The technical side of a blog is most definitely not my favorite part, but whether we want it or not, at times, we are going to run into technical issues on our blogs that will need to be attended to.
Lately, I’ve had a collections of issues coming one after the other, and at first not only me, but no one was able to figure out where those issues were coming from. It took almost a week to finally pin point where the problem was coming from.
So, the purpose of this post is to show you what happened, and what Andy and Ashvini helped me find out. You never know, you may come across a similar technical issue with your own blog in the future.
How the Technical Issue Started
The problems seemed to have started when I lasted updated Commentluv, but I didn’t realized it right away. When I did, I realized that it was affecting all my 3 blogs as well.
Actually, it’s when Adrienne sent me a message saying that all my social sharing buttons had disappeared that I became aware of a problem.
Ever since I had purchased the plugin Share Juice Pro (not an affiliate link), I have had problems with the button alignment and the way there looked ( I finally figured why when the real issue was spotted last week). For some reasons, the linkedin button would never show. So, for the time being I had disabled it and was using Digg Digg plugin again. But this time all my Digg Digg buttons were gone too.
I started playing between Digg Digg and Share Juice Pro social sharing buttons plugins, but quickly realized that none of them worked.
My good friend Adrienne told me that she was going to send an email to Ashvini (the creator of Share Juice Pro) and Copy Carbon me in the email.
When she did, it wasn’t long before Ashvini replied telling me that he was going to investigate the problem. In the meantime an other issue show up…
Another Technical Problem Showed up
As Ashvini was looking into my social sharing button issues, I noticed that I was starting to get more and more spam comments like I had not seen since I had commenluv, anyway. It’s started with 10, 20, 50 and ended up to be more than 150 spam comments per day on my writing blog, while my other blogs were also getting around 50+ ugly spam comments a day.
I was totally overwhelmed and didn’t understand what was happening with all those blogs all of a sudden.
So, here we go again… I reached out to Andy, the creator of Commentluv to see if he would be able to figure out what that new issue was all about.
Here is how the dialogue when… between me and Andy…
Unusual amount of spam comments
Sylviane 08 Oct 23:33
I am getting an unusual amount of spam comments. Some 50 per day since I did the last update. I was wondering what’s going on, and how it can be stopped.
Andy Bailey
Are they going in to spam or are they going in to moderation to be checked
later?
Try changing your secret key or field name in the settings page (don’t
forget to clear your cache) if the comments are in moderation and they are all spam, try setting your
GASP settings to send to spam or deny the comment
Sylviane 09 October 2013 09:02
Yes, the comments go in moderation right along the good ones. I’ll try to do what you’re saying if I find out how. Thanks.
Andy Bailey
You can find all the settings for gasp in the gasp settings page under
‘settings’ in your dashboard
There is a place there to change the secret key and other settings
Sylviane 09 October 2013 15:07
I did everything you said. I changed some of the secret key numbers and letters, and set everything to the maximum moderation and just over the weekend I’ve got over 350 spam comments that I had to delete one by one.
This has never happened to me before, not even before I had commentluv.
All in all everything started to crumble when I updated commentluv early last week. I don’t recognize my blogs anymore between buttons issues and avalanches of spam comments. Could both issues be because of a thesis upgrade?
If am not wrong a while back, Hesham told me that there weren’t any upgrades for Thesis and then, Adrienne confirm that to me yesterday. I’am saying this because what you said about the button issues supposedly is coming from thesis old theme that I need to upgrade.
So, anyhow, how in the world can things go back to normal?
Andy Bailey 14 October 2013 23:47
I think this might be a thesis issue, another user was having issues and
solved them by upgrading thesis
GASP will only let 3 comments from the same user at a time, it won’t allow
hundreds, it stops any more than 3 comments being submitted by the same
person if they are not auto approved.
You probably have a vulnerability in thesis or something else if you’re
getting this issue, I haven’t seen it on any of my test sites and you’re
the only one reporting this to me out of thousands using the plugin.
Try temporarily deactivating commentluv for one night and see if you still
get spammed or you can try the new anti backlinker plugin in the
commentluv.com members area and set it to deny comments if the user has no
gravatar or is using a non root domain or isn’t on the whitelist.
Finally Finding the Source of the Problem
So there I was for a whole week sending messages back and forth to Andy Baily about my unusual avalanche of spam comments and Ashvini Kumar about my missing social sharing buttons.
By the way I want to take this opportunity to thanks them both for their extreme patience in trying to find out what my technical issues were coming from.
