In which Nicole gamely attempts to help Toast readers with some functionality stuff, and provides you an opportunity to bring other technology-related weirdness to our collective attention.
Problem and Solution the First:
IntenseDebate (our commenting system) changed the way they deal with WordPress logins, APPARENTLY back in April, but in reality, it didn’t start doing anything weird until last week.
1. If you have just an IntenseDebate account, you are fine.
2. If you have an IntenseDebate account which you’ve connected to WordPress, you’re fine.
3. If you have just a WordPress account, you would have been asked, via a pop-up, to connect that account to IntenseDebate.
4. If you have an ad/pop-up blocker, you would not see it, you just would not be able to login to certain threads.
5. We have no idea why some threads are impacted, and not others.
To fix it, the next time you find that you are weirdly locked out of a comment thread, disable your ad/pop-up blocker and go in again. You’ll probably be asked to connect your commenting account. Do so. Profit. Then you can re-engage your blocking software if you want, I’m not your mom.
Problem and Solution the Second:
We switched to a new caching widget last week, and since then, when you come to The Toast, sometimes it looks as though we haven’t updated for a few days or hours. This is nonsense, we write things all the time. We’ve mostly fixed it on our end (um, no, our tech goth has mostly fixed it on our end, let’s be honest), but if you’re still experiencing lags, clear your cache and do a hard refresh, and all our exciting femslash should magically appear.
Problem and No-Solution the Third:
This is only a problem for those of you who read The Toast via Feedly (or other RSS provider). When an article has more than one page, the RSS feed just shows you the first page and then cuts off, giving no indication that there ARE any more pages. This one, we don’t have a solution to yet, but we’re all ears. In the meantime, if you read via RSS, and a piece seems to end abruptly, I’d recommend clicking through.
*
Now, if you have any follow-up questions, you are welcome to ask them (and, honestly, we’d love to hear any other functionality comments), as long as you know that I have basically no idea, and am just waiting for Maria to show up in the comments and provide actual help and feedback.
Okay! You can tell us that the italics look kind of weird, now.
Tags: comment threads, tech goths, technical difficulties, weird true tales
Posts are still horribly hard to read on my HTC p.o.s. phone, especially comment threads, because the width allowed quickly reduces down to a point where you can only see half of some of the words.
I am perfectly willing to accept that this means I need to buy a new, different phone.
I think everyone should just buy new phones and computers until they find one where we look the best. Obviously. But the real answer to your question is that we (me) are planning to launch a mobile theme at some point in the near to mid-near future to address issues like these.
I have a fancy smartphone and it does the same thing. I think it’s just a mobile thing? This only happens to me on the toast.
I definitely have this same problem. I wouldn’t characterise my HTC as a p.o.s as it’s pretty new, but the Toast comment threads are ridiculously badly formatted/difficult to read on there!
Solution to problem the third: use the ‘more’ tag, so that only a small section is sent to RSS readers. This will also allow you to more accurately analyze referrals/traffic/readers. I use Feedly, but never actually read articles within Feedly, rather I use it to scan what’s new, then open the articles I’m interested in, in a new tab.
Does the more tag mean people click out of the RSS feed and into a browser window to read? So they still wouldn’t be able to read the full paginated article in the RSS? ps THANK YOU
That is correct. I mean, until we fix this, that’s probably what we should do, but then I literally get nine emails from people telling me they have a moral problem with only providing some of the text in RSS form.
Moral problem with helping you keep your numbers accurate so you can stay afloat? I thought it was just because people don’t like opening new tabs. (this makes no sense to me, because my workflow involves gratuitous tab use)
People HATE that though, generally. Most people really prefer to have the whole piece, but if Nick finds out we let people read the whole piece in RSS, he’ll FREAK OUT AT US and talk about pageviews.
always with the pageviews that one.
Right on target, he’s ranting. EVERYONE, get used to clicking through from your RSS feed, the party’s over.
Because I like the toast, I just make an exception and never even try to read the whole thing in Feedly. Same for the Awl and Longreads, which admittedly is a linking service.
LOVE YOU.
What if I read it in Feedly, and use the “preview” button to see the full article and the comments? Does that count as a page view for you guys? Because I try to minimize non-work-related tabs so that if my boss comes by my computer I only have one thing to close.
I also read it thru Feedly on my phone a lot — maybe once there is a usable mobile theme I’ll just come to the site more, but until then I really like being able to read the whole article on my phone easily.
Yeah, I often read Toast posts in Feedly because the list format makes it easier to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but 9 times out of 10 I’ll click over to the site to look at comments.
As soon as I tried to come back to reply to this…Problem the First happened.
