This afternoon I was merrily checking on a couple of the blogs I follow when I noticed that instead of the usual cheery thumbnail image of yours truly next to each of my past comments, there is now a scarily threatening black and white exclamation mark! No, it isn’t a leftover from Halloween, as I first thought. A quick glance at the Blogger help forum shows that other bloggers have recently been reporting problems with photos disappearing from their blogs and being similarly replaced.
In my case I think it may stem from an unwary deletion last week of a duplicate of my profile photo in the Picasa web album where all my blog pictures are stored. There is still a copy there and I’ve even reloaded it, but Blogger is obviously extremely picky and won’t accept any substitution retrospectively. Thankfully the real me has now reappeared alongside new comments, but where older ones are concerned, I'm afraid it seems you will all have to learn to live with the unappealing images with which Blogger has chosen to highlight my carelessness. J
Don't worry, Perpetua - it happens to me from time to time too. I sometimes think I'm deleting duplicates but obviously delete the wrong one. It is a bit of a scary symbol though, isn't it! It definitely feels like an unsubtle criticism of our web skills. Bah!
ReplyDeleteAxxx
Hello Perpetua:
ReplyDeleteHow very alarming and we do hope that this can be easily rectified. We have not actually looked back at one of your previous comments but of course will do so now.
At the slightest problem with Blogger, and there do seem to be quite a number from time to time, we tend to panic believing that we are in imminent danger of losing everything. Stay calm, which we think that you most likely are.
Thanks, Annie, that makes me feel not quite such an idiot. I've never tried to do anything like that before and certainly won't dare to do so again. There was I, thinking I could get Blogger to do most things, and then this....
ReplyDeleteHello Jane and Lance and thanks for your sympathy. Unfortunately I rather think that Blogger won't be able to fix my silly mistake, as the links from the past comments to the image have been broken and I can't really expect them to mend them all. Still I now know what NOT to do and future comments should be safe.
ReplyDeleteI shall wait to see what I get!
ReplyDeleteBlogger bewilders me.
As far as I can tell, Fly, what you'll get is the nasty exclamation mark on all older comments of mine, but my smiling face again on new ones as from today. A link once broken is never to be restored, by Blogger at least! Bewildering isn't the half of it....
ReplyDeleteThere does seem to be a lot of this around at the moment - vanishing blogs, vanishing pictures, vanishing comments....
ReplyDeleteFor some reason in stead of your smiling face all I can see is a black and white no entry sign!
Hope you get it fixed soon!
Take care and enjoy the north of Scotland
Many thanks for the warning, Catriona. The no-entry sign is even worse than the exclamation mark. As soon as I got your emailed comment I went into Blogger and uploaded my profile image yet again. Let's see if it stays put now.
ReplyDeleteYes, blogging is having its problems just now. I still have a lot of difficulty commenting on your blog, which is a shame as you've been writing some great posts.
The north is looking as beautiful as ever and it's good to be here.
Ah, that's good - your picture has returned! And my blog is accpeting comments today - wow, wonders will never cease!
ReplyDeleteTake care - loved your photos btw.
Thanks, Catriona. I've just popped across to see for myself that my comments are at last getting through on your blog. Wow indeed! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happened to me. I, too, finally traced it back to deleting some images from Picasa. I had to repost all the images... sigh.
ReplyDeleteHello Elizabeth. Sorry to hear you too have been hit by the disappearing images bug. Such a nuisance and a lot of work to trace and upload them again. Unfortunately I can't do anything about the vanished profile image on my comments as that is part of Blogger's system software, not my own blog. Thankfully I didn't delete anything from my blog album or I'd be sighing along with you....
ReplyDeleteHi Perpetua,
ReplyDeleteI think Blogspot's error is slowly being corrected. Your smiling face now appears on your home page under 'About Me' which it didn't earlier today. And it is only your own most recent comments that appear with a no entry sign - the earlier ones once more have your photo.
My only suggestion after this problem & your earlier one with comments going AWOL, is to move to WordPress ASAP!
Hi Ricky. I'm afraid that Blogger isn't restoring anything. The reason my picture is back on my profile is that I put it there again after Catriona told me first thing this morning that it too had disappeared. All my earlier comments are stuck with the exclamation mark or the no-entry symbol, but since I reloaded my profile image, all new comments have my face next to them. Whether that is an improvement I'll leave you to judge :-)
ReplyDeleteI've toyed more than once with the idea of migrating to WordPress, but know people who find the free version (all I would contemplate) inflexible and not without its own problems. Also the free version doesn't support add-ons such as the LinkedWithin widget which I find very useful.
All in all I think I'll stick with the devil I know for the moment, even if it does mess things up at times.