At some point Andy found an issue that was coming from some type of script that didn’t look right. Since what he explained to me was way too technical and above my head, I just copied his findings and sent them directly to Ashvini.
This is what Andy sent me, which I sent to Ashvini right away.
“On https://www.sylvianenuccio.com/thankful-monday/ it looks like you are using google api calls for jquery and you are loading an old version which isn’t compatible with the latest scripts that need jquery.
if you have a plugin that is causing your blog to load an old version (1.4.2) jquery from ajax.googleapi.com then it causes a fail on the commentluv script and other scripts that require the version of jquery that is included in wordpress (including the share plugin)
You have to find which plugin is using ajax.googleapi.com instead of the one included already with wordpress and deactivate it if you want modern scripts to continue to work.”
Here is what Ashvini found thanks to Andy’s message…
Hi Sylviane,
I found the problem and the solution.
You are using thesis 1.8.2 which has an old version of Jquery ( let us say it is a piece of code that does stuff on the web browser) . The version of Jquery that thesis 1.8.2 uses is 1.4.2.
Solution : Update to thesis 1.8.5, it probably has the latest version of Jquery ( 1.10) which is what Andy is talking about.
If you do not have the 1.8.5 or 1.8.6 of thesis do let me know , I will send you a copy.
No worries, it is a really simple problem. None of the plugin is causing this issue .
Please do not hesitate in contacting me in case you do not get what you I am sating.
So, what this meant for me is that I had to go over to Hesham the creator of my Thesis/BlogSkin, but even though am a paid member to get tech support with him, Hesham is not as easily reachable as Andy and Ashvini are.
So, as up to the time that I”am writing this, he has updated BlogSkin where the problem was truly coming from on this blog, but he hasn’t fixed my other two blogs yet. So after over 2 weeks now, my travel blog still doesn’t have social sharing buttons.
It’s actually Ashvini who realize that Hesham has not done the job there yet and sent me this…
I think the issues that we talked about on your two other blogs have not been resolved yet on this blog. Can you please ask your developer to look at this too?
Well, I certainly did, but after Hesham fixed this blog he hasn’t fixed the other ones yet. I’ve sent him several emails with no replies so far.
I’m still Waiting on Hesham at this point…
On my travel blog there are actually several issues that I am now sure are due to the theme update problem. I can’t change the color or font or size of the content of the blog no matter how many times I try, and I can’t get me Share Juice Pro buttons to show. Actually that same problem has also prevented me to be able to receive the latest Share Juice Pro update that I received on the other two blogs.
I have to admit that I don’t know how Hesham can keep his business going while not on top of things. Right now I am stuck, and really don’t know where to turn with this stuff. The guy is always pretty hard to reach and he tends to disappear for long periods of times. Then, he finally reappears with a good excuse why he was not reachable.
I don’t don’t if this is every body’s experience with their blog theme support, but it has been mine.
I paid for my theme, and I paid my fee for technical support, but I’m not getting full service at this point.
So, if you happen to read this and have any idea about what I could do to fix/update my Thesis-BlogSkin, please, let me know.
Conclusion
What I learned from this issue is that at times you may have a technical issues affecting something on your blog, such as in my case my comments and my sharing buttons, but the source of the problem may be something totally unrelated. In my case all the troubles came from a needed update on my BlogSkin theme.
I hope this post was helpful. Please, leave your comments below.
I hope you enjoyed this post, and will start applying those tips now. Please, let me know what you think and add your thoughts down below in the comments.
If you found this information valuable and would like to share it, you should add the RSS feed of this blog to the social media sharing platform of your choice.
The feed is https://www.sylvianenuccio.com/feed/
Don’t forget to add “via @SylvianeNuccio” to tweet, so I can thank you.
Hi Sylviane,
Having technical issue isn’t fun. I can certainly relate to this blog post as I manage many blogs and one or the other issue keeps popping up as WordPress comes with an update or one of the plugins does something new.
Just today I saw my categories (in the sidebar) were not showing up correctly. The categories that were supposed to be shown were not showing up and those which were marked to be hidden, started to appear.
Well, with a bit of investigation, I found out that my settings were somehow changed by the last upgrade I made to this plugin. So, I needed to do it again!
But then, having a few friends who can help, having a good support is always a blessing in the disguise. I see that Andy and Ashvini were really on top of things helping you out. It must have given you a comfort knowing that somebody technically strong is looking into your issues!
Thank you for sharing your experiences!
Regards,
Kumar
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Hi Kumar,
Yes, that’s why I don’t like to update at times. it’s always a bit scary. So when a WordPress update comes in I wait about a week before updating, just in case.