Did our solution work? I mean, I am reading your words, so, probably, but maybe you responded via email.
Nope, it just magically fixed itself right after I finally resorted to tweet about it. Very frustrating and unusual. I’ve had some issues on sites I’ve used IntenseDebate on, in the past, but nothing like this.
There was a tip in another thread to clear your cache by hitting shift + refresh, and that was golden.
In my Feedly there’s a line at the bottom of every article that says “The post Blahblahblah first appeared on The Toast.” Is this generated automatically, or is it something you code into every post? If it’s the latter, maybe you could include a note there when a post is more than 1 page? I remember one Step Out Of The Car, Please post that ended very suddenly when I read it in Feedly.
Glad the hard refresh tip helped. One issue that we have no control over is how long your browser holds copies of the site on your machine, meaning that sometimes errors get cached and the reserved long after I’ve fixed them.
That is definitely automatically done! But might be a clever way to insert something – I’ll look into it, thank you! We’re also looking into other ways to improve the RSS experience
I have been wondering all of these things so thank you! I don’t care about solutions all that much when they are minor issues, I just like being aware that it is not only me.
Re: italics – I don’t think they look weird, but there seems to be some sort of glitch with open-ended italics in titles? Or something? Because when I look at comment pages everything after a title with italics (like a tv show name or whatever) will also be italicized. But seriously, MINOR MINOR problem.
When I look at The Toast on my phone (samsung galaxy), I get 3 obnoxious popup ads in a row. Like ‘Download new wallpaper now?’ Okay button/cancel button. Then two more times. I linked a post to a friend on FB and he said it was riddled with popups- I didn’t ask if he was viewing on his phone or not
Hey there! Thanks for letting us know about this. FYI We do not have any popup ads installed currently or even recently, and never had three! Which makes me feel very concerned about this. Is it still ongoing?
I had the exact same pop ups on mu samsung gagalxy tablet. Three in a row. If I see them again, I’ll screencap them.
Thank you!!
Hope this works: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-hm0pzAS22wM/Um…
It should link you to the screenshot.
Today there was only one pop-up. In the past, there have been up to three in succession. Also, sorry about those typos. I still can’t type on mobile devices.
Wow that’s pretty terrifying.
it’s bad to admit but i totally cracked up at how awful we’re looking on that page. shiiittt. thanks Spriggina! I actually think what might be going on there is less a popup and more our ads and content not rendering correctly – for instance what is even happening with slider bar at the top?
A mobile site certainly would look more tidy. The articles are all perfectly readable though, and that’s what’s most important to me.
However, the ads are definitely of the pop-up variety because it moves around on the screen, making it difficult to hit the little x without also clicking on the ad.
I’ve had this problem on my HTC vivid before, haven’t used my phone to Toast for a few weeks now though.
It happens pretty regularly, but not every time. Not today, apparently, so cannot screencap!
I get them on my Samsung S2. Mine are all ‘girls talk to you now!’ type spam.
I hate to ask this but are you suggesting vaguely/explicitly porny ads? Cus that is a major major problem.
Not porny or explicit at all, just… a quick on-screen pop up that says ‘girls want to chat, click here!’ and I press No and it goes away but then it happens a couple more times. I’ve run a virus scan on my phone, and nothing came up, and yours is the only site it happens on.
Ah okay great! Glad I asked! I just found out this morning that we do have mobile ads that feature pop-ups, I hadn’t known that, so pop-up activity in general is not a sign of a problem. Thanks for the info passing it on to Nick now.
No, not porny as such. Just black screens that appear when your page is loading saying stuff like ;girls want to chat now!’. I click no, they go away, another couple come up. I’ve run a virus scan on my phone and nothing showed up, plus yours is the only site it happens on.
Oh yeah something did happen last week, where I couldn’t log in, but then I re-registered with my same name, & it sent me a password that I only used once, & now I’m using my old password, & it’s like nothing ever happened?
This isn’t really related, but last night someone showed me how to adjust my laptop such that Apple TV remotes don’t suddenly turn on my most embarrassing music whenever I try to watch a movie, so that was really exciting.
WAIT, what? I’ve gotten so used to having The Sopranos scored by the Annie soundtrack!
IT’S WONDROUS. Go to your computer’s system preferences and click on ‘disable remote control infrared receiver,’ then bask in silence.
MALLORY.
But it is a hard-knock life. I’m sure Tony would agree.
Sometimes threaded replies are collapsed and sometimes they are not. Is there a way to expand all or just have them expanded by default always?
(I also would enjoy having this answer.)
Customize that sucker like this .
