27 March 2012

Blogger Service Unavailable Error 503 after top level domain name changes (country code extensions)

I previously wrote about how Google Blogger has changed top level domain names (country codes) for censorship purposes. After these recent changes to Bloggers' country code domains, I have experienced a lot of 503 Server Errors. The changes to the country domain name extension coincided with other changes rolled out by Blogger such as Search Preferences for SEO optimization. So it is not clear where the 503 errors stem from but it appears that other users/bloggers are experiencing the same problem.

If you have seen this error please leave a comment so that I know, I am not the only one!
Blogger Error 503 Service Unavailable
HTTP 503 Service Unavailable Error means the server is currently unavailable (because it is overloaded or down for maintenance). Generally, this is a temporary state.


Here is the HTML code returned by the Blogger servers:
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Service Unavailable</TITLE></HEAD><BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000"><H1>Service Unavailable</H1><H2>Error 503</H2></BODY></HTML> 

It's interesting to see the error pages served by Blogger servers do not comply to HTML 4 standards.

48 comments:

  1. Getting the same error over and over again...

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    1. Thanks for sharing your experience. Hopefully, if Blogger knows that a lot of people are effected, they will fix it quicker.

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  2. Yes, I am getting this error more and more especially this week - 26 March on wards -whenever I load up my blog and when I click on others' blogs too.

    Very very frustrating!
    :-(

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    1. Thanks for your comment. The date you have pointed out is pretty much inline with my experience and others as well.

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  3. Yes.. i have this problem too :S this is very big poblem :S

    altinelisleri com

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    1. Thanks for this information, this problem seems to be getting worse and worse!

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  4. Replies
    1. Indeed, it is even happening on Google's official blog!

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  5. Getting the error message a lot and also a dive in traffic. Is anyone else seeing that too as a result of the changes?

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    1. Yes, definitely a dive in traffic. The number of people with this problem is increasing substantially... particularly this weekend it seems to happen even more often.

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  6. I am also getting this since March. What is the solution for this?

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    1. So far there isn't a solution. I have explained the situation to the Blogger team and they thanked me but that was about a week ago. They still haven't fixed it and no updates from them yet :(

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  7. i am also getting same error after changing the domain name

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    Replies
    1. I wish they would fix it. It's been going on for too long :(

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  8. I am also getting this error message, PLEASE HELP!!!

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    1. unfortunately there is nothing I can do to help. I have already spoken to Blogger engineers. I believe the engineers working on blogger hate their job and just want to finish each working day so that they can go home to their families and get paid at the end of the month. I don't believe they care enough to address this problem rapidly.

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  9. Yes, been getting this message regularly for the past 2 weeks approx.

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    1. Thanks for your input, it's nice to get to know how many people have this problem and during what period.

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  10. i have the same error message any way to solve it

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    Replies
    1. nope... just refresh the page until it loads correctly.

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  11. I'm getting this message too. Also my blog is taking much longer to load. Like it will hang...then finally load...

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    Replies
    1. Yes, that also happens to me when it will hang for a long time before it finally loads.

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  12. I'm having the same problem all of a sudden, and unfortunately it's come at a fairly inopportune time. My blog, Faces of the Hindenburg, contains biographies of each of the 97 people who were aboard the Hindenburg when it burned in 1937.

    The blog has been getting the 503 error this morning, and since today is the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, it's killing what would have probably been my highest traffic day ever.

    I'm thinking it may be time for me to move from Blogspot to an actual web page if this is going to continue to be a problem.

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    1. This problem has existed for many years for those who had custom domains and still nobody has fixed it. Now that the blog redirection happens, everyone will suffer from it.

      The best option is to switch to wordpress or another platform as I think it is very unlikely that this will be resolved.

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  13. Replies
    1. It's been over a month now and the problem has existed for many years so it's very unlikely that they fix it. Time to move to another blogging platform... wordpress?!

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  14. is there any way to solve this?

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    1. Not yet anyway. Blogger engineers are aware of this after I notified them but so far nothing is being done.

      Moving from Blogger to Wordpress or another blogging platform seems to be the only way to solve the problem... lol

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  15. this is horrible i'm tired of this

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    1. me too! It's being going on for too long an the loading of the page are becoming very slow as well.

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  16. Some crashs on Blogger - So, i will leave Blogger for Wordpress

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  17. Yes I am getting this error too!

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  18. Hello. Yes, I have been getting the same annoying 503 page on my blog http://lifeinanothertown.blogspot.com It started happening around the same time as the com to co.uk change was implemented by blogger.

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  19. Hello yes 'i have seen this error first time on side rail of Google+ appear like this →Service Unavailable Error 503 https://plus.google.com/u/0/

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  20. I cannot even open my blogger, Can you tell me what's going on ?

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    1. can you please give some more details as to what happens?

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  21. I'm more of a reader than an author, but there are still a lot of them... although a bit less than a month or two ago.

    It's frustrating for a reader, I can only imagine what it must be like for an author - worrying if your work will go through or disappear any time you click something!

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  22. New to Blogger and this does not bode well - very very slow loading and then error 503

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  23. New to Blogger and this does not bode well. Blogger very slow in loading and then error codes. And it's June 2012 now!

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  24. I`m a finnish blogger. Same problem appears here in Finland. Plääääh...

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  25. I am getting 503 but also and 502 errors in Google Chrome only. Try using Firefox or Opera and everything will work just fine without any errors. At the moment I am writing this post http://www.designeasy.co/2012/01/how-to-work-non-destructively-in.html (How to work non-destructivelly in Photoshop) appears with 503 error in Chrome but try to click on link listed here http://www.designeasy.co/p/all-posts.html using Opera and Firefox and you will see post without any problem.

    By the way Opera is currently best browser with lack of some features or add-ons, Chrome on other side has lot of nice add ons but from my experience it is good for skipping it and to use other browsers, at least with Win 8.1.

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  26. well, it's 2014 and still these frustrating problems persists lots of times :( 503 error and/or slow loading of pages, as well when I try to edit/update an article it gives error, I try again but still the problem remains... I have to refresh the whole page. P.s.: no matter which browser, firefox or whatever

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    1. yes, unfortunately I have the same problem as well. I believe Google has abandoned Blogger in the hope that people will start using Google Plus instead.
      Blogger is pretty much a dead project inside Google.

      Delete
  27. man i lose my 70% traffic because of this :(

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