Thank you for your input and experience, Kumar.
Hi Sylviane, Andy and Ashvini are wonderful at getting back to you and comunicating. I thought I was having spam issues but only a dozen or less per day. The technical stuff can really bog us bloggers down and keep us from writing. I hope you do find a solution for your theme soon.
It amazes me how things can do awry with any update. Hopefully WordPress wil get easier and less complicated with time.
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Hi Lisa,
Yes, Andy and Ashvini were wonderful. It does make a difference when you have good customer support. I can really tell in my case, if you know what I mean.
Yes, those spam comments had gone haywire. What a nightmare.
Thanks for coming by, Lisa.
Hi Sylviane,
I knew you were having some problems, but my Gosh!!! What a nightmare! Going from one person to another, running around and pluging and unplugging….Thesis updates!
Phew….
For me, so far so good! I don’t handle any plugins or updates myself, but have a service that does that and notifies me if something is haywire. I also get a monthly report on how my blog is running, downloading on computers and phones. And the best of all is that when there is an update (and it always happens ) they send me a notice when and if I want them to do it. I like to wait a while when something is new and then have them update it.
I cannot imagine the stress this caused you. So girlfriend, give yourself a big treat!
-Donna
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Hi Donna,
Yes, those issues are stressful and I hate them, but we can’t avoid them as they will happen at times. What bogs me the most is when I don’t get the help I need. What’s interesting is that Hesham is the only one I actually pay for help and he hasn’t finished the job. Andy and Ashvini have helped me back and forth for a week at no cost.
The most bugging thing with Hesham is that he disappears for a while and then get back with some excuses as to why he was gone. I was sick, my laptop was stolen, etc. But that’s not how we do business in my book.
You mean Hesham STILL hasn’t resolved those other two blogs yet? Oh my goodness girl, what’s up with that.
I am so thankful that Ashvini and Andy hung in there to help you at least figure out where the problem was and knowing that it wasn’t with either of their plugins they still stood by you to help you.
This is one of the reasons I fully support both of these guys. Oh sure, their plugins are paid ones but even when the problem isn’t with their plugin they don’t just drop the ball and throw you to the wolves. They stick by your side to try and help you the best they can.
I’m so glad that at least you know what the issue is and how to resolve it even if you have to rely on Hesham to do his part. No one likes a bad review and after weeks of contacts back and forth you would think he would want to be sure he’s done his part. Oh well, I guess some people just aren’t on top of things.
Glad I could help in my very small way Sylviane and I hope someone else will have other suggestions. I’m tapped out girl! 😉 The only thing I know how to do is get in touch with Ashvini, my savior! He always knows what to do.
Have a good week and you’ll get this resolved eventually.
~Adrienne
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Hi Adrienne,
The very unfortunate thing is that only Hesham can help me with his own updates, and that really kills me. I hate writing something negative about someone, but by just simply stating the facts as they are, we can tell who’s not doing his part.
Almost since day one I had a hard time with Hesham getting in touch back with me. Right now I have like half a dozen questions on his forum that were never answered. Of course I didn’t know that when I got his skin, and back then I didn’t know anyone I could ask questions to.
Thankfully I’ve got Ashvini and Andy who were very helpful, indeed.
Thanks for coming, Adrienne.
Oh heavens, Sylviane, I know allllll about the technical frustrations. There are so many pieces and so many versions and lots of times they don’t play nice together. Sometimes it’s the theme or the plugins or a combination of any of the above or something else, like ad code or your hosting company or this that and the other thing. The first thing I do is update everything to make sure I’m running the latest version of everything so that they can be compatible with whatever the newest technology is. After that it’s going through the very annoying process of disabling the plugins, one at a time, or maybe even all of them, then putting them back one at a time.
It’s great that you had someone to help you. Sometimes it’s frustrating and especially when your site isn’t working, you start to get frantic because now you’re losing readers.
I suppose we all go through the same thing!
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Yes, Carol,
Updating everything is the way to go, when you can, but in the case of my theme I can’t.
Actually not even the other two tech people can, because only the guy who holds the updating data can, and that’s where I’m pulling my hair, because after he did this blog he just stopped and never did the other two. So right now, yes, I’m VERY frustrated, so I just try to go on with my day without thinking of it too much.
Thank you for coming, Carol and have a great week ahead.
Hello Sylviane!
I’m with you, I’m very technically challenged and had this been me I think I would have cried first then sought after a solution :). Adrienne has only said great things about Ashvini and Andy so it doesn’t surprise me that you got a response and solution as quickly as you did.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us….it’s true, we never know when we’ll find ourselves in this same situation. I’m glad it all worked out for you!
Have a wonderful week!
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Hi Corina,
Well, it didn’t all worked yet, though, as I mentioned, because Hesham while fixing this blog, hasn’t fixed the other two yet. The one in the worst shape is my travel blog which has no button at all still.
Thanks for coming by and have a great day!
It is really hectic indeed having to deal with technical issues. I am code-phobic as well and I am much grateful you had all the support you needed and from the right guys.
I hope you’re now beaming with happiness. I wish you all the best Madam.
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Hi Emmanuel, and nice to see you here again.
Well, I only wish, The updates were done only on this blog and my travel blog still has NO sharing buttons for two weeks now.
Thanks for coming by.
Hey Sylviane,
Technical issues are a pain, but they are helpful (Well, at least in the end, after all that frustration). I am glad that both Andy and Ashvini were able to help you, just shows the value of customer service 😉
By the way, Hesham lost his laptop and a lot of data a few weeks back, and (That’s why his blog is down; I am assuming he is still in the process of recovering all the data). Anyways, I hope he solves your issue soon 😀
Thanks for sharing this with us, Sylviane 🙂
Hi Jeevan,
Yes, at times we learn form technical issues, that’s true, but they’re never fun when we living through them.
Yes, I know that Hesham had his labtop stolen, but I would think that when we have the type of business he’s got he might need more than one computer with all the data he needs to keep going.
Anyway, as you’re saying, good customer service is important, indeed, and that’s going to be the subject of my next post, by the way.
Thanks for coming dear 🙂
Hi Sylviane,
I’m so sorry to hear you\’ve been having all these problems – I can certainly relate, because whenever I have a technical glitch I struggle, due to my limited skills. I think one of the key messages from your post is that we sometimes do need to seek professional help.
I had a problem with my flexsqueeze theme a few weeks ago, though nothing as serious as your issues – I just couldn’t access my theme’s options to change any of the appearance settings on my blog. It happened after a WP update, which meant some code needed adding to the editor – I couldn’t manage to do it myself, but the guy at Flexsqueeze was very helpful and eventually did it for me, free of charge, for which I was very grateful.
I think the worst thing about these gremlins is the stress they cause and the amount of time they can eat up. I do hope you get all your blogs fixed soon, Sylviane – what a nightmare you’ve been having!
Thanks very much for sharing your experiences in this interesting post – let us know how you get on!
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Hi Sue,
It seems that all my blogs are good to go now, but for some reason I still wasn’t able to show the buttons on my travel blog, but it’s really something that will be fixed soon now.
I know, whether we like it or not some glitch will show up at one point or another. That’s what happens with technology. However, we still can be thankful that it works fine for the most part. I’m glad your problem was fixed 🙂
Thanks for your visit, Sue.
Hi Sylviane NuccioYou story about technical issues is really interesting. Yeah it happen almost with every blog or site owner. even i am managing a wordpress blog and i face such technical problems with every new update of wordpress. even sometimes updating a pluging can cause to errors.But thanks to online communities and bloggers who right the cause and solution to such problems.Thanks…!
Hello Mr. Kashyap,
Yes, at time it’s scary to click on that update link for fear of issues showing their ugly faces.
Thanks for coming and nice meeting you. Hope to see you around again soon.
Hi Sylviane,
My latest technical problem was when I added new plugin that made my post disappear. I was totally stress to fixed it though until I found a way out accidentally. I remove the post and create the new one with new link. As non tech-savvy blogger, I have had no idea what the cause was.
I’ve asked many forums but no one can’t really answer. I am also sharing my problem into a post in hope that others who need solution of the same problem will find a way out easily.
Thank you for sharing your experience here. I believe it will help other in the same /similar problem too.
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Hi Okto,
Oh, how scary is that! the more I read people’s comments the more scared I’m become. Yes, plugins can be scary at times.
Thanks for sharing this story, and have a great weekend ahead.
Hi Sylviane,
Oh my goodness, what a nightmare! I hate it when technical issues happen and you get stuck waiting for someone else to do their part – especially when it seems to be taking way too much time! Hope the rest of the issues you’re experiencing get resolved soon.
Thanks very much for sharing, this could definitely be useful to any of us is similar things happen.
Have a great weekend 🙂
Laura
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Hi Sylviane,
Oh dear….this is surely a lot to handle! And if it’s someone like Hesham one just wonders about the others.
