Recent Commenting Difficulties on WordPress

This post is just a public service announcement. Have you noticed that it recently has become significantly more difficult to leave comments on certain WordPress websites? Your website might be one of them and you may not know about it. The people having difficulty leaving comments on your website may have a hard time telling … Continue reading “Recent Commenting Difficulties on WordPress”

This post is just a public service announcement. Have you noticed that it recently has become significantly more difficult to leave comments on certain WordPress websites? Your website might be one of them and you may not know about it. The people having difficulty leaving comments on your website may have a hard time telling you.

A pexels image showing a man with a tophat and a big megaphone
There are no comments to be had! That’s the reality on some WordPress websites. Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

I like to use the emails I get by subscribing to certain WordPress websites. I can often read the post in my email inbox and then press the comment link. I also like to go straight to the webpage and read and comment there. When I do this (both cases), I have issues with leaving comments on some people’s posts, and I’ve come to realize, it’s not just me, it is a general problem. There is an alternative way of leaving comments, and that is to use the WordPress-Reader. This is an indirect way of leaving, or sending, a comment, and this seems to always work. A friend of mine, Alex, pointed this out to me and I finally got around to doing it this way instead. However, if people have issues with leaving comments on your website you may not be aware of it, for quite understandable reasons. You will just get less comments.

A toolbar including an email client icon
I like to use the email I get by subscribing to certain WordPress websites. Photo by Torsten Dettlaff on Pexels.com

This is typically what happens when you try to leave a comment on the websites that have commenting issues. Again, this happens only on some websites, but it is a quite common problem.

  1. The Reply button is greyed out. You are asked to login to WordPress even though you are already logged in.
  2. So, you login to WordPress (despite already being logged in).
  3. After logging in two duplicate WordPress-Reader windows popup and cover almost the entire page.
  4. To get rid of them so that you can write your comment you have to reload the page because there’s no close feature. Doing this will erase whatever you have already written in the comment box.
  5. Now you can typically write and post your comment (but not always)
  6. In some cases, it does not matter what I do, I cannot leave a comment directly from the webpage (but it is possible using the Reader).
A pexels image showing a frustrated man in front of a laptop.
Are you having issues with commenting on certain webpages? Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I talked to a Happiness Engineer about this. I was told that they are streamlining the commenting feature and there are currently some issues. He did not seem to know the extent of the problems but appreciated people’s input on the issue. He did not have an exact date as of when it will be fixed.

A pexels image showing a bug with orange and black stripes.
A bug in the system. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Have you noticed these problems?

If you see this on my webpage, please use the contact page to tell me (or comment if you can).

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

59 thoughts on “Recent Commenting Difficulties on WordPress”

    1. Yes there are variations of this problem. I just left a comment on someone’s post requiring me to login three times as well as reload the page. Then on another bloggers page I can’t leave comments at all. Luckily we are friends on facebook so I can comment there. I hope it will not take them long to fix this.

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  2. Hi Thomas, I am very much aware of this problem as I have a lot of blogging friends who I visit regularly. I have noticed it is the paid sites where I generally have these problems. Like you, my work around is not to largely visit through the reader or through Jetpack where commenting is never an issue. Jetpack is a pain if you want to share the posts though, but that is life. I am good at finding work arounds but I’m sure a lot of people are just becoming frustrated.

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  3. I haven’t had this problem yet, but I never reply through the emails I receive. I’m addicted to the WordPress app on my iPhone and use it exclusively for commenting, posting, and tweaking/designing my WordPress site. If you’ve never tried it before I highly recommend it. Super easy!!

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  6. Yes, I noticed that problem and it really irks me. I love to leave comments to let the writer know I really read their post; I’m not just “liking” so you’ll “like” mine. I am a sincere blogger.
    I’ve learned to get around this by going to the “reader” section and posting that way instead of going directly to the blog. You’re not alone Thomas, and I hope it gets resolved sooner than later.
    ALSO, many good comments are going to my spam feed, so I have to remind myself to check that everyday. Sometimes I forget and I feel really bad. I don’t want people to think their comments are not seen or appreciated.

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    1. Yes I’ve noticed you are a sincere blogger. I just started using the Reader very recently (a few days ago) since I don’t really like to use it for that purpose and I didn’t realize that it circumvents the problem. Good you reminded me about the spam folder. I don’t check that often enough. Thank you Maryanne.

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  7. Commenting and liking have been weird for awhile. It’s been so long on some of my problems I’ve learned which blogs I have to use the reader on or if I can just comment directly. In my opinion it does no good to contact the WP help people. They either fix things or make it worse in their own time. 🙂

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    1. I just started using the Reader for commenting a couple of days ago so I am still learning. I also have a problem with images being misaligned when using the twenty sixteen theme. They said that they are working on that too but again would not give me a time. If it never gets fixed, I might switch to a different theme with a sidebar.

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    1. I’ve never had an issue with your website. Perhaps you are self hosting getting the software from the wordpress.org site? I remember you being more advanced. That could explain why you don’t have a problem. Also, I’ve noticed that some wordpress.com websites don’t have a problem. I don’t know what the difference is. I wonder if different themes are effected differently?

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      1. I think your suspicions about the themes are on the right track. It may be their theme is not able to perform correctly when certain plugins are added, too. If I have troubles with something not working as it should, I deactivate all my plugins then reactivate them one by one to see which one(s) (if any) are causing the issue. I’ve solved a lot of website problems that way.

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    1. Yes I’ve seen that too, but I wonder if in that case the poster has deleted the post. Posting and then deleting isn’t good practice. I typically can still read the entire post in my email inbox but when I go to comment it is poff gone. But I am not sure if the post was deleted. Maybe it is yet another bug.

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  10. I do have this problem occasionally. I don’t like the Reader because I don’t see other comments. Usually, if I refresh the page (after copying my comment so I don’t lose it) or change browsers), it works. But not always!

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    1. I agree, I don’t like using the Reader for commenting either, so I try on commenting directly on the page first. I haven’t tried refreshing before logging in again, so I’ll try that. Thanks for the tip Jacqui.

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  11. I have experienced the same issue with commenting. I have also noticed that the Like button is sometimes missing in blog post emails. I prefer reading posts in my email so that I don’t have to sign in to “Like” a post. Thanks for posting this important info. Hopefully they will fix it soon.

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    1. Yes I asked a Happiness Engineer about this and he said that they are streamlining the comment feature and they had issues but they are working on fixing the problems. He could not tell me how long it would take. Hopefully, this will not last forever.

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  14. Glad it’s not just me! And a blogspot blog I follow never will allow me to sign in. I have to be listed as Anonymous and then tell her in the comments it’s me. I also have to hunt for her blog because, though I follow her, her posts never arrive in my inbox. :/

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  16. Thanks for raising this issue, Thomas. I’ve also been facing difficulties when posting a comment on a few blogs. I thought the problem was on my end and did not notify the blogger. It’s good to know that WordPress is working to resolve this issue.

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    1. Yes I am curious as to why only certain blogs have this issue and why it is only some potential commentors that have the problem with those blogs, but overall it seems to be pretty common. My thought was that it might have to do with the themes and another suggestion above was the plugins. Whatever WordPress has done it might have caused certain incompatibilities. I wonder if reporting which blogs we have an issue with would help the Happiness Engineers.

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    2. Yes I think so. It seems like some people have a problem with certain blogs. For example, I have commenting problems on certain specific blogs (it is not random) and I know people who have the same problems with the same exact blogs, and then there are some people who do not have problems on those same blogs. It is a pattern even though it is a complex one. For example, if certain WordPress themes have become incompatible with each other that could explain it, but I don’t know if it is that. Sometimes it is difficult to find bugs unless you have clear patterns.

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  17. Thank you so much for pointing out this problem.
    Yes 👍
    I have noticed that.
    Also, I have noticed that loading website pages are taking time more than earlier.
    Thank you so much for sharing this post.
    Regards ☺️🙏

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  18. I have only had issues commenting on one blogger’s (Patti’s) WordPress blog, but I found a workaround. It’s a bit…annoying to have to even resort to “workarounds” to leave a comment, but U suppose that’s what happens when a site decides to “streamline” features that don’t seem to need, um, streamlining.

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    1. Only one Patti, that is lucky. Well, Knotty’s and Patti’s were the first blogs I had a problem with, but I have an issue with many more blogs than that, including yours. I agree with you. Whenever you decide to “improve” a system you risk breaking stuff. Is it really worth the risk? Sometimes you have to modernize things but sometimes the people pushing for the upgrade just want a “job”. I’ve seen that. As they say “don’t fix what ain’t broken”.

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  19. I have noticed this issue with comments on my blog ― I figured something must be going on when I came back after being away for a week and went to clear comment spam, expecting to see at least 100 messages, and there was nothing. I guess that’s one way to get rid of the WordPress spam problem, by completely breaking the ability to comment … 🤔

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