Problems Leaving Comments On Some Blogs?

Before I get to the comments problem, I just wanted to say, I woke up early Friday morning to a great sound that I hadn’t heard for quite a while – rain pounding on our roof and water pouring along our gutters and through the downspouts. It was nice to hear as I’ve mentioned a few times, we really need the rain.

Last week, while we were visiting Goldstream Park, we noticed the water level in the river was quite low and figured the salmon returning to spawn in a few weeks might have some trouble – so, this rain will help that a lot.

Paulette headed down to Victoria before 9:00 yesterday to visit her sister, Arlene, and after that was going to meet her quilting friend, Clare, for lunch. I had absolutely no plans, until I happened to read Veragirl’s blog lamenting the fact that she could no longer leave comments on a few of her favorite blogs.

So, I thought, what better way to spend a rainy morning than trying to solve a computer problem! In her blog yesterday morning, Vera outlined the issue exceptionally well, including a few screenshots to illustrate the problem she was having. Here is what she said:

“There are several Blogs that I want to comment on but my comments end up somewhere in cyberspace but not on the Blog…….I then click on “Post Comment” and poof it’s gone. I am always signed in to my Google Account.”

Figure 1. This is what Vera saw before trying to comment

I could understand Vera’s frustration as she knew that other people were leaving comments on these blogs, so why couldn’t she? It was also confusing because she wasn’t having problems leaving comments on blogs that used “pop-up” or “full-page” format instead of the “embed comments below blog” format shown above.(Figure 1)

Fortunately, I thought I knew the solution to this problem and also that Vera happened to live in Cobble Hill, right across the highway from us. So, I emailed Vera asking her one question: “Are you using Firefox as your browser”? If so, please give me a phone call and I think we can fix this”.

Figure 2. You want to see your own Google Account Name

A few minutes later, my phone rang and sure enough it was Vera saying that “yes, indeed I do use Firefox”. She was at her computer and so I gave her a few simple instructions to make one change in the Internet Options for Firefox. She made the change, clicked o.k., then went back to Wandering Willy’s page to see if she could now leave a comment – it worked!! Problem solved!

The issue was a “cookie setting” in the Firefox browser, so if you are having a problem similar to Vera’s, here’s how to check for and fix the problem:

1. With Firefox open, click on “Tools, Options, then Privacy”
2. You will see the following pop-up window:

Look carefully and you will see a box(half-way down) that says “Accept third-party cookies”. To correct the problem that Vera was having, this box must be checked. Once Vera checked it and then saved it by clicking o.k., the problem was resolved.

So, what are third-party cookies anyway and are they safe? The answer is a bit complicated and misunderstood, but yes, in my opinion they are safe and I don’t have any problems with enabling them. First, “cookies” are simply “text files” that websites use to remember you so you don’t always have to sign-in and enter passwords every time you visit – cookies are a good thing(especially chocolate chip)!!

Here’s the best kind of cookies – Paulette’s Chocolate Chip

Here’s where it gets a bit tricky, but I’m going to use an actual example rather than impressive sounding techie jargon. When you visit a blogger’s website, a third-party cookie might be the Google Ads, the Site Meter Counter or any other gadgets on the page. If you happen to click on a Google-Ad, it might want to place a cookie on your computer to remember who you are - thus it is a third-party cookie because it is not really a part of the blogger’s webpage.

By the time I finished up with the cookies, it was almost 11:00, the rain had stopped, the sun was out and it was time to take Molly and Rylie to the dog park. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching a couple of baseball games and just enjoying a quiet Friday evening at home. And yes, we had left-over stew for dinner!