STUCK

The Sicilian Storyteller

Hey, fellow bloggers, followers, readers, friends, etc, etc.:

HELP!!!

That image above could be me dealing with WordPress. I am STUCK! I admit I’m not the most technologically fluent person but really – should it be this difficult??

You know that little bell icon located in the right corner of your page? This is what I see when I press that icon:

Yeah – nothing, zip, nada … just a little circle buffering, just a little obnoxious thingy going round and round and round, mocking me. I can’t see any of your comments, etc.

Not only that, when I go to one of YOUR pages to see YOUR latest posts, I cannot ‘like’ anything; I press and press and press the ‘like’ button but nothing happens. Dorothy at New Vintage Kitchen posted about a delicious-looking Tomato and Fennel Summer Salad. Can’t like it. Mitch Teemley wrote an interesting article about Vacation Homes for You to Try. Can’t like it. Richard Braxton has just posted another of his great poems called Don’t Beg Me For Money. Can’t like it. The list goes on and on.

I’m not begging for money. I’m begging for H.E.L.P.!!!

I am in WordPress Limbo – a very real place. It’s horrible and full of stupid people and sites that don’t work. Just ask our friend and fellow WordPresser Cindy Georgakas at Unique Times about her recent fall down the WordPress rabbit hole. (Cindy, if you’re out there, drop me a lifeline!)

I’ve been communicating with WordPress. Not for nothing (as they say) but are we all speaking English here or what? None of their “Happiness Engineers” has been able to help me and the advice they do give is impossible to interpret. Stop with the computer-ese and talk to me like I’m four years old; honestly, I will not be offended. Happiness Engineers – I am not happy! My grandchildren could do a better job explaining this to me. Note to self: call grand kids.

I am at my wit’s end right now. I want you all to know I am not ignoring you; I’m stuck in a WordPress bubble and can’t find my way out. If any of you can help, I am open to suggestions and/or advice. I’m not kidding! Truly, I’m not kidding!

Thanks, dear friends. Now to see if I can publish this post! 🤞🏼

P.S. – Did I say I wasn’t kidding?

NAR © 2022

35 thoughts on “STUCK”

  1. OH No not you too!! This is such a PITA!!
    Sooo sorry an the worst is, I can’t help you but I can commiserate with you and you’re in good company as you can see.. It’s a universal problem. Glad you are staying on top of them!! At the moment I’m ok and I hope it stays that way.. Good Luck!! Hang in there 😎😘😘💖💖

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    1. Thanks, Darlin’! 💕 WP has assured me they are “staying on top of the issue and are determined to get to the bottom of my problems”. In the meantime they keep sending me links that lead to the black hole! I just want someone to fix this and leave me out of it; is that asking too much? At least I can still post and read my friends posts. My head is spinning! I didn’t order the large PITA!! 😫 🤯

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      1. Let’s see if you can log out. Otherwise insist with the happiness engineers. I just had a problem with a French news magazine I suscribe to on-line. Couldn’t open the articles. I wrote a mail and they fixed it remotely. Maybe that’s what they have to do… best of luck.

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  4. I was going to say, call support, but you already did that. I use a Macbook pro. Never had that problem… I also use Chrome as navigator…
    Two suggestions.
    1) shut down your computer. Not restart. Shut down. Wait a coupla minutes, reboot, and see if WP is working.
    2) If WP is not working, try to logout. There is an option in your phone for that. UNinstall WP on your phone and reinstall it. Shut down your computer and try Wp again… Hopefully it might work.

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    1. Thanks for you suggestions. I did shut down the computer; no luck. I did think of uninstalling the app from my phone but I have this fear of losing everything and never getting it back; that would be horrible! I know I’m being silly; I’ve uninstalled apps before and reinstalled them with no problem so I guess it’s worth a try. First I will log out and see if that does anything before taking drastic measures! Thanks again.

