How to get a List of All Blog Posts on Blogger

Blogger offers several feeds for blog posts by default:

1. http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml - the old address for Blogger's ATOM feed
2. http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml - the address for Blogger's RSS feed
3. http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default - the full feed
4. http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary - the summary feed

My requirement was to publish a complete list of all my blog posts on a "Site Table of Contents" (or a site directory) page. The problem is that the default full feed (http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) does not really return a feed of all the posts. It usually returns only a handful of recent posts.

The trick that I found to get the complete list of posts was to append "?max-results=1000" (you can change the number '1000' to any number of your choice) at the end of the feed address. Your complete feed address would look like this:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000

With the above feed address, you should be able to get a feed of all the blog posts. It worked very well for me. Let me know whether it worked for you.

Missing Comments or Wrong Comments Count on Blogger

This week many bloggers are reporting issues with the comments on their Blogger blogs. I faced this problem too on some of my blogs. The issues are:

• Missing comments: Some or all of the comments on blogs are missing. For example, on one of my posts, I had 15 odd comments of which 5 were my own comments, made in response to visitor comments. I could only see my own comments. All the visitor comments were missing. It made quite a funny read :)
• Comment count is incorrect

If you are facing similar problems on your blog, there's an official thread for this issue on Blogger Help forum that you can post your issue on. Here's the link:

Missing Comments and/or Comment Count Wrong

It's a Blogger issue and there's nothing you have done to cause it, or can do to fix it. You've just got to wait. In my case, the issue seems to have resolved automatically. But, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Blogger Error: Page Not Found ps/rpc_relay.html

Problem Statement

Google Webmasters Tools was reporting a crawl error on multiple pages of some of my blogs. The error message was:

Page not found http://page_url/ps/rpc_relay.html

Some other folks who encountered this error on their blogs saw a drop in their blog traffic too. However, in my case, there was no noticeable drop in traffic.

Root Cause

In order to identify the root cause, I looked for any reference to ps/rpc_relay.html on my blog. I looked into the template source code, but it was clean. Then I looked at the page source and did find the reference there. Looking at the source, it was clear that the problem was associated to the Follower widget.

To confirm my suspicion, I removed the Follower widget and as expected, the reference to ps/rpc_relay.html disappeared from the page source.

Solution

In order to fix the issue and also retain the Follower widget, I replaced the Follower widget with Google Friend Connect. Basically, both are same. The only difference being that the former comes as a standard widget from Blogger and the latter as html code that needs to be added to a HTML widget on the blog. Here are the detailed steps:

1. Remove the Follower widget.
2. Go to Google Friend Connect (GFC) and login with your Google account (the same account used for Blogger).
3. Click on your blog name (in the list of blogs) in the left hand navigation panel -> Overview -> Add the members gadget.
4. If you want, configure the member's gadget to match the color scheme of your blog.
5. Grab the widget code.
6. Come back to your blog and add an HTML widget. It can be in the same section where the Follower gadget used to reside.
7. Paste the HTML code from GFC into the HTML widget and save it.

After replacing the Follower widget with GFC, the reference to ps/rpc_relay.html was gone from the page source (except for one reference which was a comment).

Two or three days after making the change, the error was gone from Google Webmasters Tool. The blog was clean again.

The solution worked for me and I hope it works for you as well. Good luck !

Blogger Javascript Error "Permission Denied" in IE6

Problem Statement

I get a Javascript error (Line: 619 Char: 122 Error: Permission Denied) when my blog is loaded in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and the Google Friend Connect or the Follower widget doesn't load. Refer to the screenshot of the error below. The blog loads fine in Firefox 3.5 and Google Chrome 4.x.



Root Cause

The root cause is the conflict between the Poll widget and Google Friend Connect (GFC) or the Follower widget. If the page layout is such that the Poll widget loads first, I get the error. If GFC loads first, then there's no error.

Solution

I don't have a fix that addresses the root cause, but here are a few options that you could try:

• Change the page layout such that GFC (or the Follower widget) loads before the Poll widget.
• Remove the Poll Widget as a "widget" and embed it inside a blog post. This is the option that I've chosen. On the top menu, I've added a link to the Poll page. Obviously, this defeats the purpose of running a poll, but if your page layout cannot be changed due to some reason, then this is the next best option.
• The obvious option is to get rid of either GFC or the Poll widget.

I posted this issue on the official GFC forum, but unfortunately, there's hardly any help available there.

If I find a better fix, I'll post an update here, and if you know of a proper fix to address the root cause, do let me know.

Blogger error bX-q957zg while updating Blog Posts Section

Problem Statement

When I try to edit the Blog Posts section on the blog layout page (Layout->Blog Posts Section->Edit), I get the following error:

===========================================

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

Describe what you were doing when you got this error.Provide the following error code and additional information.
bX-q957zg
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
blogID: 9179404155XXXXXXXX
host: www.blogger.com
uri: /rearrange
This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.

===========================================

It prevents me from making configuration changes such as number of blog posts to display on the main page, date format, Adsense settings etc.

Root Cause

In my case, I found that the root cause was the way I had defined the font and color settings in the header of my custom template. Refer to the text in red below:

<Variable name="t2HeaderBgColor" description="Theme 2 Header Background Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#4b3c37">
<Variable name="t2HeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#FFFFFF">

<Variable name="t2SecHeaderBgColor" description="Theme 2 Sec Header Background Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#cde196">
<Variable name="t2SecHeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Secondary Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="$t2HeaderBgColor">

I was referring to a previously defined font using $variableName syntax. Though I get the correct results with this notation, blogger apparently doesn't like it. This is the root cause of the problem.

Solution

Simply replace $variableName with the actual color code and the problem disappears !

<Variable name="t2SecHeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Secondary Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#4b3c37">

Note that the root cause and the solution was applicable in my case, but may not necessarily be applicable to yours. If this solution doesn't fix your problem, I suggest you look around for other similar problems in the font definition section of your template.

Good luck !