Around the time of April’s A to Z blogging challenge, I learned that a subset of the few people that actually read my blog – the commenters – couldn’t. I started having replying troubles around the same time. If you go back to my posts during that challenge, you can see all my little updates and PSAs as I worked through the problem. Spoiler: Unsuccessfully.
If I replied to someone from within ye olde blogge – through the WordPress dashboard – no problem. If I tried to reply directly from the page, I usually got the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH. And my oh-so-carefully crafted and witty response had gone into the ether like mist on a July morning, just like it did for my commenters. GRRRRRRRRRR.
So I tried researching this problem through the good ol’ Interweb and came up with squat. Then I called Bluehost and Mr. Bluehost had no problem commenting on ye olde blogge no matter what web browser was employed. But of course you did. So no solutions found there.
This problem was so bad I wasn’t even getting spam anymore, and I complained about it to Mr. Bluehost and I think this gave him the laugh of his day if not his week.
I tried everything I could think of. I changed themes. I installed plugins. I removed plugins. I swore. I drank. I shook my tiny fist of rage at the screen. Then I begged its forgiveness. I burned incense and meditated on the problem. I laid offerings in front of the iMac. Nothing worked.
Fast forward to now – I AM back to getting spam again. Hoorah, I think?
So I thought the problem was fixed. But some other bloggers have been telling me it is still there.
So I reached out to Joanne of My Live Lived Full, who seems to have found a work-around. This is what she does, to successfully comment without triggering the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH: