Editing An Old Post? Beware Missing "</li>" Tags!

I recently updated an old post, to add a link to a newly published post - and experienced panic.

Adding a link to an old post, Deleted / Locked Blogs Have Several Causes, I discovered an oddity which caused extreme heartburn for several hours. Maybe you have experienced this, also.

Editing my post, and adding a simple single sentence, with embedded link, at the end of the post, I refreshed the display (always test your changes - no matter how minor!), and watched as the paragraphing scrambled itself.

I added a single sentence to the end of an old post - and watched as paragraphs in the post became hopelessly scrambled.

See the missing "</li>" at the end of the first list element?

Look at how the list line spacing is screwy now.

<li><a href="#DMCA">DMCA Violation</a> looks for copyright and similar violations.

Just one missing tag. Long ago, I learned to always close every list element properly.

<li><a href="#DMCA">DMCA Violation</a> looks for copyright and similar violations.</li>

But my proper list syntax policy had apparently started after the post, in question, was published.

I spent the next 1/2 hour re paragraphing the post content, following the broken list - and re spacing the list itself.

And having saved my work, the list - and the paragraphs following the list - remained scrambled.

This is no good!

How can I hope to help people, using this post?



Observing that paragraphing above the broken list was fine, I looked at the list code, line by line.

Paragraphing above the list is OK!



Much to my relief, I found a missing "</li>" tag. Adding the missing tag, I re paragraphed the post content - and this time, my changes remained.

This is what I would want to see.

Even the list remains properly spaced, in post editor.



Be very careful, when editing lists, in post editor "HTML" mode. Lack of care can lead to unpleasant consequence.

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When editing a #Blogger blog post, in HTML mode, be very careful to avoid dropping closing list element tags. One dropped tag affects formatting of list content after the missing tag - and paragraphing following the broken list, even with the list properly closed.

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Recovering From A Corrupt Template - Persistence

Of the many Blogger Mysteries that confound blog owners and readers, none are more obscure than the many bX codes.

Some problems, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, start so innocently.

As I edited the Template HTML, I saved my changes - and the bX error suddenly appeared.

Each different bX code refers to a different problem, with Blogger in general. Of the bX codes that refer to template corruption, each different bX code may refer to a different template corruption problem.

When a template corruption problem can be reset, the resetting process may involve repeated use of one or more dashboard pages.

Different problems may enable - or prevent - use of a different dashboard page. For problems with multiple causes, you may have to use each different wizard, persistently.

1. The Template Designer page.
2. The Template page.
3. The Template Editor ("Edit HTML") page.
4. If the blog is not operational, you start again.

Unfortunately, some problems may prevent use of all 3 pages. For the problems that permit use of one or more pages, you try each available page, repeatedly, until the blog becomes operational.

To access each page, you may need to bypass the dashboard menu.

The Template Designer page.

The Template Designer is used for one task - "Remove customizations".

The Template Designer.



"Remove customizations" may be the simplest reset that you may try - when possible. Some customizations, when removed, may enable subsequent use of the Template page, or the Template Editor.

The Template page.

The Template main page is used for two tasks.

1. Backup / Restore the existing template.
2. Get a new template.

The Template main page.



Some problems, when reset using the Template main page, may enable subsequent use of the Template Designer, or the Template Editor.

The Template Editor ("Edit HTML") page.

The Template Editor ("Edit HTML") is used for two tasks, as an alternate to the Template main page. Also, it may be used to reset any "rgba" colour combination problems.

1. Backup / Restore the existing template.
2. Get a new template.

For template corruption problems that prevent use of the Template main page, the Template Editor - combined with a second blog, where a clean template is developed and tested - can be used.

The Template Editor (aka "Edit HTML").



Some problems, when reset using the Template Editor, may enable subsequent use of the Template Designer, or the Template main page.

If the blog is not operational, you start again.

If you get a new bX code, you repeat the above sequence. Some problems, with multiple causes, may require repeated retries.

In extreme cases, you may end up creating a new blog at the URL.

