Known Issues

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.

~~Dummy email addresses are created for new users, these will not work either~~ Glow O365 email addresses are added for new users, if you logged onto the blog service between Oct 2014 and January 2015 you will need to update the email address in your profile manually.

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

~~If you try to delete a blog you receive a rather scary message, this warns the user that they will never be able to log back to blogs.glowscotland.org.uk~~

~~This is not true~~. Fixed

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.)

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.

In some browsers the flash uploader is broken and does not work. This is not consistent and is the same in the ‘old’ glow blogs. The browser’s most affected seem to be Safari & Firefox on mac. Workaround, use the browser upload option or use Google Chrome.

Vimeo embeds

The Upgrade to WordPress 4 included fixes for this issue.

Currently you can embed Vimeo videos by pasting or typing the video page URL into the post editor. Vimeo has changed URLs to use https rather than http. These new https links do not work for embedding. Workaround: remove the s from the link. Videos embedded from before the change are not affected.

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.~~

We believe this will impact very few users as importing blogs is not a common activity. The Government Super Admin will be able to if importing is necessary. This will be fixed in a subsequent phase of the blog development.

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.

29 thoughts on “Known Issues”

I created a school blog ‘Mauchline Primary School’ and have just received my new login for Glow for both my own account and the ASM account. However I am no longer able to edit the blog – only to view it like everyone else.

How do I get back into my own blog?

Thanks
Susan Cross

Hi Susan,
Has your username changed?
If so your account will be no longer associated with the blog.
You need to log a call through your LA to the RM help desk to get your new username added to the blog.

Hi there,
I am having difficulty posting to my West Lothian school blog, CroftmallochPrimary. I am logged in to Glow, I select my school’s blog from the list, I select Post to Blog from the side bar, type a blog, publish it but it doesn’t appear on the school blog at all! I seem to have a little black hole blog all to myself that no-one else can see. All other staff can blog fine to school page. Help.