Extra Pings?

[abacquer]

If only there was a clone of you working for BlogLines, John, I might be able to get to the bottom of this.

BlogLines took two days to send me back a form letter that makes it painfully clear someone either (a) didn't read my message in its entirety or (b) couldn't be bothered. I have sent them another e-mail.

In the meantime something has changed. Now whenever bloglines gets it into its head that my blog has new content, it says there are TWO new articles, instead of just ONE.

The other thing is that BlogLines keeps saying my blog was "last updated" at a time which always follows the value of "lastBuildDate" by a small number of minutes (typically 5 to 20.) For example, at the time of this writing my feed's LastBuildDate is 5:21 AM, and BlogLines says my blog updated at 5:38 AM (with 2 new articles) which is not true.

BTW, the only special thing I did that I can think of between when BL was reporting 1 nonexistant new articles and when it started reporting 2 was this:

I posted 2 photos to photo albums with the "post a notification to my blog" checkbox checked, which automatically created a tiny "main page" article referencing the photo. When an article is created that way, does the blog ping the various remote sites in any different way than it normally does?

I'm adding a new photo this morning to test and see if that has anything to do with it. Probably not, but I'm grasping at straws at this point.
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-- Abacquer, A.K.A. Chuck Seggelin

[john]

The other thing is that BlogLines keeps saying my blog was "last updated" at a time which always follows the value of "lastBuildDate" by a small number of minutes (typically 5 to 20.) For example, at the time of this writing my feed's LastBuildDate is 5:21 AM, and BlogLines says my blog updated at 5:38 AM (with 2 new articles) which is not true.

Just as a reminder, the LastBuildDate is a moving target. As I noted earlier in the thread, we build the feed dynamically as it is requested so LastBuildDate is always the time you ask for it. You request the feed now, LastBuildDate is now. Five minutes from now, LastBuildDate will be five minutes from now if you ask for it then...

I posted 2 photos to photo albums with the "post a notification to my blog" checkbox checked, which automatically created a tiny "main page" article referencing the photo. When an article is created that way, does the blog ping the various remote sites in any different way than it normally does?

Does it ping differently, no. Does it ping, yes.

I'm adding a new photo this morning to test and see if that has anything to do with it. Probably not, but I'm grasping at straws at this point.

I think Bloglines is picking up a rebroadcasted ping is all, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. I don't think these services know how to distinguish between a ping from the originating source and a rebroadcasted one, and incorrectly use the ping to signify that your blog has something new, when what a ping really means is Come check out my RSS feed to determine what has changed.