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Some #Blogger template problems, which lead to a bX code display, may have multiple causes - and all causes may require solution, to make an affected blog operational. With some causes preventing solution of others, a repetitious use of the various dashboard pages may be required - to solve some template corruption problems.

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Blogger Magic - Stats Accuracy And Consistency

One of the least understood Blogger features is the Stats visitor counters, and the various displays.

We see the confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, periodically.

The "weekly" Stats numbers don't add up, properly!

or

Why is "Popular Posts" so out of touch, with reality?

Magic is fun to watch, when it's just for amusement. When your numbers seem to have magical quality - changing from day to day, or display to display - it becomes annoying.

With its many lines and pages, the various Stats displays look like they could be part of one big balance sheet - but they are not.

With a balance sheet, you'll have detail lines in one page, that can be added up and reconciled against totals, in another page. This makes some balance sheet components redundant.

With Stats, nothing is redundant. Whether provided in a dashboard page, for you to examine - or in a gadget, to encourage your readers - all numbers are significant, exactly as displayed.

What you see for each day cannot be added up and balanced against a week - nor can a collection of weeks add up to a month. Nor can detail lines in "Pages" add up to totals, in "Audience".

• Components and features are provided for different purposes.
• Different dashboard pages reflect different details.
• Time periods do not begin and end equally.
• You may, or may not, be able to ignore your own pageviews, consistently.

Components and features are provided for different purposes.

The "Popular Posts" gadget displays popular posts, for the convenience of the blog readers - and there is no "Popular Pages" gadget, for people who choose to build a blog, based on static pages. The dashboard Stats pages are displays for informing the blog owner.

The (3) time range selections in "Popular Posts" also differ from the (5) selections in the dashboard Stats pages - further preventing comparison between Popular Posts and dashboard displays.

Different dashboard pages reflect different details.

The "Posts" dashboard page lists (only) the 10 most popular posts ("dynamic" pages), and the 10 most popular pages ("static" pages). "Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" reflect all blog activity - all index pages, all "pages", and all "posts" together.

Time periods do not begin and end equally.

"Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" counts are reset based on the global day - not on any local clock. Your "today" will never be the same, all days of the year - if ever. 23 / 24 of the world will never see their "today" equal to "Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday".

And everybody knows that weeks, months, and years never begin and end in synch. You cannot add up weeks into months - nor months into years.

"Pageviews today", and "Pageviews yesterday" are the best known objects of confusion - but by no means the only - in the Stats data complement.



You may, or may not, be able to ignore your own pageviews, consistently.

Even given the recent improvement to the "Don't track" option, not all blog owners will be able to ignore their own pageviews. Every blog owner has their own required complement of performance and security products, which may interfere with the Stats "Don't track" code.

The bottom line.

Everybody needs to accept reality - that Stats will simply perform differently, for every different blog, and for every different owner of every team blog. Enjoy and use Stats for what it is.

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Many #Blogger blog owners become concerned, when they add up detail Stats numbers on one display, and find the numbers do not agree with the totals from another display. They do not notice that the numbers have different origins, and purposes - and simply cannot add into any different display, with any degree of accuracy.

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The Mysterious "Deleted blogs" Dashboard Link

Occasionally, we see signs of confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.

Where is the "Deleted blogs" link?

or

How can I recover my blog, if there's no link on the dashboard??

These blog owners don't understand that "Deleted blogs" only appears, when there are deleted blogs that can be recovered.

Not all blogs, having vanishing from the dashboard, will be recoverable by the owner.

• A blog deleted / locked after hacking activity was detected won't be recoverable.
• A blog owned under another Blogger account won't be recoverable.
• A blog that does not exist won't be recoverable.

If the Blogger account owns no blogs that are recoverable, there won't be a "Deleted blogs" link on the dashboard.

If the Blogger account owns other blogs, that are not currently deleted, those blogs will be listed. If the Blogger account owns no recoverable blogs, the blog owner sees a monolithic message

You are not an author on any blogs.

In some cases, the blog owner will be advised to clear cache, cookie, and sessions - then restart the browser, and login to Blogger. In other cases, the solution will be to wait 24 to 48 hours, and check again. Just don't waste time looking for a link that may not be there - and try to understand why the link may not be there.

