I asked to check. The situation has been extremely frustrating, though. Please bear with me if it needs a bit more fine-tuning, and let me know how it’s going for you.
UPDATE 3:30 PM
From what I’ve heard from readers, most are experiencing marked improvements. Great! Some, however, still are having problems. I don’t know the ratio of the latter to the former, but I think it’s pretty low. Keep letting me know what’s happening in your case.
But I don’t want anyone to be having cache problems. Keep informing me, and I’ll keep working on it with the host. I could ultimately end up switching hosts, but until now they’ve been pretty good, and I’ve heard people complain about other hosts, too. So I’m hoping this was just a single error, never to be repeated, and I’m very much expecting it to be 100% fixed pretty soon.
In the meantime, keep refreshing if you think things may not be loading properly.
another test… lets see…
[by the way, the source was actually 4chan!!! it exposes our trusted servants for the shills and morons we selected!!!]
It was me: Sworn Trump enemy John McCain admits HE handed smear dossier to FBI – as details surface of document’s bizarre journey from British former spy and diplomat
– Arizona Senator who disowned Trump before election admits he handed document outlining claims of Kremlin blackmail to FBI
– Brief statement claims that he received it and gave it directly to FBI Director James Comey because he was ‘unable to make judgment about accuracy’
– But Washington reporter Carl Bernstein says former British ambassador to Moscow handed it to McCain
– Ambassador has not been named – and author of report also gave to FBI agent he knew at its station in Rome months ago
– Report was apparently paid for first BY Republican enemies of Trump then by Democrats
However Carl Bernstein, the Watergate reporter who contributed to the first story about its existence, published by CNN on Tuesday afternoon, suggested that McCain was handed it by a former British ambassador to Moscow.
Bernstein told CNN: ‘It came from a former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both republican and democratic candidates opposed to Trump.
‘They were looking at Trumps business ties, they saw some questionable things about Russians, about his businesses in Russia, they in turn hired this MI6 former investigator, he then came up with additional information from his Russian sources, he was very concerned by the implications of it, he then took it to an FBI colleague that he had known in his undercover work for years, he took it to this FBI man in Rome who turned it over to the bureau in Washington in August.
of course, there is an electronic history of the 4chan going back..
– by way of zerohedge
this is similarly to how the US made aids got to our shores that idiots in the black community and otherplaces still promtoe despite russian admission and apologies.
and similarly to the honey pot game that did indonesia coupe a bad service and the US one too, but it worked out ok
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/4chan-claims-have-fabricated-anti-trump-report-hoax
NOTE: you would think a person like me who is always talking about russiand dirt, would have spoken up fast, but this does NOT look like them, IF you know history… duh
yay… it worked
Change hosts.
Just came back today and was still showing the jan 9th test thing. But before I split I hit refresh and saw this post on the top.
So I had to reload the page, after loading it, to see current. Just FYI.
Seconding the report that the site is working again.
I did not have to refresh to see this, the latest available story, or see the correct number of comments on the main page, or to see the story/comments.
Wooly Bully:
I may indeed end up changing hosts. But I’ll have to research that for a while, and right now I just want this fixed.
We’ll see.
The posts after “Things I’m grateful for…” aren’t showing up on my iPad or PC (Firefox), even after hitting reload a few times. I can access them from the January 2017 archive, and from the “next” and “previous” links at the bottom of each post.
Now reload is bringing up the latest posts. Yay!
Jen:
Glad to hear it. Let me know if the problem recurs.
Neo:
Everything seems OK for me, now.
The host support people kept denying they had anything to do with it …
Right. The first response is always deny, deny, deny.
… and the first couple of people I spoke to (after the usual looong wait times) not only denied it was their fault but just shrugged it off and said I should put up a note on the blog that everyone who reads it should use a certain browser…
This is absurd. Everyone should buy a Mac and only use the OmniWeb browser, right?
Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is not uncommon in software/services, but IMHO is totally unacceptable. If possible, I’d recommend speaking to someone higher up in the company, someone who actually cares about the company’s reputation for customer service and long-term business prospects. I’ve sometimes gotten good results just by asking to speak to the supervisor of the first-level people I’ve dealt with. Or ask to speak to the supervisor’s supervisor.
… they finally found a weird piece of code they had inadvertently and mistakenly inserted that was causing cached versions of my blog to “stick.”
OMG! Turns out it was their fault after all. What a surprise! And they only discovered it because you kept pushing them to investigate instead of sitting on their butts.
Just a wild guess here: they never offered anything vaguely resembling an apology…
The Other Gary:
Nope, nothing like an apology.
Of course, each time I called, I spoke to a different person. Each person says his (in this case, all were male) name, but it’s not like you can request the same person next time. Plus, except for the last one, there was no one I’d want to request. And all of them had American accents, so this has nothing to do with outsourcing.
I’d switch hosts, but I doubt others are better at a similar price. I don’t want to pay enormous amounts for hosting, so right now I’m going to stick with this.
I just visited, and the top post was yesterday’s “Keep Refreshing” post (which was the top post when I visited last evening). I had to refresh in order to see today’s posts. FYI, I’m using Firefox 51 (beta) on Windows 10.
I knew I was right that the problem had something to do with computers and software and the internet.
Neo:
I’d switch hosts, but I doubt others are better at a similar price. I don’t want to pay enormous amounts for hosting, so right now I’m going to stick with this.
I suspect this kind of uneven service and poor attitude are common, so there’s a good chance you’d see the same kind of thing with a different host — even if you paid a lot more.
Cornflour:
I knew I was right that the problem had something to do with computers and software and the internet.
Excellent long-distance diagnosis! I should have listened to you all along. 🙂
KellyJ:
What I’ve been hearing from people is that on their first visit since last night’s repair job, the old posts are still “sticky” and the new don’t appear until they refresh. But then, after that first “refresh,” everything seems okay.
It may be that for some reason the repair doesn’t work till the first “refresh,” but after that things work as they should.
Please let me know whether it works properly for you from now on.
I just clicked in at 1536 PDT and had to refresh the page to get today’s posts. Other than that, it seems fine.
J.J.:
Please let me know if it continues to be fine, or not.
I hope you don’t have to “refresh” again, and that new posts will load smoothly now without it.
Neo,
Remind everyone that they have to manually clear their comptuers cache.