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  5. As I mentioned previously, I am no techie and I’m certainly not a WP Happiness Engineer, but I was able to make a little headway on my own. Whether it proves anything is yet to be seen but I have my theories which I’ll share with you in a minute. FYI something I failed to mention previously: the device I’m using is a Macbook Air.

    I still cannot open notifications by clicking the bell icon from my main page. However, if I click “My Site” on the left side dashboard of my main page and then click the bell icon – VIOLA! – the notifications window opens and I can see all your wonderful comments!

    Hm, interesting 🤔

    But wait … there’s more!

    I was also having a problem uploading certain images to use as graphics for my stories (this is not a new problem). Why is it that I can upload most of my photos but there are some that are impossible to upload? I have no idea but I did some deep thinking and came up with an idea. Using my iPhone I opened ‘albums’ and located the photo I was trying to upload. Pressing the side sleep button and the home button simultaneously, I was able to take a picture of the photo I was trying to upload. Since my phone and Mac are synced, all my into is stored on both devices, including photos. I then went back into my site on my Macbook and tried to upload the photo of the photo (are you still with me?) and – VOILA AGAIN – it worked! I was able to upload the new photo.

    So, where am I going with this? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my Firefox browser. I believe there’s a glitch in the notifications bar on the main page, especially since a few of you mentioned you were having problems with your notifications bar as well. What’s going on with uploading images? Well, damned if I know the answer to that problem but my little Rube Goldberg method worked and that’s good enough for me for the moment! I sent all this to WordPress for their Happiness Engineers to chew on; let’s see what they say.

    Fascinating! 🖖🏼

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  6. Hi Nancy, I have never used a Macbook Air as I am an IBM user from the 1980s (eg now Lenovo, or generally, android devices). However, what I can suggest is you try using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as your search engine and see if that makes any difference. Also, do you know what download speed your internet provider is offering you? There are lots of sites that allow you test it, eg https://www.testmyspeed.com/
    Having said that, I’d be surprised if Americans have trouble with internet speeds, unless you have a couple of dozen teenagers in your house all streaming movies, or gaming, at the same time.
    Failing that, go out of the blog site you are trying to like, and then come back into it. It might spontaneously fix. A bit like pulling the plug out of the wall, and then sticking it back into again.

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    1. Oh Gwen, Gwen, Gwen! Other than the fact that you are an IBM user since the 80s, I understood very little of what you just wrote me 😵‍💫 I did, however, test my speed and it’s running normally. I’m trying to work with WordPress on a variety of issues. It’s sort of like popping a zit only to have a new one appear somewhere else. Quite frustrating and maddening. If WP can read any of the things I’ve been writing here, they may not be looking at me very favorably at the moment and are not in a hurry to help me 😂 Kidding aside, thanks for your words of wisdom and suggestions; I’ve missed seeing your posts. Take care. 🫶🏼

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      1. I have so many ideas for blog posts, but writing them would come at the expense of so many other things demanding my attention at the moment.

        On the upside, I was supposed to present for two weeks of jury duty which was cancelled at the last moment. That means – two weeks without conflicting appointments in the diary! Which means, two weeks to work on my historical novel! Maybe, draft #? – I’m gunna say 9 – might actually get finished!

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        1. Ah! Two glorious free weeks! What I wouldn’t give for that. Well, we’re planning a little get-away the first week of August – nothing fancy, just a little trip to the shore – but it will be totally me time. After these past couple of years, I need it! 🏖

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          1. I’ll look forward to seeing where a ‘trip to the shore’ takes you. We live on a links golf course beside the Pacific Ocean and are experiencing stormy east coast lows in weather – ‘the shore’ is currently working its way across the golf course, dumping sand all over the greens.

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            1. Oh my, that sounds terrifying yet spectacular at the same time. Why not take some pix and write about it? I’d love to see it. We live less than a mile from the sound/harbor so we, too, are near the water. It’s nice to be able to get out of town, drive not terribly far, and have a quiet little place by the beach away from everyone we know. One week will fly by but at the moment, with Colette still so young and our other grands in need of someone to get them on the bus to day camp (cos mommy and daddy leave super early for work!), that’s all the time away we can afford. Considering we haven’t had a real vacation since pre-pandemic days, we’ll take what we can get!