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Accounts Locked For Unusual Account Activity

One of the more intriguing tales of Blogger blogs, currently being explored, involves blogs mysteriously deleted by Blogger.

My blog just disappeared from my dashboard - and no, it's not listed under "Deleted blogs"!

In some cases, the owner knows more than is implied, from the obvious wording of that problem report.

As Blogger / Google continues to improve the hacking / malware detection and removal process, they are making the recovery of accounts locked for "suspicious" / "unusual" activity easier - and more transparent. The increased transparency may, in some cases, cause mystery.

Diagnosing the many mysterious blog disappearances, currently being reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, may involve what the blog owner does not report - as much as what the owner does report.

Hacking Detection / Recovery is constantly being improved.

Blogger / Google is constantly refining the hacking detection / recovery process, to both improve the possibility that any activity will be detected, and to make it easier for the victims of the hacking to deal with the recovery process. As they make it easier for the owners to recover the accounts locked, they make it less likely that the owners will mention the locked account recovery, when later reporting the blogs, mysteriously missing from the dashboard.

Some owners will provide vague clues, alluding to hacking detection.

In some cases, the blog owner will provide vague clues, which refer to an immediately previous account unlock.

• Required to change the account password.
• Required to provide a phone number - and receive either a text or voice message with a recovery code.
• Required to solve a CAPTCHA.

All of these clues can be relevant to a locked account, or to various other anti-hacking / anti-spam activity by Blogger / Google - and can be overlooked as a locked account symptom, when stated in a forum problem report.

Other times, only the circumstances identify the situation.

In other cases, the only clue provided will be that the blogs in question are missing, and not listed in any dashboard list - "Deleted blogs", "Locked blogs", or "My blogs". In cases where we've simply reported missing blogs for malware / spam review, to Blogger Support, we're later advised to instruct the blog owner to recover the account.

Every owner does not always appreciate the diagnostic process.

Since immediate review of any blog cannot be always guaranteed by Blogger Support, it's to everybody's benefit that we request clues to verify the problems being reported. Unfortunately, the questions asked may not always seem relevant to some blog owners, unhappy about the mysterious loss of their blogs - even though they may contribute to the problem, inadvertently.

All owners won't even get email, alerting them to action taken.

And thanks to the possibility that not all blog owners may even get a notice when their accounts are locked, owners with multiple accounts may not even realise that a given Blogger account is locked. These owners find out that a given blog has been deleted, only after it goes offline and expires from cache. This will make some blog owners even less cooperative, when asked to provide diagnostic details about their problems.

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Browser Cache, And Blogs Locked After Hacking

The effects of browser cache, upon our Internet life, are not always understood.

Most of us know, by now, to clear cache and restart the browser, after updating a blog, for consistent testing. Some folks know that blog security changes don't always take complete and immediate effect.

Recently, we're seeing a new effect, reported by owners of Blogger accounts locked, after hacking activity is detected.

I got a message mentioning suspicious account activity, when I logged in to Blogger. I provided my phone number, and I received a code on my phone, that I had to enter before I could then log in. My blog was working fine just after I logged in. A short while later, though, it was gone. Why was my blog deleted, because I unlocked my account?

This blog owner is just slightly confused, about the cause and effect here.

Google robotic processes are constantly monitoring account login activity, and watching for signs of hacking activity, such as brute force password entry.

Hacking Cannot Be Detected, Immediately.

When hacking is detected, the detection may not be immediate - so Google protects us by considering the possibility that the hacking could have been successful, and deletes or locks blogs owned by the account under attack. The blogs in question are taken offline, immediately, when hacking is detected.

When a blog is taken offline, blog content may be found in cache.

If a blog owner has just been working on a blog, as is frequently the case, the blog contents will be cached somewhere between the owner and the Blogger servers. Blogger can take the blogs offline, on their servers - but any cache containing the blogs will remain. If the blog owner is working on a blog while the Blogger account is under attack, what's in cache will remain, visible to the owner, until cache expires.

