Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

Technical issues not resolved by WordPress.com support - Can forum users help?

  1. courtesanconnection
    Member

    Hello,
    I orginally had the same problem Dr. Mike recommended to be submitted as a trouble ticket in the forum WordPress.com Forums >> Support >> Blogroll and categories (now resolved) where Dr. Mike recommended the issue be submitted as a trouble ticket. I did so, an am having an extremely frustrating time with WordPress.com support as shown in the copies of the email below. Would any one have any suggestions at this point on what I can do to fix this on my own or who would be the correct person to reach to get the assistance I need? This has become extremely frustrating.

    As it stands right now, I have removed the static front page on my blog as WordPress.com Support (Mark) seemed confused by that per his last response. I am still having all the problems noted below.

    [Wordpress #KBS-143073]: Categories not showing up in Dashboard >> Blogroll >> Manage Blogroll Inbox

    From Mark
    To Me

    Jan 22 (2 days ago)
    Hi,
    Could I have the names of the categories please? I have made one change but I don't know what I need to check.
    -

    Mark

    From me
    To Mark

    Mark,
    Here are my categories as currently defined.

    ID Name Description Posts Links Action
    1356 Blogroll 6 179 Edit Default
    636397 — Current Blogs Currently maintained Blogs 1 0 Edit Delete
    646459 — — Blogs by Men Blogs by male providers 5 0 Edit Delete
    646457 — — Blogs by Women Blogs by women providers 9 0 Edit Delete
    646923 — Group blogs, Aggregators, and Channeled sites Sites that
    offer blogs by multiple authors and/or publishers, aggregate multiple
    blogs, or limit access to their bloggers content through a portal or
    site. 1 0 Edit Delete
    647109 — Literature, Culture, and Media Literature, Culture and
    Media on sex work 5 0 Edit Delete
    647096 — No Longer Active and Deleted Blogs Blogs no longer
    maintained, retired, or deleted 1 0 Edit Delete
    146854 — — Abandoned Blogs Blogs still up, but not updated in six
    months or more 5 0 Edit Delete
    34083 — — Dead Blogs Blogs for which there are links or references
    to on other sites, but have been deleted. 4 0 Edit Delete
    646461 — — Retired Blogs Blogs still up, but the owner has indicated
    the blog will no longer be maintained. 2 0 Edit Delete
    646930 — Non-blog sites, links and information Links to non-blog
    sites and information. 8 0 Edit Delete
    322909 — Other Blogs of Note Other Blogs of interest. 1 0 Edit Delete
    646477 — — Other sex-work blogs blogs by other sex-workers 1 0 Edit Delete
    360521 — Sex Work Information regarding Sex Work and Sex Workers 1
    0 Edit Delete
    646946 — — Foundations and Agencies Non-governmental organizations
    that work for the welfare and concerns of sex workers. 1 0
    Edit Delete
    646951 — — Governmental Projects Government organizations and
    entities that deal with sex workers and sex work issues. 2 0
    Edit Delete
    646960 — — Issues Regarding Sex Work Issues, concerns, discussions
    and debates on sex work and sex workers. 4 0 Edit Delete
    647113 — — — Human Trafficking and Exploitation Information on human
    trafficking and exploitation. 1 0 Edit Delete
    146292 — — Sex Worker Organizations Unions and other organizations
    supporting sex workers. 1 0 Edit Delete

    Thanks,

    From Mark
    To me

    Hi,
    This page:
    http://courtesanconnection.wordpress.com/wp-admin/link-manager.php
    shows all the links are in one category - Blogroll.
    So to divide them you need to use existing or create new categories then edit each link to that category. Does that help?
    -

    Mark

    From me
    To Mark

    Mark,
    I believe you misunderstood my issue.
    What I am trying to do is set up my Blogroll so that the blogroll
    links appear categorized.
    From the forums, as I understood them, I accomplish this by setting
    up Categories, and then sub-categories, then going back to the
    Blogroll area, and setting the links to the respective categories and
    sub-categories as appropriate.
    Everything works fine as far as setting up the Categories and
    sub-categories, indeed, you can see them laid out as I would like at
    the very bottom left of the screen (scroll all the way to the bottom
    of the blog), except now when I go back to try to assign the links to
    a category via the Blogroll manager (same link you supplied and which
    I have been using) the only category that appears is "Blogroll".

