Posting articles on a Sunday from Weekly Prompts, is not something GC and I normally do. Today’s post, however, is neither a prompt nor a challenge, it is an information piece.
During the past couple of weeks when visiting some of the sites I follow, I noticed that some of the pingbacks to Weekly Prompts had not appeared on our site, I wrongly assumed it was the fault of the authors.
Last weekend, it took a whole day before one of my own pingbacks from nansfarm eventually made an appearance on Weekly Prompts.
Yesterday, despite several attempts of deleting and re-creating a pingback from my scheduled post on Nan’s Farm, it did not materialise on our Old and New’ photo challenge.
Finally, I created a pingback test page, but that too was a no show on Weekly Prompts.
An hour ago I published another post on my Nan’s Farm site and created a pingback to our challenge ‘Old and New’… another No Show!
For this post All Comments are Enabled: If you have anything to say on the matter please feel free to tell us here.
WordPress support responded speedily to my request for help. You may be interested to read the last reply pasted below.
Hello Sue,
Many thanks for getting back to me with the extra information, it’s been really helpful in trying to find an answer for you.
I’ve done some investigation into this and it looks like this is a rare, intermittent issue – but you’re absolutely right in the fact that you should be seeing those pingbacks.
A factor that makes this issue intermittent relates to a comment flooding mechanism.
Our developers are aware of occasional issues with pingbacks not appearing, and are looking into it. I’ve reported the information you’ve provided to our developers to help them on their way.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this issue will be fixed quickly. It’s a very intermittent issue that’s difficult to reproduce, and our developers need to reproduce the issue to try to fix it.
I know the above doesn’t offer a resolve, but I am hoping it offers an explanation.
I hope the above helps.
=======================
gc
SueW
Weekly Prompts 
We know we have a problem. What it is, why it happens, how to fix it? We have no idea. Interesting!
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Spot on Peter! It’s not just my sites, it seems to be affecting others too, the Rag Tag Community have also had some problems.
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I noticed some of my pingbacks weren’t appearing and then forgot to check back later.
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Yes, I did the same last week, we assume the pingbacks have worked so we don’t check. One or two other communities have had the same problem. I hope they fix it soon. Thank you David.
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I also seem to be getting double notifications at times.
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Snap! The same thing happens to me, David. Recently, I also had a problem previewing draft posts on the iPad, WordPress gave me a similar response. Finally, I asked for a developer, someone with more experience to take a look. I insisted it was due to an update. I sent a copy of the application log and they fixed the problem!
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Uh, another very popular blogger expressed the same issues and got the exact same response from WordPress about the ping backs. Me? I’ve had issues with them for the four years I’ve been on WordPress. Intermittently they just stop working and then voila! They’re back and work for a while. The problem is not rare and it remains unsolved. WordPress is the culprit. They’re doing some more (unwanted) site modifications, and I suspect therein lies the problem. They’ve messed up some coding necessary for the ping backs to function (again). When they figure out what they’ve modified that shouldn’t be, I hope the ping backs will be back up and running. But I’m not holding my breath.
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I heard something about pingbacks within the Ragtag community from Lois. WordPress recently had a security issue and all iOS devices were disconnected from the App. Some of my problems stem from that time. Hopefully WordPress will have a breakthrough very soon.
Meanwhile ‘Keep Calm and Keep Blogging!’
Thank you for your comments Melanie. 🙂
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Bravo Susan. At least you are getting the tech team at WP to start cleaning up their house. If they have noted so many instances of the problem they should exert themselves into resolving the issue rather than concentrating on issuing their “spring clearance” specials to users who only want to post their works and not create a faux publishing empire for the Word Press execs.
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Annoying as it is to us and to other bloggers, I do understand that an intermittent fault is hellishly difficult to pinpoint. They’ll get there in the end and until then, Que Sera Sera what will be will be! 🙂
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I received a similar response to a problem I’ve been having with huge gaps in posts of bloggers I follow showing up in my Reader on my iPhone app. I was told, “This is a tricky problem to solve because it’s hard to pin down the exact steps to replicate the problem.” Ugh.
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I can’t help wondering if our problems stem from their in-house security update for the iOS App. My posts often start life on the iPad and are later completed on my PC and vice versa. Weekly Prompts Posts are usually written in advance and scheduled. I have tried to find connections for the fault, but it’s a fruitless exercise. Thank you Fangdango.
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Fruitless and extremely frustrating.
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I have been having a similar conversation with WordPress. I suggested (strongly) that they take a look at the contents of their software and start deleting the “junk.” But they won’t do it. Not only do pingbacks not appear, but I have entire posts vanish, even though they’ve been saved. I have posts show up without pictures even though the pictures are clearly visible in the “edit” version. Many of my comments vanish even as I try to post them. Sometimes, I can only post through the reader, other times only on my computer. You really need to make comments available. Because I cannot enter a link in comments, I won’t bother to respond to the prompt. It’s too aggravating to write a whole piece and never see it linked up and be left without any way of adding a link. I know you don’t want a lot of comments, but if the pingbacks don’t work and you eliminate comments, all of us with issues concerning links, pingbacks, comments that don’t show up, etc. will give up. They told me they haven’t heard about this problem much. Except that it is affecting many people. They just aren’t bothering to fix it.
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It’s difficult to ascertain whether the pingback fault lies with the site where it was created or within the receiving site. I understand Fandango is having similar problems and also the Rag Tag community. My own suspicion is that the WordPress App is at fault.
When we set up Weekly Prompts we deliberately disabled normal comments because we wanted the site to be similar to WP’s daily prompts, simply a site to offer prompts and bring people together. And from a personal point of view those who mix comments and pingbacks on their own personal sites have made it difficult for the rest of us to spot the individual pingbacks amidst the general discussion
You may have a point, perhaps we could enable comments as a temporary measure.
Thank you for your input Marilyn.
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Hello again Marilyn. We took your advice and have enabled comments on Weekly Prompts. We also asked readers to attempt a pingback before pasting a link. Thank you for the advice, it was appreciated.
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You know, this problem isn’t that intermittent. How many people are complaining about this? They say it only shows up once in a while, but once in a while seems to be a daily event for many of us.
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Thankfully, all our personal posts are publishing as usual and our followers will continue as always to Like and comment (if they so wish). It’s just those wretched pingbacks that we create that aren’t working.
I might write from the dashboard from now on and leave out the App.
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Thank you Sue for taking the time to report it. I also have noticed the problem, It becomes an intermittent problem, therefore taking a while to fix because they are not sure what the problem is. 🤔
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I agree with you Janette. I think it’s one of those faults that needs to be seen by a developer when it is happening and there lies the difficulty. Computers eh, can’t live with them and definitely can’t live without them!
It’s annoying but I’m not going to go steaming off on one, there are far worse things happening around us.
Thank you for your comments Janette I appreciate them. 🙂
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Absolutely. 😊 enjoy your day Sue
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Haha, I should be saying that to you Janette, it’s the start of your day in Australia, but it’s just after half past ten here in England and coming up to my bedtime! 😀
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Yes I should be saying to you have a good sleep ha ha. Sweet dreams Sue Ha ha 💤
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Thank you Janette and hopefully I will! Enjoy your day 🙂
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👌 will do
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I just posted my contribution to the Old and New prompt. No sign of the pingback when I checked.
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Sorry for the delay, I was out. Also sorry about the pingback. I have enabled comments on that page, which means you will be able to paste a link instead. We will make some sort of announcement with tomorrow’s prompt.
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Thanks Sue. I’ll check that it hasn’t appeared before posting a link.
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