If a Blogger account is attacked, and the attack is detected, shortly after the owner has viewed a blog, what's in cache will be used, until it expires. The owner won't see the effects of the blog being deleted until the cache expires, and the browser tries to retrieve a fresh copy from the Blogger servers.

As cache expires later, the blog owner sees the blog go offline.

The blog owner sees the blog go offline shortly after he verifies account ownership, and thinks that the verification process caused the blog to go offline. In reality, the blog was taken offline before the owner even knew of "suspicious" account activity.

The blog owner has to wait, while the blogs are examined for hacker changes.

Now, the blog owner can do nothing, except wait until the account and the blogs are examined for signs of tampering. In some cases, no notification of progress will be received - and the owner will see the blog(s) returned to service, sometime later.

How much later the blogs return to service will vary widely, depending upon several details - and this variation, added to the uncertainty caused by cache latency, leads to mystery. And less attentive owners may take the delay as revenge, by Blogger, for their lack of attention to their blog(s).

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Browser Cache, And Confusion About Blogs Locked After Suspected Account Hacking
Browser Cache, And Blogs Locked After Hacking

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Template Designer Upgrades Require Supporting Updates To The Individual Blog Templates

This week, we're seeing a small flood of problem reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about problems with the Template Designer.

Every time I change something, I have to refresh the page in order for it to show up. It won't "Save" when I try to save the layout changes. It just says "Saving..." at the top of the page and fades away, but doesn't actually save any changes.

Many problems involve changes made to the template, using the Designer, which aren't being saved - or are broken when saved. Most of the people reporting these problems have made changes to the template, previously - some are so experienced at making changes, they can't believe that their latest changes could ever have problems.

Interestingly, this history of changes is not a coincidence - and it's likely that some of the changes helps to cause these problems.

Take a look at the template code in your blog, some time. You'll notice a lot of code which doesn't look like CSS, HTML, or XML. Some of it is code which supports the various blog features that are adjusted or configured using the Template Designer.

Many template features involve two sets of code.

1. The Template Designer wizard, part of the Blogger dashboard, is common code used by all blog owners.
2. The blog template, post template, and / or widget template, is part of the individual blogs. Some template code does nothing but support the Template Designer - and let you configure your blog layout,

Every time Blogger Engineering adds or updates template features, they have to make changes to both sets of code.

Blogger Engineering does not edit each individual blog, after they upgrade the Template Designer. They make changes to the master template code - and their changes replicate into the individual blog templates. These changes replicate much more consistently, when the individual templates have not been changed.

The more custom a template is, with changes applied by the blog owner, or possibly in a third party template, the less likely it is to properly update, to support each succeeding Template Designer update.

Any time Blogger Engineering updates the Template Designer, to add a new feature, or maybe to support a new browser version, their updates may require changes which are not properly applied to all blogs - and the Template Designer stops working, in some blogs.

When the Template Designer stops working, the usual recommendation is to refresh the post or widget template - or maybe to upgrade the blog template - and things start rolling again. And the blog owner goes back to tweaking the template, until something breaks again.

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The Missing / Invisible Pages Index Gadget

Occasionally, a blog owner wants to add the Pages Index gadget to the blog, but just can't.

I go to add it - and I see "Already Added" - but where is it?

The first thing to check, when this happens, is the "Show pages as" option in the dashboard Pages display. Sometimes, you'll find "Don't show" selected. Other times, you'll find "Top tabs" - but the template may lack the code which houses the "Top tabs" gadget. This will be a problem for older templates, installed before the Pages index gadget was offered - as well as some third party templates.

Try selecting "Side links" (or change from "Side links", to "Top tabs", and back to "Side links") - and see if the gadget shows up, in the sidebar. Each time you change the setting, hit "Save arrangement".

After each change, view the blog, to verify success. Remember to clear cache, and restart the browser, each time you view the blog.

Once you get the gadget to show up in the sidebar - and if it matters - change the option to "Top tabs", and see if it shows up there. If not, you'll have several options.

• If the template came from a third party, change back to a standard Blogger template.
• Upgrade the template, to a newer version.
• Set the Pages Index back to "Side links".
• Reset the widget template.

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