^– This is correct. Similarly, it collapses or expands based on how many replies there are.
oh and AmazingSandwich! No, unfortunately there is not a way to customize it from your side. I’ll review our settings – we try to balance good load times with the max number displayed.
Ah. When I come here, it’s through opening an article in a new tab from my RSS reader, and I usually am opening 3-10 articles at a clip that way. So by the time I get to The Toast’s tab it’s had plenty of time to load. But! Not everyone uses the site that way, I’m sure.
When the WordPress nonsense happens, it doesn’t even show the option to log in under Intense Debate, so I’m not sure how the solution to First Problem is supposed to work … I could just be really dumb though.
Yeah, I’m having this problem too. When it asks me to log in on certain threads (the GRE one today, for example), it only gives a WordPress option. Problem is… I don’t have a WordPress account, only IntenseDebate! (I never connected my IntenseDebate account to WordPress, either, fwiw.)
Yeah, I commented on the Weetzie Bat thread with ID just fine earlier, but now when I try to comment, it’s nothing but wordpress. NOOOO and there’s no option to log in any other way.
Same for me! No wordpress account and no options to log in.
Thank you all for reporting! This is a weird problem! I’ll post as events develop.
Yep, and I wanted to add that this doesn’t just seem to change from one post to another. Yesterday I left a comment using Intense Debate; about an hour later I came back and tried to add a reply to the same post, but Intense Debate had disappeared and there was only the option to log in through WordPress.
That second time, by the way, the comments looked really different (I assumed you had just changed the commenting system or something). Everything was automatically expanded, the background was white instead of grey, and there were no spaces between paragraphs. (Very unfortunate for me as I had just written the longest post of all time.)
Yes, exactly as Spoons here describes.
I was going to go back to the open thread from Friday to share my homecoming-mum-making story (I did it! http://dakimel.blogspot.com/2013/10/mums-word.htm… )
Anyway, when I try I get this error: Fatal error: Unknown: Cannot use output buffering in output buffering display handlers in Unknown on line 0
Yes, I have experienced this problem too, intermittently since Friday and not just for the open thread. Sometimes when I just wanted to click through to the comments thread of a given post – meaning I could read the front page of the Toast, but coudn’t access the comments. Sometimes when I tried to open the site itself.
And here! I was trying to see if there were any more filthy riding instructor metaphors…
This has been a pesky problem we’ve been working on. It has to do with conflicting widgets eating up too much bandwidth and crashing us out. Just tried a new fix – make sure to clear your cache!
This is the first site I’ve used Intense Debate on, and I have to say that despite the login weirdness, this is much less annoying a system than Disqus, which considers my attention span too feeble to handle more than three consecutive paragraphs without a See More*. It’s uncluttered, and not gonna lie, reminds me a little bit of Ye LJ of Olde. (I have feels.)
*Or worse, Amazon abbreviating book descriptions with a See More, because I guess when considering a purchase of READING material it is madness to expect customers to READ about the thing they may be spending money to READ in its entirety!
I don’t know if this is a thing that is connected to you guys or what, but occasionally when I try and open a post I get a pop up add about Java being out of date with a “upload” link. My Java is current, and the upload link isn’t to the official Java site, so I assume it’s some sort of malware. I’ve had it happen on two computers, and only on The Toast, and my malware detectors think my computer is clean, so I don’t think it’s anything originating on my computer. I don’t really know anything about computers so I don’t know if it could be something on your website? Or why I seem to be the only one getting it? Or if it IS somehow me? Or is it just coming through the aether? But I figured I should say something in case it’s not just me
No you’re not alone this happened to me too!
This happened to me to! And I work at a computer security company, so my computer is clean!
I, too, sometimes get an extremely sketchy pop-under asking me to download a supposed Java update.
Also: somewhere, people are being fooled by this and are installing whatever malware it’s trying to get us to install. You are doing better than those people at knowing about computers, even if you think otherwise.
(For Maria: I believe I’ve seen this in up-to-date Firefox on Windows 8 and Windows 7.)
Hi all reporting this issue – first thanks. Second, we don’t have any pop-ups installed at the moment so that should not be happening. I’ll research the issue! Thanks again.
Update to my other reply: I was wrong, it’s not a pop-under. I just saw it, and it was a redirect. I guess I thought it was a pop-under because of my habit of opening a zillion things in new tabs. Oops.
Still though, a redirect you did not click?
Correct! And it was on this very page. The page was loading, and then it was replaced by the sketchy Java site.
me three
Oh, oh, I thought of something! When I follow a link to a specific comment either from an email or from IntenseDebate, it just brings me to the top of the article in question, not to that comment. Even though the URL will have the comment number. Anyone?
