Rick, who handles tech maintenance for this blog has been unable make changes on the blog’s template for the last several months. He’s tried repeatedly to get in touch with Blogger support, with no success. (Blogger no longer offers any direct support — just a forum where users can commiserate and try to answer each other’s questions).
The problem in detail is here. The quick summary is that every time he tries to get to the Edit Template page, it redirects immediately to a blank page, so that no edits can be made, and the template can’t even be replaced with an older backup.
This has been going on since Blogger stopped access through the old interface several months ago.
No support email gets any response, and repeated posts on the forum don’t either. Many other reports can be found in the forums concerning people who can’t get any help from Support.
If any of you have any suggestions, or especially if you have an inside track to some human being at Google who might help, we would really appreciate it. It’s time to change the masthead and update the listings for our books.
It's easy for me to say, but maybe it's time to move to WordPress.
— Pilgrim
You can edit the HTML code behind your template directly in Blogger:
1) Click "Template" on the left-side of the Blogger Dashboard.
2) Click "Edit HTML" under the thumbnail of your blog labelled "Live on Blog".
Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2df8r4y8d7trivg/blogger-template.png
It seems at least a couple of blogs I read regularly have had problems with Blogger and have moved to Word Press. Why doesn't Goggle like us any more? They have gotten too bog for their britches.
Eric, that's how I normally would access it. (And I always work in straight HTML.) But this situation won't let me get into that Template page at all, even if I try to click some link within it really fast.
Rick, do any of the suggestions on this page seem relevant?
http://shoutingblogger.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-to-solve-blogger-template-designer.html
am not at all familiar with this, but these kind of folks dont take much notice until they start to think it will cost them (more than it already has)… or benefits them.
is there contact info for support?
Phone Number where you leave a message?
Emails where you can send an email?
Might try both these, with message along the lines of …"Hi, this is Lloyd. Am looking to do an interiew (of you), as am planning to write about you on my blog/upcomming book. Would appreciate your return contact.
If you get any return, ask re problem.
I started out on Blogger but shifted to WordPress. I strongly recommend WordPress. Tons of free, good looking templates to use, easy to set up. It takes them a couple of days to respond, but they do respond…
Jean
http://www.local-nomad.net
Rick, glad you have a lead. If you have the template code saved outside of Blogger (on your computer) you might find it easier to reset the blog to another template temporarily and then paste your code back in.
Eric, I figured it out, based on your lead. This post offered the missing piece: infotology.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-remove-image-frame-breaker-code.html. The magic button is to very quickly sop the Edit Template page from loading before it can redirect. Then I deleted the frame-breaker code, and now it seems stable.
Thanks again.
Actually, I'm thinking now that I might be able to get away with the frame-breaker code if I checked to be sure that the domain of the parent frame is networkedblogs.com before running it.
Rick, Lloyd is lucky to have access to your skills…
to my mind, this sounds WAY beyond the skills of the average blogger…i had thought the "average blogger" was their target user..
maybe you should consider doing an interview (Lloyd) to ask them WHY…
Rick, glad it worked out. Cheers.