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              1. Oooh, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I saw the photo of little Colette and she is so adorable you could just gobble her up. Enjoy the grandkids while you can! They soon grow up and do their own thing. But a bit of me time also never goes astray.
                I took a photo of the sand on the golf course this morning. Might do a little post in a few days. Hard at work on a manuscript draft at the moment.

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                1. As they say “Don’t blink!” So very true. In an instant they’re all grown up and on their own. I look forward to seeing your post. Watching fireworks out my bedroom window again tonight!

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  7. I have no solution Nancy. I’m not sure what I did to fix my problems awhile back. I reconfigured everything in my account, started using my phone (that was worse) and started answering and liking comments from “My sites” and so on just to see what actually worked. My bell has never worked for me. Hang in there though. I know…I’m no help.

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    1. It’s interesting to note when you start talking about your problems how many people come out with “me too” or “yeah, I know what you mean”. Some issues have cleared up but others continue. Maybe I’m being unreasonable but I believe if you’re in the business of helping people, you should help them, not bog them down with difficult-to-understand instructions. Well, there’s not much we can do about it except stick with it and hopefully something will give. Thanks for your comments, Gary; it’s nice to have so much support.

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  8. Were you able to get it figured out? A while ago, I lost my blog for 6 months, because my login email was associated with a work email, I lost after quitting. Then, when I finally came back, I couldn’t get placed on the humor category, which was a big part of building my blog up. I think they are trying to destroy all their popular blogs.

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    1. Honestly I don’t know what they’re doing and neither do they! It seems to be coming back in dribs and drabs. I still can’t open my notices bar via Firefox; if I want to do that I have to go via Safari (stupid, unnecessary two-step process). A couple of people told me they had similar problems last week and they cleared up by themselves. We’ll see. That must have been awful losing you blog for 6 months. It’s a devastating feeling. Talk about frustration! Thanks for asking.

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  9. My notification bar has been bugging up periodically too, but it seems to fix itself after a few days. I also recommend clearing your browser’s cache or potentially reaching out to the WordPress support team for further assistance. 🙂

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    1. Well, you’re the second person to say it seems to fix itself after a few days; that’s comforting. I have had numerous email exchanges with WordPress; they offer little help, I’m sorry to say. Their instructions are hard to understand and their links are even worse. They lead to nowhere land. I get by but when push comes to shove, I’m not sufficiently computer savvy and rely on the kindness of friends who know more than I. Case in point: I’m embarrassed to admit I do not know how to clear my browser’s cache on my Macbook Air (something I must Google). WordPress sent a link which might as well have been written in Sanskrit for all the good it did. Hopefully WordPress will come through for me and the problems will be resolved. Thanks, Jaya, for taking the time to comment; as I mentioned to another friend, all comments help me to get a handle on things. 🫶🏼

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      2. I don’t know how to clear my browser’s cache, either. (Don’t know what a “cache” IS. 🙄)
        I wouldn’t say, “Talk to me like I’m four.” I’d say, “Talk to me like I’m 90.” You’d be surprised how tech savvy the a average 4-year-old is these days.

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        1. How right you are and I realized that the moment I said it. I have four grandchildren, ages 13, 11, 9 and 2 1/2 years. The three older ones know their way around every device out there; it won’t be long before the baby does, too! 😳 🤣

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    1. I can see it just fine, thanks Chris. It suddenly started working but I couldn’t like all the posts I follow and there are still some other unresolved issues so the problem is ongoing in one form or another. Thanks for your comment. It helps me get a handle on who’s seeing what.

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    1. I thought the same thing at first but that doesn’t explain why everything else is working just fine. It’s strictly a WordPress thing. They make everything more complicated than it needs to be.

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