Having trouble commenting? Read below

February 16, 2019 • 12:30 pm

I’ve gotten a lot of emails over the last week from readers saying that they are having trouble commenting, with the most common complaint being that the “autofill”—your name and email address being automatically filled in when commenting on this site—no longer works.

I’m working on this issue, but here’s one thing you can try. What you want to do is clear from your browser the “cookies” connected with this site, but only from this site. Reader Michael, who’s helping out here, says this:

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

Browsers store information from websites in the form of cookies and a cache. This stored information helps web pages you’ve already visited load faster and remembers your personalized selections between visits (e.g., search location, page format, themes, language selection etc.). There are also other less ‘friendly’ cookies called 3rd party cookies that store data about your internet habits such as what sites you visit or the searches you’ve made. Sometimes, all this stored information can cause interference because a site may introduce a new updated cookie & the old version is still hanging around,  or a cookie is corrupted. The best move then is to delete all cookies for that site and they will reappear next time you use the site.

AUTOFILL DATA

An advantage of using cookies is that they can keep you logged in a website so that you can skip the login page and quickly get to where you want. Facebook and Twitter’s cookies will let you do this, for instance. But if you delete a sites cookies you might find the login fields no longer autofill next visit for that site [other sites will be OK], just manually enter your details this one time & it will autofill from then on.

Before deleting cookies it is best to make sure you’re running latest version of the browser.

Me: Why do you want to delete your cookies?
Because the cookies a user has stored now [before deleting] contain an old cookie that may be conflict with a new cookie for example. I’m surmising that your WordPress or global WordPress has changed one or more cookies in the last few days & bollixed things up for users.
So, if you’re having a problem with autofill, check on your browser about how to delete site-specific cookes. The next time you comment, the autofill should start again and work fine from then on—if THAT is the problem.

I use Chrome, so I just Googled “delete specific cookies on Chrome,” and this is what I got:

Then, I searched for the name of this website in step 6, and got this.  I didn’t remove the six cookies for my site as I’m not having any problems, but this is what you should try if you’re having problems.

If this doesn’t work, or you have some other problem, please describe it below or email me. I have been talking to WordPress, and while they’re not always that helpful, they may be able to fix some people’s problems.

—The Management

46 thoughts on “Having trouble commenting? Read below”

  3. I don’t know if this will help anyone, but I always go to the wordpress login page, log in there and then come back here to comment.

  4. Testing 2 – Chrome

    … no change – (i recently always had to choose both user and email ).

    Will dig further,

    1. I answered your question about typing links with text rather than buttons. Did you see it?

        1. Or do tests on that over on THAT thread rather than here on a browser that works for you anyway…

      1. I know. I was just being a smartass…or dumbass, however you wish to view it. I rarely have anything intelligent to add to the conversation. All I have are bad jokes.

  7. Chrome (desktop):
    click inside comment box
    click “MANAGE” : goes to:

    Settings->Addresses and More->[Add]
    add relevant information, like ThyroidPlanet and my email which is kept private AFAIK.

    this is better than before, but before, I was pretty sure the page would come up already filled out. That alone could cause problems, like if someone else got their hands on my machine.

    2. follow up test 1A … this happens occasionally too, the comment fails to show up…. in the time frame I have to pay attention to it.

      … hmmm, looks like Waiting for Godot is playing tonight… or… right now… in my life.

  10. Don’t use Chrome. Use Firefox. Chrome belongs to the data hungry mega corporation Alphabet/Google. It’s a small act of defiance to avoid their services as much as possible.

    1. I have to ask, as I usually do, getting into trouble, but

      Saying what food to eat or not eat : against Da Roolz
      Saying what software to use or not use : ?

      1. I *think* it’s only against da Roolz to say what food PCC should write about. Not against da Roolz to say ‘I hate brussels sprouts’.

        And ditto software/computers, I’m not aware of any diktats about advocating one or another (though starting a Holy War
        http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/holy-wars.html
        would probably be frowned upon)

        cr

    1. Nope, oh well. GMail did this to me once, all suggestions for recipients just vanished so it was a major pain to insert the recipient once the email was composed and all ready to go.

  14. I couldn’t find a weit cookie, but I did find a wordpress one. I deleted that. It had no effect!

  18. I can tell people that a quick fix is to make a Word Press account (it is easy). Then when you go to WEIT it immediately logs you in and shows a banner across the screen.
    Commenting works for me now like it should.
    👍🏽

  19. Out of sheer laziness I’ve created a wordpress account though I think I have before. You all shall know me by my angry owl.

        1. Yes – he blends – good for hunting from his perch [ideally a fresh perch cos they get stinky after a while out of the water]

  20. I don’t understand what WordPress would mangle this trivial feature for. It’s some lines in the source code.

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