    I did not format the info I sent you earlier, perhaps this helps for
    you to see what I am trying to do. I am including screenshoots with
    this so you can see the output WordPress.com is presenting me.
    This is my currently set up and desired category hierarchy.
    1356 Blogroll
    636397 — Current Blogs (parent Blogroll)
    646459 — — Blogs by Men (parent Current Blogs)
    646457 — — Blogs by Women (parent Current Blogs)
    646923 — Group blogs, Aggregators, and Channeled sites (parent Blogroll)
    647109 — Literature, Culture, and Media (parent Blogroll)
    647096 — No Longer Active and Deleted Blogs (parent Blogroll)
    146854 — — Abandoned Blogs (parent No Longer Active and Deleted Blogs)
    34083 — — Dead Blogs (parent No Longer Active and Deleted Blogs)
    646461 — — Retired Blogs (parent No Longer Active and Deleted Blogs)
    646930 — Non-blog sites, links and information (parent Blogroll)
    322909 — Other Blogs of Note (parent Blogroll)
    646477 — — Other sex-work blogs (parent Other Blogs of Note)
    360521 — Sex Work (parent Blogroll)
    646946 — — Foundations and Agencies (parent Sex Work)
    646951 — — Governmental Projects (parent Sex Work)
    646960 — — Issues Regarding Sex Work (parent Sex Work)
    647113 — — — Human Trafficking and Exploitation (parent Issues
    Regarding Sex Work)
    146292 — — Sex Worker Organizations (parent Sex Work)

    Am including the following screenshots as attachements.

    BlogrollCategories.png shows how the categories currently (do not)
    appear when I try to assign the links to correct category. None of
    the child categories of Blogroll appear at all.
    CurrentCategories.png shows part of my current category set up as
    currently saved (same as above text).
    CategoryParent.png shows how the parenting appears when I look at one
    particular sub-category.

    What I am taking from your note is that I should delete my categories
    as set up, and create and assign them via the blogroll manager, and
    then sub-categorize them afterword. You can understand that I find it
    rather silly that I can not do what would seem obvious, use the
    categories already laid out and sub-catagorized in the Category
    Manager to format the Blogroll.

    Hopefully this clarifies for you the problem that I am having, as this
    does appear from my end to be a flaw with WordPress.

    Thank you.

    From me
    to Mark

    Mark,
    I am now getting a "503 error" every time I try to go to "Manage" off
    the Dashboard, also, when I go to Blogroll >> Manage Blogroll >> Edit
    Link there are NO catagories showing up, and I have not deleted them.
    Attached is another screenshot of how it appears to me at this point
    and time.
    Also, starting this afternoon, when I would go to my main page, the
    only thing that would be present would be the blog roll. No postings,
    nothing on the right hand column. Only the left hand column. If I
    would click on the link for the "About" page at the top, I could get
    to it and the middle and right columns would reappear, but not for the
    main page. I was able to create a new static first page as can be
    seen now, but am not sure about what is going on.
    Please let me know what can be done to correct these issues.
    Thank you.

    From Mark
    to me

    Hi,
    I think this is fixed now? The blog looks okay to me.
    -

    Mark

    No Mark,
    Not a single issue has been resolved.
    I am still getting the 503 error when I try to get to the Manage area
    of the dashboard.
    I still have no categories showing up when I try to assign categories
    to the links in the Blogroll manager
    and if I remove the "Technical Problems" page from the front of the
    blog, then nothing appears.

  2. wank
    Member

    This is standard behaviour which I can reproduce on my own blog. Basically, when you add a category and go to add or edit a link, the category won't appear in the list unless there is already a link in that category. I'm guessing this is because people would be annoyed by having their post categories show up there. You have to type in the category manually, then it may appear as an option when you come to edit the other links individually.

    I don't know how you'd preserve hierarchy between cats and subcats with this method, and I can't see any way of mass-assigning links to a category so you don't have to go in and edit each one individually. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but the truth is that wordpress 2.1 really messed up the way link categories are handled and I can't make any claim to understanding it these days.

