Updated on July 3, 2008, at 3:29 PM (UTC-4 America/New York):
The latest version of BlogPatrol is migrated to our new server as of July 3, 2008. Thanks to all of you for your feedback on the following post-release issues and additional enhancements:
- COMPLETED on July 3: An activity in the works since June 6, the migration of BlogPatrol.com to the new server is complete. We had a number of challenges which delayed the process, but, at last, we've reached the goal of migrating the site to a better machine. Thanks to everyone for your patience, especially during the challenging parts of the migration.
- BUG FIXES / DEVELOPMENT PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: While our developer will not be fixing the bugs mentioned below during this time, I will be doing the following: (a) testing and documenting those bugs thoroughly so that the developer will be able to fix them more quickly after we have completed the migration to the new machine, and (b) updating the BlogPatrol signup / user instructions on this blog so that they reflect the new look and functionalities of the BlogPatrol service.
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: For some accounts, the referrers on the "Referrers" reports are all being listed as "self-referring/bookmarker".
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: The keyword data in the "Top 10" and "Last 10" keyword reports are not always consistent with the keyword data in other reports such as the "Detailed Visitors" report.
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: Resetting of the "Today's Visitor" value to zero at certain times of the day, as reported by users of various time zones. Fixing this error may take some considerable development.
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: The "Weekly, Daily, and Hourly" and "Details of Last 25 Visitors" reports are sometimes displaying incorrect data, such as visits for dates and times that have not yet occurred -- relative to the user's selected time zone. The data in these reports also sometimes does not match the data provided in related reports such as "Last 10 Referrers" and "Last 10 Pages Visited".
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: BlogPatrol accounts are sometimes increasing their visitor counters with NON-UNIQUE PAGEVIEWS (i.e., HITS), instead of UNIQUE VISITORS based on IP address of the visitor's computer. BlogPatrol counters are intended to count each IP address as a unique visitor during a given 24-hour period.
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: Some users' Country reports are showing the error message 'Invalid XML data' instead of the correct country data.
- BUG FIX PLANNED for July 7 and beyond: An object required error is appearing on the stats.php page in Internet Explorer v7.x browsers.
- COMPLETED on June 10: We have updated the instructions and screenshots for BlogPatrol Signup Instructions and How do I change the time zone of my BlogPatrol account? to match the new look and feel of BlogPatrol.
- COMPLETED on June 8: We have updated the How to add BlogPatrol to a Blogger blog instructions with screenshots that match the new look and feel of BlogPatrol.
- IMPLEMENTED on June 3: We have added the ability for you to ignore, or ban, up to four different IP addresses (home, work, wireless and other). In addition, we have enabled the ability to ignore (ban) dynamic IP addresses using the * and ? wildcard characters.
- FIXED on MAY 22: User gets logged out if s/he changes password. In order to resume activity in their account, then the user has to click logout and then login with the username and new password. Resolving this issue required some intensive redesign of our scripts, but all for the better for BlogPatrol users!
- FIXED on May 20: Bug fixing was delayed for a few days because of firewall issues that prevented our web developer's access to the BlogPatrol server. Issue has been resolved and we are resuming our work to fix bugs and provide enhancements.
- IMPLEMENTED on May 15:
Amidst the bug fixing, we are working on a cross-promotional agreement with a company doing exciting things on the Web. This cross-promotion required us to develop some new graphics, so we decided to develop and install a BlogPatrol favicon as part of that graphics development project. Enjoy! - FIXED on May 13: We think we have resolved the problem with logging in or staying logged into their account. Please let us know if you find otherwise!
- FIXED on May 13: We think we have also fixed the password reset function. Please let us know if you find otherwise.
- FIXED on May 9: Review all reports to make sure stats data match from report to report. Correct any errors found as a result of analysis For example, verify data for search engine and keyword search reports.
- FIXED on April 21: The "Daily Visitors for the Week of MMM DD to MMM DD" still needs to display the current day when that day has zero (0) visitors. Otherwise, it looks like the report is malfunctioning and not tracking visitors for the current day.