I’ve been getting that thing where I can’t log into threads sometimes and comments look different! Here are some possibly relevant facts?
-I have an ad blocker but I’ve disabled it for The Toast (because I love you guys! and it’s the least I can do)
-I thinnnnk I created a wordpress account and then linked an intensedebate account to it? I’m not sure.
-I have third party cookies disabled by default but I’ve made exceptions for The Toast, WordPress, and Intensedebate.
So if I’ve already set The Toast as an exception in my ad blocker but I still have these problems sometimes, what should I do next time it happens? Disable it completely?
Honestly I think this is some screwiness between wordpress and intensedebate, and probably not that related to your individual settings. The connecting accounts seems to have helped some people, but there’s other oddness a foot – for instance the complete absence of an intense debate login or vice versa but with wordpress. Looking into it! Thanks for the info!
Can I say something that I love? I love being able to not create a username/profile to comment. I ALWAYS forget my login and then just stop.
Thank you for saying something that you love!
Whoa does that two pages thing feedly problem make so much sense. Here I am, thinking the abrupt endings are just an editorial style. Silly me.
We hate our readers and do not want them to have closure.
Fun fact: I did not switch between two wordpress accounts to comment here with y’all. That just happened on its own thanks to internet magic. Add it to the list!
I don’t know if this is just a me thing or an actual thing, but when I browse the Toast on my phone I tend to get some sketchy pop-ups. This is bizarre because that rarely happens on my mobile, plus I have a pop-up blocker + security stuff set up on my phone. I only ever see them when I click through from Feedly and am browsing on the actual Toast website, but usually it says something about ‘cleaning’ my phone.
Yeah this seems to be a Thing that is happening to a few people (see upthread). I originally didn’t want to say anything because you know, they have a right to have ads, but they really don’t seem like very Toast-y ads (i.e.a bit sketchy like the You Have A Virus! Download This Thing now! type)
We really really try to supply quality ads so anything this sketchy is not something we’re signing off on. Thanks to both of you for reporting – I’m looking into it now.
After I submitted that I saw it up thread but couldn’t delete it as I am just a ghosty guest commenter! Thanks for the responses and glad it is not just me. (I clicked through two more popups to come and post this so definitely happening to me today still as I’ve experienced in the past)
Just a second vote for an ‘expand all’ option in the comments if it’s possible! Last week I was looking for a recipe I saw in the FoT, but had a very difficult time re-locating it due to compressed replies.
Noted! That would be pretty sweet and intense debate has some cool custom coding potential to add something like that. I’ll add this to the list of fun projects. Not that all these other things are not also “fun” projects…
Thank you guys for this! All my problems (the comments insisting I log in with WordPress when I don’t have an account, pop-unders, and mobile weirdness) have been covered already, so not going to go into that.
On a semi-related note, is there anything you guys would like us to click that would be helpful to you? I would gladly click on the occasional ad or something for love of The Toast, but I’m not sure what the Midas touch is that turns page views into sweet, sweet internet gold.
There are prohibitions about what we’re allowed to tell you to do with the site in regards to CLICKING ON ADVERTISING AND SITE LINKS so Nick needs to jump in here for the official word. But it’s so nice that you are asking! Thank you! And I’m so sorry to hear about these rotten pop unders, that’s the top priority now.
Problem: The sidebar overlaps with the text.
Solutions:
Option A: Widen the window
Option B: Make the windows
Option C: In Chrome, right click and select “inspect element.” Look for a tag that looks like, <aside class=”sidebar c-4-12″> (actual letter/number combo may vary) and delete it. Ta-da, no sidebar. You feel bad for getting rid of the ads… but at least it’s kinder than using ad-block, and you can have the window at whatever width you want without covering up the words.
Honestly, yuck. The comment font is tragicomically like Comic Sans. Full feed RSS seems to hop on just fine until yesterday. Fix please!
We like the comment font fine, though your “yuck” has been noted, and the full feed was cutting off multipage articles and leaving people confused. We’re using full feed again, with a workaround, but will probably return to truncation after Feedly stops deleting line breaks.
Okay, I have a problem that just developed today. I try to go to an article page (either from the regular front page or from a feedly link) and I see everything but the article body. I see the headline, the author bios, the comments, just not the article itself. I’m on Chrome and I cleared my cache and that didn’t do anything. The front page looks normal.
Okay, I just tried to click through to the Halloween planning post with the read more button and got the following error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENDWHILE in /home/thetoa5/public_html/okay/wp-content/themes/spike/single.php on line 148
We’re working on it!
It works! Yay!