Blog Readers Getting Comment Timeouts

Could you let me know what other plugins are currently active on your site?

Could you also post your site URL here, so I can try to leave a test comment and check what happens?

If you want it to remain private, you can also contact us via this contact form:
https://jetpack.me/contact-support/

Jeremy, my site is https://www.thetwelfthstep.com.

I am running the following plugins:

1. Add Meta Tags – adds basic meta tags for SEO
2. Akismet – for preventing spam comments
3. Exclude Pages From Navigation – allows to remove a page from navigation
4. Google Analytics – enables google analytics on all pages
5. Jetpack by WordPress.com – manages most of my site’s functionality
6. Moveable Type and Typepad Importer – Import for old blog/comments
7. Recent Comment Avatars – comment avatars are added to side widget
8. Relevanssi – replaces WP search with relevance searching
9. SEO Redirection – manages website redirections from my old blog to this new one
10. Simple Page Ordering – orders pages into a hierarchal order
11. Simple Social Buttons – insert social buttons into posts and archives
12. WD Search Widget – a search widget with autocomplete capability
13. WP Missed Schedule – for publishing a post if it misses its schedule

I don’t believe any of these does anything with timeouts at all when it comes to writing a comment on my page. I look forward to seeing what you discover. Is there a normal time length set in wordpress?

Andrew

I checked your site, and wanted to leave a comment to test things, but you don’t seem to be using Jetpack Comments at the moment.
Could you activate Jetpack Comments again for a little while so I can try to reproduce the error?

Thanks!

Jeremy, I activated that. Just a heads up though. The readers who had issues with the comment time out were just doing it as a random person and not through Facebook, or wordpress accounts. So I don’t know if you will be able to create it or not in that way. I look forward though to seeing what you find. Let me know if you don’t understand what I mean by this ok?

I just thought about this. If someone is logged in to FB or wordpress, they probably won’t get a timeout because its tied in to those accounts right? So then it begs the question on a random reader who just clicks ‘leave comment’ and then spends time thinking about what to write. In doing so, there’s definitely a timeout in that situation and I’m wondering if that’s a default of wordpress or jetpack or both. And if so, how can I change it to be longer?

I’m not sure when the time out happens. I just tried to leave a few test comments on your site, as a guest and using different Social Networks, and all my comments went through:

• https://i.wpne.ws/Yg0v
• https://i.wpne.ws/YfkM
• https://i.wpne.ws/Yeth
• https://i.wpne.ws/Yfby
• https://i.wpne.ws/YfiM

If someone is logged in to FB or wordpress, they probably won’t get a timeout because its tied in to those accounts right?

Regardless of how you comment, the comment still has to be saved in your database, so I don’t think the way ones comments matters here, unless the time out happens when they try to log in to one of these social networks.

So then it begs the question on a random reader who just clicks ‘leave comment’ and then spends time thinking about what to write. In doing so, there’s definitely a timeout in that situation

There isn’t any time out there. As long as you don’t click on the send button, nothing happens. So you could have a post opened for hours and still be able to comment without refreshing the page.

Could you ask these readers to give you more details about the error? When did the time out appear? How did it look like? Was the whole page blank, or just the comment form? Screenshots can also help if they can send you some.

I have five comments awaiting moderation Jeremy from your testing. Just a heads up. Gotten that comment time out yet?

Gotten that comment time out yet?

I’m afraid not, I couldn’t reproduce.

Did you try doing it without being logged in and having to use the comments as a general reader. Meaning no wordpress or FB connections? That’s when that problem happens.

Jeremy, since activating the Jetpack comments, I haven’t had any issue either. I tested it form opening an email from a subscription perspective as that is what previous readers reported when getting it. But I tried several different ways myself with no luck either. I’m honestly not sure how the people have gotten it. Maybe without Jetpack comments is when it’s only a problem. Either way, I’m going to leave this active as it seems to be resolving the problem. I’ll reopen this if I can repeat it. Thanks for helping me.

Did you try doing it without being logged in and having to use the comments as a general reader. Meaning no wordpress or FB connections?

Yes. I tried to comment twice as a general reader, without any issues.

I’ll reopen this if I can repeat it.

Don’t hesitate to post here if it happens again!

Jeremy, I have been testing this the past day now.. and I’m definitely able to repeat it. Here are some ways to get it constantly.

1. Use Firefox. Open up my site. Open up the latest entry so you are only looking at that entry. Scroll down and click where the comments field is. Now wait 20 minutes with the page like that doing nothing. Then click submit on the comments. You get the error.
2. The most repeatable is by using the blog subscriptions. If you subscribe to my blog and then click the read more link in it when it arrives in your inbox… and then go down to where the comments are and click in it and then wait, there is a period of time of around 10 to 15 minutes where it times out for Firefox and about the same with Safari.

It appears that 10 minutes is about the only safe number i was not able to repeat the test either going in on the web directly or through one of the blog subscriptions emails. I can forward you one of those emails but I’d have to have an e-mail to send it to. It might be the easiest way to test this for you… Let me know what you want me to do ok? Thanks.

Thanks for the extra details. I was able to reproduce the issue.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do to solve this issue: after so much time on the page, you hit the server’s timeout value at some point. I’m afraid I can only recommend not to wait so long before to submit a comment.

Jeremy, it seems as if the time limit is about the max of 15 minutes. But isn’t there a parameter, ie, a plugin I can add to change this. What really doesn’t make sense though is why anything would time out if you are just going to a website and reading something? It’s not like anyone is logged in to my blog when doing this? They are just on my page? I don’t get timeouts on say USA Today if I read one of their articles and 29 minutes later I comment on it in their discussion area? Please help me to understand this server issue a little better. I did read somewhere that there is a parameter that can be changed to prevent this but I’m not technical enough to know where it is ?

You won’t be able to change that parameter as the comment form is hosted on WordPress.com, not on your site.

What really doesn’t make sense though is why anything would time out if you are just going to a website and reading something?

As long as you’re reading, you won’t get a timeout. You will get a timeout if you start writing a comment in the comment iFrame, and then wait before to actually submit that comment.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.