- FIXED on April 21: Formatting of URLs in the reports named "Top 10 Pages" and "Last 10 Pages".
- FIXED on April 18: In the Stats Dashboard, the display of the time zone's UTC code needs to change with the user's time zone selection.
- FIXED on April 17: Made sure that the start and end dates in the title bar of the “Daily Visitors” report correspond exactly to the start and dates of the bar graph data for that report.
- FIXED on April 17: Improved formatting of the BlogPatrol reports that contain URL links so that the links no longer line break too early, which left too much empty space on the right side of those reports.
- FIXED on April 17: On the BlogPatrol signup form, corrected the username validation routine so that it works properly in Internet Explorer v6+ to notify a new user that they have selected a username that already exists.
- FIXED on April 17: Centering of new "Account Settings View Stats Change Password etc." links and placement as one row of data.
- FIXED on April 17: The Demo Stats reports were not rendering unless a user was logged into their BlogPatrol account.
- FIXED on April 16: The "Top Blogs" list is not rendering in some web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox.
- FIXED on April 16: Homepage and other pages become unavailable due to other bug fixes.
- FIXED on April 14: "Today's Visits" has a different value than the current day of the "Daily Visitors for Week of MMM DD to MMM DD". When displaying correctly, these two report elements should display the exact same value.
- FIXED on April 11: Another issue with the "Details of Last 25 Visitors" is the multiple counting of unique IP addresses. (BlogPatrol is designed to count any given IP address as being a unique visitor over a 24-hour period.)
- FIXED on April 10: Many of the web pages are displaying the text in a red font, which when fixed will be a standard black font.
- FIXED on April 9: Removal of the display of the User ID # at the top of the login.php once that user has logged into their BlogPatrol account.
- FIXED on April 9: On the My Account Settings page, the "Ignore my Computer" (formerly called "Ban my IP") function is not working because it will not save any data in its corresponding data field. Also the "my IP address is..." button is not working.
51 comments:
my site's last 25 visitors' time are still 6hours back. that means it displays 15:00h for a 9pm visit. My time zone is UTC +8/singapore
thanks.
Thanks for your feedback, xp. We are working to resolve this issue, and all the issues listed above, as quickly as possible.
I really appreciate your patience, and the patience of all our users, as we fix these post-migration bugs to deliver a much improved BlogPatrol service.
I was wondering what the hell was going on....I mean, I would love it if as many visitors were coming to my blog as the numbers say, but realistically I'm just not there yet :)
The time is wrong. Patiently waiting to be fixed.
Luna
Thank you Tony for keeping us updated!
Thanks for your additional comments and support, Luna and translating project.
I'm working closely with the development team to make our imposed deadline of the end of this week, which puts us at Saturday morning for delivery of all the bug fixes.
Catherine, I wondered where all those people were coming from on my blog too, but have installed three different counters and the numbers are close on all three. There is a surge in visitors that I experience about every ten days. When I go to their sites, I am not sure there is any connection to mine at all, although others are similar in content. I think there is a bug out there somewhere that picks blogs at random and sends them visitors having nothing to do with BlogPatrol.
Why is there always a time lag?
Hi Catherine and msk on the road, we have received similar reports of users have a surge in their visitors, just as you describe.
Our analysis concurs with msk on the road's comment: some Blogger blogspot blogs are getting numerous referrals from URLs that begin as http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=...
I don't know if this is a bug, but it would be a good issue to raise with the Blogger blogspot support staff.
Hi Muse, nice to hear from you. The time lag that you are referring to is a bug that we are currently working to fix.
Hi Tony,
My stats are still all over the place with very little consistency anywhere.
Time is off, hourly stats don't total today's, some sites are showing up as referers, but not showing in the 25 detail. And I think from your entry that some of these issues have been marked as resolved.
Tony, just want you to know that my time is correct as of today.
This for fixing the bug. :)
Luna
Tony this blog is helpful.
HELP!
At this moment, I can't logout. I keep getting a white screen, and when I go back to the site, it says that I'm still logged in.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for all the work on this stuff. Looks like the times are back in sync for me today.
I agree with Lisa on one point. The referrers are currently not showing up in the "last 25 visitors' section.
And I've had people two specifically open my most recent post as a unique page (I can see that from the 'Last 10 pages visited' report), but this info doesn't show up in the "Last 25 visitors" report like it used to.
Muse: You should be able to login/logout now. Can you let us know if otherwise.
Luna: Thanks for letting us know the reports are working for you again. Can you notify us if you start getting any problems.
Lisa: Thanks for letting us know that the reports are not corrected for you yet. We will be sending a follow-up email to you so we can identify the exact problems that you are getting. We'll re-open the tickets as necessary to fix any remaining issues.
I really appreciate everyone's comments, which help us to know whether or not we are on track with our bug fixes. Please keep your feedback coming!
Tony,
Saw your updates regarding these issues. Thanks much. I do need to correct my other post here regarding the time being synced up. As of right now my reports are actually listing visits one hour ahead of what the actual time is. Sorry for the incorrect info before. I guess I must still be recovering from the changed dates for daylight savings time or something...
Thanks again. Keep plugging away.
Courage! :^)
The link on my blog isn't showing; and I also am unable to get onto your home page. What is the problem???
arik sturgis: Thanks for your clarification, Arik. Every bit of data can help us to fix the issue more quickly, especially when we're trying to resolve all these issues on a part-time schedule with a part-time budget!
the cosby family: Sorry about the website downtime. Unfortunately, sometimes when it rains, it pours. Yesterday, the site was down due to an issue with the server (as opposed to the BlogPatrol website), but that issue has been resolved. ...We'll try to keep the flooding to a minimum.
thks! the times are fixed. But it just did not record entries.
Looking at my stats, the timezone issue is now fixed =) but whilst the 'last 10 pages visited' is probably showing the most recent visits, none of the other areas [ last 10 referrers, last 25 visitors etc] are, despite the dates being correct..
Hi Tony,
I know you say you wanna hear about these things, but now I feel like I'm being a pest! Either that or I have LOTS of problems...
I cleared out my browser cache, cookies, and history, and then I hit my site today. The report did track me as a visitor, and my hit did get tracked on the "Last 10 Pages Visited" report (at the correct time, too!). The "Last 10 Referrers" report also correctly tracked me as a Self-Referrer/Bookmarker.
Here's where the problem comes in. The "Detailed Analysis of Last 25 Visitors" report tracked nothing. I think that's happened a few times for others who have hit my site lately. In fact, is that report supposed to show the last 25 visitors no matter how long the length of time may be since they visited? OR does it only track for the past week like many of the other reports? Because I've only had 10 visitors listed in this report ever since the migration happened, whereas it was 25 before.
Thanks again,
Arik
The blogpatrol on my blog does not work anymore. I have tried removing my counter code and then re-entering it onto my blog's template. No joy. Any ideas about what else I could try?
anonymous: Can you send us an email using our web contact form? Please include your username and the URL of your blog. We will do our best to resolve the issue you mention.
Question (Arik): "In fact, is the Detailed Analysis Of The Last 25 Visitors report supposed to show the last 25 visitors no matter how long the length of time may be since they visited? OR does it only track for the past week like many of the other reports?"
Answer (Tony): The report is the former: the last 25 visitors no matter how long the length of time may be since they visited.
Lisa: We've had a chance to check out your BlogPatrol account. You're absolutely right: there are major issues going on with your account. We will investigate and follow up with you one-on-one.
Tony,
Thanks for all your hard work!
For the record, my stats show up at the right time (ie: The comments are matching with the visit times), but my last 25 visits bear little or no resemblence to my count for the day. Sometimes there are fewer visitors than are counted. Sometimes more. Sometimes vists get counted on a different day than they happened.
Also, suddenly the vast majority of my "non-regular" visitors are popping up as referrer= "Google Search" No search terms. I don't get it.
Any ideas?
Hi,
My site's visitors for today, 26th April, although being counted, are not being reflected in the graph for the last week's visitors. I don't have today on the graph and I'm sure the visits are getting added to the count for Friday.
Thanks.
