There are some known issues with the new glow blogs service. There were not deemed sever enough to stop the new server going live and the resulting downtime. Below you can see the known issues at the time the service went live.
You can also read about any new issues discovered.
Email Issues
There are a few issues around email addresses
A standard WordPress install uses emails addresses to add users and send users messages to inform them or in some cases to complete actions.
The new site has carried over the old glow RM easy mail addresses, which no do not work.
Users can add email addresses into the User section of the dashboard. This new email will get a confirmation with a link to follow to confirm.
Going forward this address will be able to receive notification of new comments. Currently email notification of comments is not enabled and these emails are not sent. This is reflected in the disabled state of the comment notification checkbox.
Hopefully this should not impact users in the short term as email did not work in the old glow blogs.
Deleting Blogs
Blog will not be deleted but held in an inaccessible archive and can be restored by the Super Admin
You need to respond to a confirmation email before the ‘delete’ happens.
The confirm emails often end up in spam folders, make sure you check if you think the mail does not get through.
This mail will also contain a misleading message:
if you delete your blog, please consider opening a new blog here
some time in the future! (But remember your current blog and username
are gone forever.)
some time in the future! (But remember your current blog and username
are gone forever.)
The blog will be archived, but your username will still exist.
The Flash File Uploader
The New WordPress 4 Add Media facility fixes this problem.
Vimeo embeds
The Upgrade to WordPress 4 included fixes for this issue.
The Upgrade to WordPress 4 included fixes for this issue.
Importing blogs
The Upgrade to WordPress 4 included fixes for this issue.
WordPress has a facility for importing and export from another blog. When you import the xml file it gives you a chance to map the posts from the import to existing users. The list of existing users is presented as guids, which look like a string of random characters.
My Blogs link
This issue was fixed in release phase 1.1
On the home page of each instance of blogs is a link to create blogs and a link to ‘My Blogs’. The My blogs link allows users to see a list of the blog they have a role on.
However if a user who has never logged onto the blogs service before is added to a blog by an admin they will not see this link.
Workaround, if you add users to a blog send them the link to the blog rather than the link to the Local Authority Home page.
Pupil’s comments always held for moderation
A student user’s comment is going into a moderation queue, even when they have an editor level role on a given blog.
Workaround, all comments by students will have to be moderated.
Access to non-public blogs on other Local Authorities
The blogs authentication is currently tied to the LAS instance. That means if you need access to a glow only or private blog in another Local Authority you will need the tile for that instance on your Unify Launchpad. Your school Unify administrator will be able to make that Tile available for you to your personal launch pad.
Hi David,
The pupils should be able to find their e-portfolios by clicking on the tile for blog then on the My Blogs link on the LA blog home page. Let me know of any problems.
As for the edit problem, I would guess if you are edit a post on a blog and changes are not being saved you are using Internet Explorer. If you use a new version of IE you need to have compatibility mode turned on for glowscotland.org.uk
Alternatively use Chrome, Firefox or Safari which do not have the problem (If your LA gives you a choice of browser)
Hi!
I’m noticing that scheduled posts are not going up. Instead, they appear in the admin system with “missed schedule”.
Hi Paul,
Yes that will have to go on our known issues list. The developers will be investigating this.
Hi, after logging back into my blog (Kirk o’ Shotts Room 3) I notice there are literally hundreds of comments awaiting moderation. All I have seen so far are spam but they haven’t been sent to the spam folder. I know there was an issue with this last year too but thought it had been fixed. Can you advise what I can do to be able to quickly access valid comments and get rid of all the spam, please? Thank you.
Hi Caroline,
At some point, before we took over the blogs project, the plugin that protected against spam stopped working. RM deployed a new plugin WP-SpamFree, this needs to be activated on each blog.
As to quickly accessing valid comments I do not think there is a way to do so. I had a few thousand on one blog and the only think that helped was to open the Screen Options (at the top right of the dashboard) and set the number of comments shown to 200. This let me delete 200 at a time. (setting it higher gave me failures).