  3. mark
    Support

    As we are here now.......

    What did you do immediately before the error?

    (and if everyone posted here after waiting just 20 minutes since they sent in a request it would get pretty busy. I'm quick but this thing called sleep keeps slowing me down)

  4. drmike
    Member

    Mark, I should send you a couple pounds of the stuff I'm drinking lately. I don't think I've had more than 5 hours in a single night for the last few weeks.

  5. courtesanconnection
    Member

    Mark,
    I apologize if you feel I was unfair to you. However, from my point of view, I explained the issues that I was having clearly, and tried to provide as much information as needed, and yet, I was getting no where in resolving the problems. Indeed, I was left feeling that frankly, you were not interested in helping. This blog has been submitted as part of a Ph.D. project that has been received quite well, and the idea and direction of the blog in particular with a bit of praise, so it is rather important to me. and I am very interested in getting what is wrong fixed.

    There are now four issues (one somewhat resolved by Wank's post above, if I understand what is being said correctly).
    Issue 1 (Which spawned the orginal trouble ticket) - I set up the categories as above and noted in the screen shot sent to you, but when I go to assign the links to the category in the Blogroll manager, the only Category (at the time of the orginal trouble ticket) that appeared was Blogroll. I have at least one Post that has at least one Category assigned to it. However, at the time of the orginal trouble ticket, the only category that would appear when I tried to manage the links was Blogroll. Again, to be clear, at the time of the orginal trouble ticket, categories were set up in the blog, with the partent / child structure as noted in the orginal topic post.
    From what I could understand from the forum and posts here, having the categories set up and posts assigned to the categories should have been enough to enable them in the Blogroll manager, I am now to understand that is not correct, and the recommended procedure is to create the categories in the Blogroll manager, and THEN set up the hierarchy. If this is correct, then please indicate so, and I will consider that issue resolved.
    Issue 2 - Blogroll After Mark's intial reply that you an adjustment had been made, I went back into the blog and attempted to assign categories to the blogroll links. As Blogroll still was the only category present, I was planning at that point to delete all the categories, and re-create them via the Blogroll manager. In preperation for this, I went back to Categories, created a category "Uncategorized" (deleted when I created the orginal hierarchy) and then went back to the blogroll to assign the links to that category (if it showed up). At this point, I had NO categories show up in the Blogroll manager, and I had not (and still have not) deleted any Categories. I am not sure at this stage what I should do.
    Issue 3 - Dashboard - After the steps were taken above, when I now click on "Manage" on the Dashboard , I get the 503 error as below -
    Goshdarnit!

    Something has gone wrong with our servers. It’s probably Matt’s fault.

    We’ve just been notified of the problem.

    Hopefully this should be fixed ASAP, so kindly reload in a minute and things should be back to normal.
    "
    Despite the optomistic tone of the error message, this has yet to stop.

    Issue 4
    When I go to the blog (other than when I had the static technical problems page up), the only thing that appears is left hand column of the blog. Prior to 2 days ago, all three columns appeared.
    I am also noting that the Dashboard bar will no longer appear at the top of the page in this view. I have to go to the About page or another static page to get it to show up.

    From the VERY little bit of HTML and CSS I know, and looking at the trace log from my puter, I am wondering if I created a loop somewhere that is pointing at itself. This is a wild ass guess on my part, as I cannot say I understand the output all that well. How I did so or where it is I do not know.

    I am a newbie, and know this can be a pain in the behind, however, I read, re-read, and tried to make the best sense I could out of what was in the FAQ and forums before posting the trouble ticket. Going back to the forum here with this issue was because things were getting worse, not better, and it seemed as if there was no interest in resolving this issue. The fact that similar questions get asked by many different people means more than just a "user-failure" or a need to RTFM. It also points to the information not being clear.

    I appreciate everyone's assistance and feedback with this.

  6. courtesanconnection
    Member

    As of 9:35 pm Eastern, when I could check the blog, everything is now functioning as it did prior to the trouble ticket being submitted.

    I've emailed Mark prior to posting here to thank him, as I am assuming it was his work that corrected this.

    I consider the issue resolved.

  7. timethief
    Member

    Thanks for letting us know.

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags