YALD - Patrick Grote's Notes

Bloglines Notification and Database is Broken and No One is Home

Bloglines is one of the good guys in the world of RSS. They were the first to mainstream feed reading through a centralized web browser application. I've been a user of theirs since the beginning and I'd wager my user ID number is within the first 250 to sign up. That's why it's disappointing that the support and discussion I used to enjoy from them is gone. What happened?

My list of feeds is pretty large. As of today I am subscribed to 408 feeds and it sounds like a ton of feeds, but it's not really. Most of my feeds are for lesser known sites of people who post periodically.

In addition to Yald I maintain several other websites and use RSS feeds to help people learn about the sites and keep tabs of the information.

Three weeks ago I noticed that my other sites weren't showing new items. In Bloglines when a new item appears in one of your feeds the title is BOLDED and the number of new items is shown in parentheses. This wasn't happening with my sites.

I didn't see anything on the Bloglines site about this, so I used their contact form to let them know. Unlike other companies, Bloglines actually responds to their contact form. In the past I've been very happy with the response as I've typically been able to discuss things with Mark Fletcher. In fact, Mark is the person who helped us understand and implement Username Password Authentication for RSS.

I sent a pretty detailed note letting Bloglines know about the issue and waited for a response. In a few days word came:

We are not showing any errors but have reset the feeds listed in your
email below. If they do not update within the next few hours please get
back to us so that can further investigate the situation. We regret any
inconvenience this may have caused.

Ok, so maybe it's something else. I spent the next 24 hours making sure my feeds validated properly and waited. I waited. I waited some more. Still no go.

We started to notice the same thing with our work feeds, so I knew it was an issue on the Bloglines side of the house. I replied to the email, but since it was signed M.M. I didn't know who to address it to. I reiterated the issue and sent it back. My next response:

Hello Patrick:

Thank you for writing to Bloglines.

We are aware of the problem you reported and hope to have it corrected
shortly. We appreciate your patience and regret any inconvenience this
may have caused.

Thank you again for writing, and enjoy using Bloglines!

Regards,
M.M.
Bloglines Support

So now it looks like I've been blown off, which is fine. I wait a few days and resend the request. This time I let them know that I think it's an issue with their database as the new entries show up, but they're not appearing in the database of feeds. This response is even better than the last:

Hello Patrick:

Thank you for writing to Bloglines.

We were unable to reproduce the problem you reported, and have not had
any similar reports from other users. The feeds you reported below are
showing up as updated on our end.

If the problem continues, please let us know, and provide as much detail
about the problem as possible so we can further assist you.

At this time, the Bloglines directory is not being regularly updated, so
you will not find those feeds necessarily in the directory. We're
investigating the issue and hope to have it resolved soon.

Thank you again for writing, and enjoy using Bloglines!

Regards,
M.M.
Bloglines Support

Wow. The two bolded parts are really what stand out to me. First, I know other reports have been made as someone from work reported the issue and Bloglines was able to resolve it. Second, the fact the directory isn't being updated is amazing. One of the primary reasons people use Bloglines is for the directory.

At this point I didn't want to act like I hadn't done my homework, so I sent the following:

 Thanks for the response.

I really want to get this fixed, so I am trying hard to explain what is
happening. It's the same on my wife's account as well as my team's
accounts at work, so I know it's not related to my user ID.

Here is the before picture:
http://www.stlallsports/pics/before.jpg

Notice the circled part. Those are my sites and their feeds. Notice that
STLALLSPORTS isn't showing new articles.

Now, when I click directly on the feed I get the after:
http://www.stlallsports/pics/after.jpg

This happens with all my feeds. I have tried unsubscribing and
resubscribing. No dice.

You say you don't have an issue with it and they show as new for you.
Can you send me a screenshot?

Also, you noted that new sites aren't being added to the index. Does
this mean that their posts aren't being archived as well? For instance, none of my
new articles show in your database when I do a search. If this is true why
isn't this happening?

Thanks for your help!

I thought that was helpful. I showed the efforts of my troubleshooting, pointed them in the right direction and sent screenshots. Since M.M. indicated there wasn't an issue, I was hoping he/her/it would send me a screenshot showing no issue on their end. Also, I wanted to button up the database/directory issue since the last email was ambiguous.

The response I received:

Hello Patrick:

We appreciate the bug report. We're investigating the issue and hope to
have it resolved soon. Feel free to contact us for furtehr assistance.

Thank you again for writing, and enjoy using Bloglines!

Regards,
M.M.
Bloglines Support

At least now I should feel good about talking to a human, right? I mean the misspelling wouldn't have happened in an automated response.

So the last response from Bloglines was two days ago and I haven't heard anything since. I think they're happy to be done with me, but I am still stuck with the issue of new sites not showing as new.