Hi,
I have seemingly lost all my visitors for 26th April. My total should be 23, as the summary does indicate but the graph for the week is showing I have 1 vistor for the whole of today. That's not right,is it?
Can you investigate?
Frank
Hi, again.
Well, after the graph adjusted itself yesterday it's done the same again today. The visits for Sunday aren't showing up on the weekly graph. It still thinks it's Saturday.
Can this be fixed again please?
Hi Beanie and Frank: I apologize for all the frustration and confusion with your reports.
Our developer is trying out different methods to fix the problems, so that is why you are seeing strange variations in your stats reports.
He is doing his best to fix a complex problem, and I assure you that we are working together to fix this as soon as possible.
Hi Tony,
I just verified another error in my reports. I know you answered a previous reply of mine regarding the Last 25 Visitors report:
"Answer (Tony): The report is the former: the last 25 visitors no matter how long the length of time may be since they visited."
Well, if that's the case, then mine's still messed up. It hasn't shown 25 visitors for the past several weeks. In fact, it went from showing 14 yesterday to 11 today. I think it's elminating visitors older than a week, as no one is listed as visited before 4/22. I don't get tons of visitors, FYI. :^)
Also, one visitor from today is listed in this report as visiting at 4:45 p.m. today. Problem is, it's not even 11:30 a.m. here yet. This is also the time the "Last 10 Visitors" reports for this visitor. So it looks like your time tracking got kicked forward several hours again.
Thanks.
Hi! Thanks for all of your work--how you do it is a mystery for me. But I was a science major so I'm trying to imagine the trial-and-error you go through. I hope these clues will help with the de-bugging.
I'm on the Central time Chicago (-5) setting and the times for my visitors are showing up as 7 hours later than the time it is here (e.g. I just got a hit at 12:30 and it shows up as 19:30).
Also, hits show up in the "Last 10 Referrers" and "Last 10 pages Visited" that do not register anywhere in the details of 25 visitors. It seems that once a unique visitor's 24-hr window has timed out, that IP address does appear again in the list even if 3 or 4 days have passed between the newest and oldest visitors in the 25. I know I have several friends who check my blog more than once a week and sometimes I see their pages or "Self Referring" in the top 10 list.
Finally, sub-pages show up in the "Top 10 pages visited for week of" list that do not appear in any of the other lists.
Thanks!
Peace,
Ingrid
Hi Arik Sturgis and Ingrid: Our developer released some fixes yesterday that should correct at least some, if not all, of the issues you mention.
Can you help us with our testing by posting any issues that you still find with your reports? Thanks so much for your continued feedback and help!
Arik Sturgis: I'll review the errors you mention with the Last 25 Visitors report and post a follow-up response soon. Thanks for your patience.
The log-in is still not working properly. I'm able to log in the first time, but when I click on "Display All Stats" I'm taken *back* to a log-in page; when I re-enter my ID and password again, the screen just keeps taking me back to the the same log-in page. I can't get off the log-in page unless I start over from the main URL, but I still get the sequence above. This has been happening primarily with Firefox.
Windows XP
Firefox
Blog: http://dailymitzvah.blogspot.com/
In your update you state "INVESTIGATING as of May 1: Resetting of the "Today's Visitor" value to zero at certain times of the day, as reported for the time zone UTC-7 America/Los Angeles."
This is also happening to me in the UTC-4 America/Detroit time zone. This has been going on for the last couple of days(yesterday and today I noticed it). Before that it seemed to be fixed.
I just wanted to let you know that this "bug" is happening in more than just one zone.
Sonshine: You're right, and thanks for pointing this out. I've corrected my blog entry to note that the issue is happening "as reported by users of various time zones".
jen x: We have spent the last couple of days trying to duplicate this issue on our test servers, but we have not been able to duplicate the problem.
One solution which I have not mentioned before on this blog:
Can I ask users who are having problems logging in to try to clear the cache from the web browser that they are using to see if doing so will resolve the login problem?
For instructions on how to do this for your particular browser, visit
http://www.blogpatrol.com/clear-cache.php
Please let us know how this goes for you, as your feedback will inform our next step on this troublesome issue.
Feel free to post a comment here for public view, or if you wish to contact us in public, please use our web contact form.
Update for: "FIXED as of May 3: Resetting of the "Today's Visitor" value to zero at certain times of the day, as reported by users of various time zones."
My counter has been reset to zero as of 9pm PST this evening. The good news is that the counter has been working correctly throughout the day. So I can see that things are improving!! Please re-open bug. Thanks!
alain m. wong: Thanks for bringing our attention back to this and especially for your patience and loyalty to BlogPatrol. We've re-opened the ticket and it will be investigated within the next 24 hours. I'll post an update on its status as soon as progress is made.
In my testing of the other time zone issues, I'm still finding recurring problems which I'm forwarding to the developer to de-bug.
My stats has been very weird this past week. The stats are increasing or decreasing. And the reset to zero thing happens at certain time of the day. And previous stats decreases at a very staggering numbers. So, now I am not sure what is the actual hits my blog is getting at all.
My stats seem to be behaving oddly.. Sometimes they are accurate, but then they won't count certain days. The details of the last 25 visitors isn't matching up with the last 10 referrers, which in turn doesn't match up with the last 10 pages visited. Unless they're supposed to be like that..
I doubt my stats are accurate at all this past week. I am having weird increases and decreases to the stats even after the day is over. I even notice my stats for previous week changes too for no reason whatsoever.
Can I trust my stats?
http://kennyljs.com/
Anonymous and kljs: You've been observing the ups-and-downs of our web developer trying to fix the time zone related bugs on our live site.
Normally, we do our development and bug fixes on our test server, but we've been in an emergency status for a while now where we we are trying to rectify numerous errors on the live site that have been affecting everyone's stats reports. Honestly, I did not expect it to require this much time, effort or money to solve the problem of displaying stats according to the selected time zone. Bug fixing, however, is a tricky business that is hard to predict.
The reason why we're having to do all these bug fixes is that BlogPatrol is using a licensed software which the licensing company has not updated or bug fixed in over a year, which is an eternity in the Web 2.0 world. Over the last year, we have taken it upon ourselves to customize and develop the code (allowable by the license) rather than wait for the uncertainty of when the licensing company should decide to start working on their product again.
Finally, I understand why you may doubt if you can trust your stats. Seeing is believing (or disbelieving), and you've seen your stats behave in odd ways recently. Right now, we're in an unenviable position of trying to stamp out numerous, interrelated bugs all having to do with the time zone function which is affecting the display of your stats. The problem, therefore, is in the display of the stats which are tracked, not the tracking of those stats.
As a part-time company with very limited resources, the best that we can do is (1) keep working on these issues until all the problems are resolved and (b) be honest with our users about our progress.
I just want you to know how much I've appreciated everyone's support and feedback during these last few weeks. I am putting all of BlogPatrol's resources (i.e., time and money) into fixing these issues, and your generous encouragement has really kept me going -- not just through these past weeks, but through the years.
Mwiko: The most direct answer to your comment is, "No, absolutely not: The stats should not be displaying in a manner where the reports are inconsistent with each other."
The issue(s) you mention are interrelated with the above-mentioned time zone problems that we are working through.
Hi, was hoping you can tell me why my blog patrol number has disappeard as of late?
Can't seem to get it to pop back up.
thanks
My counter is NOT showing up in my blog. I've tried changing the counter and replacing the code but it still isn't working...
I have the same problem as Derek.
My Blogpatrol counter isn't showing in my blog and I'm getting the barest minimum of stats coming in. I have another counter running alongside at the moment and nearly a 1000 visits have not been recorded by Blogpatrol over the last 24 hours or so.
Bill's Waste of Air: I've checked your account, and it looks like your BlogPatrol icon is back online now. I believe your particular issue was related to the challenges we had with our migration. Also, your stats appear to be recording again as well. Can you let me know if you see otherwise?
Derek and Frank: I see that both of your accounts are still having problems. I will ask my web developer to look into this for you within the next 24 to 48 hours. I apologize for this problem, and we will fix it as soon as we possibly can.
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