I am glad Andy and Ashvini were there for you and are helping in whatever way, but the overall responsibility does lie in Heshams hand, and he must have more people in his team or provide support for the time when he isn’t available, especially in cases like yours. Not to mention that it’s not just one, but 2 of your blogs.
My only problems arises when Hostgator is down or the theme people bring up an update that might change things, though their support is pretty good and within a few hours things are sorted out. I’d be pretty lost because I am honestly not a tech. kind of person.
Thanks for sharing this with us, and I hope your problems are solved soon. Have a nice weekend 🙂
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Hi Harleena and so sorry for replying here so late.
Yes, this situation which still continues on my Travel blog now, is an awful one. I think that Hasham is ALONE. No body seems to work with him. His forum has been inactive since July. I have a dozen questions not even posted as he now moderates the forum posts and apparently never even gets to post them. A real nightmare indeed.
If it doesn’t get any better I’ll have to do something about this. I can’t deal with this type of customer service.
Thanks for coming, Harleeana.
Technical problems with your site can cause so much stress. Glad you had good support to rely on in getting help. I\’ve seen it way too many times where people just give up and start over when experiencing problems… but you handled it well. Plugins are a blessing, but sometimes can be a curse.
Hi Michael,
Yes, it’s stressful indeed and it’s a pity that some people can’t assume a good customer service.
In this case it’s not the plugin, though, but the blog skin that needs to be updated.
Thank you for your input.
Hi Sylviane,
Thanks for putting this down for us to learn from, it is one thing for someone to have a problem, it is another thing for that person to know he/she has a problem, it is yet another thing to be bold enough/humble enough to publicly admit that you have a problem, i admire you and your courage, once again, thank you, i remain loyal.
I have added you as one of my blogging tutors. God bless you!!
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Hi Emebu,
You know every blogger has or will encounter some type of technical issues. That’s part of the business. I have no problem admitting to this, and helping others at he same time.
Thanks for coming 🙂
Going through technical issues can surely be a headache for non technical person.Am glad to know that your problem has finally been sorted out and your blog is right back on track.Thanks for sharing your experiences with us . It will help a lot of people who face similar kind of issue on their blogs .
-Pramod
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Hi Pramod,
Unfortunately, not all is over yet, but hopefully it will. I just wish some people would be more professional when it comes to their customer service.
Thanks for coming and have a great week ahead.
What a problem! Glad to hear that one of your problems has been resolved and hoping the others can be too soon! I too am not technical and need all the help I can get. Thanks for the share.
Hi Sylviane, Sorry to get back to this post so late .Thanks for the compliments. I am glad to have helped you. I know that it was a pain to get this thing resolved. I hope you will get over the problems soon. Do let me know if you need any help. Best regards
Hi Ashvini,
How I wish my BlogSkin tech guy was like you 🙂 But sadly that’s not the case, as we both know. Your last email answered my question well, and I can now think it through and see what I want to do. I will let you know very soon.
Thanks for everything.
Really interesting lessons!
This technical issues always happen and in my case it was something SEO related.
It happened to me 6 months ago and like your problem with comments the source of the issue was not what I was suspecting.
Well, just want to share my views.
Thanks for sharing yours!
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Hi Sylviane,
Yes, that “jquery” you mentioned … . I always had difficulties when I tried to make a comment on your blog. Only after clearing the cache am I able to make a comment. Probably because of that.
Now, I don”t know what to say about your problem. I hope you will be able to solve it soon. However, I do want to make a suggestion for the future.
I think it would be useful to create a test blog or a subdomain of one of your blogs. Whenever something happens you can test things there without fear of losing precious content.
You can change the plugins, the themes, apply any settings and see where is the problem and how to fix it. This way you will avoid unfortunate decisions that can block your blog entirely. When you find the solution, you will apply to the real blog(s).
Have a wonderful day
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Hi Silviu,
I do have a test blog already, however, that doesn’t really help me to become a tech wizard and know what causes issues since even tech guys have a hard time themselves to pin point things.
I’m sorry for the problme you’re having. While not every one does, I know that at times some people do here and there, and I do myslef on some blogs I go too.
In any case, I do know that I have some small issues at the moment but they will be taken care of very soon.
Thanks for your input and hava a great day!
Thanks very much for your interesting post. I have been looking for such content for a really long time.The technical part is mostly not my favorite part.
Nice article.
Thanks for sharing your experience it will help to others and somewhat to me also.
You’re wel.com and thanks for coming by and letting me know that 🙂