A Problem with a Post
A few days ago, I published a short essay entitled Multiplicative Persistence. Now I want to tell the story behind the trouble I had trying to get the post, to well…post. It was an ordeal.
As you might imagine, I go through lots of drafts when I write these things. Actually, I go through a lot more than you might think. It is not unusual to have 20 or 30 of them. I am always tweaking a word here or there, and my good friend Grammarly always has something to add.
Usually, I am sitting at my computer pounding away on the keyboard, but that is not how all the posts originate. Lots of times, I am out at a bar or restaurant waiting for inspiration to strike. I always have an open notebook and a few working pens by my side. I have found that inspiration has its own timetable, and it doesn’t care much about what I want. That said, I always try to be ready in case The Inspiration Gods decide to shower me with booty. You will be learning much more about this process when I post the essays I wrote for a book called The Athena Chapters. Those will be up soon enough.
This post is about the problems I had trying to get my essay on Multiplicative Persistence to save and then show up on my website. The first few drafts were acting normal, but then the essay started to fight back. It didn’t want to post, it didn’t even want to save any new drafts. One moment I was typing and then, before I realized what was happening, I was engaged in battle. This is my story…
When I clicked on Save Draft, the computer gave me a 502 Bad Gateway error, then it did it again, and again, and again. I had never seen this error with WordPress or GoDaddy before, so I paused and tried to figure out what was going on. I assumed that the problem was on their end, seems reasonable, right? Nothing had changed on my system, and everything else I was working on seemed to be fine.
You know what I did, right? I hit Save Draft another dozen times. I got the 502 Bad Gateway error another dozen times. After that enjoyable experience, I decided to hit the Troubleshooting Chat Button on GoDaddy’s website. That is where the real fun began.
I can paraphrase the conversations…
Hello, what’s wrong?
502 Bad Gateway error when I try to save a draft of a post I am writing.
Ok, …give me a few minutes.
OK
I went to your site, and I was able to log in, no problem.
I do not have a problem logging in, I am having a problem trying to save a draft of a post I am writing.
Hold on…I am transferring you to a specialized team.
Hello, you are having a problem logging into your site?
No, I am getting an error when I try to save a draft of a post I am writing.
OK…give me a few minutes…
OK
We have put up a test post, and everything is fine. Are you some kind of moron? (They didn’t come out and say that, but it was strongly implied.)
Here is a screenshot of the 502 Bad Gateway error I am receiving when I try to SAVE A DRAFT OF A POST I AM TRYING TO WRITE!
OK…thank you very much. I am transferring you to a more specialized team.
All right. Is Batman part of this group? While he is not an actual superhero, he has world-class deductive skills. I am confident he could get me fixed up in no time.
No answer…
(I really love this next part.)
OK, sir, it is evident that you have no idea what you are doing.
Is this Batman?
No, sir, this is not Batman.
Can I speak to Batman?
There is no one here named Batman.
What should I do next? Hours are racing by, and my readers are clamoring for a new essay on multiplication. If I don’t get the post up soon, I can only imagine the level of rioting in the streets.
At this point, all I saw was a blinking cursor on the chat screen. I guess this person was trying to find Batman to tell him that I was out of my mind. This poor representative, with limited imagination, couldn’t understand why any person would want to read an essay on multiplication. The fact that he is pretty much right is beside the point.
Sir, please try another network and see what happens. We are thinking that the problem is on your end.
I don’t have another home computer network. My setup I not as sophisticated as that of someone like Batman. I am sure he has redundancies built-in, don’t you think?
I really don’t know. Again, there is no one here named Batman. Could you reset your router?
If I do that, I will lose you, and I will have to go through all this nonsense again, correct?
No answer…
I will reset, but can I have the direct line to Batman to save me some time after I reconnect?
No answer…
I tried the reset, lost the guy helping me, and still got the error message when I tried to save a draft. It was at this point that I started to utilize all those years of education I am rumored to have.
I asked myself a question: Is there anything different about that post? Is there something unique about it? The answer was yes. It was those stupid right-pointing arrows that I included to show the progression of the numbers after the digits were multiplied together. Those were the culprit, and, of course, there is a story behind their use.
The first few drafts of that post were behaving normally. The Save Draft button was working fine. I finally realized that the problems started when I decided to put those arrows in. The arrows are specialized symbols, getting them into a program like WordPress is not the easiest thing to do. You don’t tap the keyboard, you have to have a specialized script for mathematical symbols, or you need an equation writer. For decades, scientists and mathematicians have used a program called LaTeX (pronounced lay-tech) to write their papers. It is not very user-friendly, I use it when I have to, and in WordPress, I have to.
I went back to my draft of the essay, and I removed all the arrows. I tried to save the draft, and it worked. I really wanted to use arrows, so I didn’t give up on them. I then inserted a different kind of arrow (this one from a Special Symbol Editor, not an Equation Editor), and everything was fine. I was instantly back on track, and the world is now a better place because a handful of people now know what Multiplicative Persistence is.
Isn’t it strange that a small piece of random code for a right-leaning arrow caused all these problems? That little symbol led to a lot of issues and cost me a bunch of time and aggravation. The mysterious ways in which some computer code can interact are not to be underestimated.
After I figured out what was going on I decided that it was best if I write the guy from the chat, I still had his email from when I sent the screenshot of the error message. I thought that maybe my story would help in the future when some other poor slob stumbled across something similar. I told him to let Batman know that I had solved the problem and that everything was fine. Neither of them wrote me back.
