Friday, December 08, 2006

[Blogger] Beta Issue

So, I was going to make the leap to Beta today (after working out some template issues with my template designer). When I tried to make the switch, I got a message saying one of my blogs was too big. Do you think it's because I am a member of FBS? My blog certainly doesn't have anywhere near even a thousand posts. But FBS has 891 (well, I think 892 now).

I am really eager to switch to the Beta because I can't wait to use the labels function for organizing posts. Anyone have any great ideas? Maybe Sam could remove me as a member and I can rejoin when FBS switches to Beta?

Here's the message I got:

Why can't I switch to Blogger in beta?
While the new version of Blogger is still in beta, some users with certain types of blogs will not be able to switch to it. We'll be adding support for these blogs as soon as possible, so everyone can join in the fun. But for now, if you have any of the following on your account, you'll need to hold off for a bit:

A very large blog. (More than a couple thousand posts + comments.)

Note that, even if your blog is eligible to switch, you may not have the link to do so on your dashboard. We are starting out by just switching over a limited number of accounts, but we'll add more and more as time goes on. However, if you still want to try out Blogger in beta, what you can do is to visit beta.blogger.com and create a new account. Later on, you'll be able to merge this account with your original Blogger account.

Thanks for your patience, and we promise it will be worth the wait!


This Post was written by Madeline from Everything Rachael Ray.

UPDATE:In the comments to this post, Trig mentioned that maybe Blogger is not letting group blogs migrate. However, I am a member of another team blog and got this message when migrating it:
Other authors will be invited to move their accounts to the new Blogger when they sign in. They must use the new Blogger in order to post to these blogs.

So, I think it's just the fact that are wonderful community is so big!

10 comments:

Trig said...

Me too. All prepared, refused upgrade. My understanding is that it is because of FBS. Google upgrades every blog you have, and will not upgrade any blog with group users right now. So unless we resign from FBS and rejoin it afterwards, we are stuck I think.

Sam said...

Erhmm, I am not going to re-sign-up every FBS member - I am sorry - that equates to a LOT of work and more than can be expected of one individual.

I don't mind if someone else volunteers to take on the task, but it is a huge undertaking I wouldn't wish upon anyone.

I am really overworked right now - if anybody could contact blogger and see if they can find out from them how we, as a community of food bloggers, and a blog with 100s (literally) of members, can perhaps get around this problem, please do go ahead, take the initiative and report back to us all.

In the meantime I am seeing my google contact on sunday so I will ask him if he can find out anything about it for us too. No promises on that one.

Madeline said...

Sam - Sorry - when I made that suggestion I wasn't thinking that everyone would want to switch now like I do. Seems like most people want to stay on the Classic Blogger for as long as possible.

For those that don't want to switch now, they will just wait until FBS is forced to switch, then will have to sign up for a Google Account or do whatever Blogger makes them do.

I officially volunteer to remove and re-sign up those of us that want to be removed now and rejoin later. Seriously. I have learned so much from this community that I would be willing to do the job, esp since it was my stupid suggestion.

It's just tough to not be able to switch to Beta because of my FBS membership. I probably would have waited to join FBS if I had known what I know now.

Owen said...

This is a recent change - I think getting ready to move everyone. I actually had access to BOTH for a while. But when I checked yesterday the new blog I had that was based on the beta was DEAD! Dead, bad, killed off - I am pissed now!

(although I had the content backed up at least)

Sam said...

i think this might be biggest challenge to date as head mistress,
either way we go, one set of people is going to be narked. *sigh*

thanks for the offer madeline - we will see how we can work this out.

sam

Trig said...

Google is moving people slowly and I still think that they are holding back on us lot because FBS is so large. I've been messaging on the Google helpboard and I'm pretty sure that we will all be able to move soon.

There certainly is no need for everyone to cancel their FBS subscriptions and rejoin afterwards - that was a light-hearted suggestion and probably would not have worked.

ONE MORE SERIOUS POINT, THOUGH...

Guys, before you move, if you have modified the standard template - and most of us have - make sure you save a copy of your template.

The conversion software does its best to translate and include all changes you have made. But your new template is not the same as your old one. In particular the CSS code is laid out more neatly and there are other changes.

After migration you get two choices - to use their new drag-and-drop interface, or to revert back to html templating. If you do the latter I don't think there is any way back. But most of us will probably want to use html.

As far as I can see you then have two further choices - to add in your mods into the new-style template peacemeal, or simply to copy your old saved template back in lock stock and barrel. I'm not aware of any problems with this, but maybe someone knows better.

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's the size issue, I think the problem has to do with the blog owners not switching - which is the problem I've had to remedy. Because I had set up blogs belonging to others, I am considered the owner. Now the real users of the blogs couldn't move onto beta until I moved to beta. Now that I've moved to beta, they have have been able to switch to beta themselves.

Another point is that once you switch, all that has really change is your login. Your blog doesn't change until you decide to change it's template over to the new beta version, with labels etc. But that is a whole other issue.

I think that if the owner of FBS moved to beta, then it would probably mean that everyone else could migrate to beta and hopefully get rid of the problems.

Trig said...

I think Haalo is right.

Sam - perhaps you should pick a date for upgrade and let us all know. I suspect that once FBS is upgraded we will all be able to migrate our own blogs.

For anyone on Blogger still unsure, you will still be able to hold off until you are ready, even if FBS upgrades.

If you haven't already see the Google user group discussion boards, they are at http://groups.google.com/.

The general discussion and helpgroup areas are very helpful and you can search on topic, so if you are worried about Flickr, for instance, search it out and read the comments.

Ellen said...

And unfortunately it doesnt' seem as though we can "unjoin" on our own. We still need an administrator of this blog to remove us. So if anyone's reading... I'd like to be removed. This was the weekend I'd set aaside to play on the new Blogger.

Sam said...

ellen - there is a post explaining how to unjoin. I am sorry I can't be at everybody's individual beck & call over this. So thank you for your patience.

Over half the people who requested removal did not even send me the email address that they signed up to FBS with so I couldn't delete them then had to write back to each individually and ask for the alternative email address. Please everyone - you have to do YOUR bit to help me out here.

I can't set a date move Food Blog Scool because it has not yet been "invited to migrate" to Beta.

Seriously, if anyone seriously wants to take on this admin task, it can be arranged, but because of my commitment to menu for hope I really can't promise enough time to it.

You know if I could, I would.

sam