Open Live Writer – BETA FIX

Ok, SOME PEOPLE don’t like to install “Beta” programs.  In Computer Language, the term “BETA” means “Beta Version” … which means it is a unfinished version released to either the public, a select few, or whoever signs up to beta test.  With Open Live Writer (OLW), this new “Beta Version” that I came upon today “MIGHT” be the only fix out there…then again, they (those who work on this open software protect we call Open Live Writer) may be getting ready for a new update release.  Essentially, this “Beta Version” is OLW 6.3, released through a OLW Twitter post back on January 19th…and has been changed a few times to fix some installation errors.  The ONLY place I have found where OLW mentions the beta is on twitter, and this was after Thanis Lim commented today on the blog posting I did back in January.  The version that has problems posting pictures is OLW 6.2, and was released back in May 2017.  I loaded this new Beta Version, following the directions I am providing below, and had OLW up and going in a matter of a few minutes.

By now I am sure you blog followers who don’t use OLW or don’t blog yourself, have either left today’s posting…or will do so soon.  I provide this information for those who still want to use OLW, and continue their blogs. 

Above is the Open Live Writer Twitter Account.  Click on the image and it will take you to the OLW Twitter page.  The first tweet on the page is what they call an anchor page, which announced the new OLW back in 2015, which replaced what was called Windows Live Writer.  The second tweet down is the posting which announced this beta fix version (and I saw that Thanis Lim made some comments here too).  YOU don’t need to look at this twitter page in order to load the beta, but I offer it only to provide you the proper information so you can see that this beta version is authentic, and endorsed by OLW.  Now, IF you want to use this version, follow these FOUR steps below.

STEP ONE

Go to your Google Pictures Albums (https://photos.google.com/albums) and be sure to rename any and all albums which say “Open Live Writer”.  Be SURE to NOT delete any of these albums…if you do, you will lose all your pictures on published blogs that link to any album you delete.  HOWEVER, renaming albums does nothing to past blog pictures.  Personally, I renamed my albums OLW1, OLW2, etc.  I did not worry about keeping them in sequence of when they were created…I just renamed them all.  DO NOT make an empty album of the same name, if there is a album, empty of full, named Open Live Writer, you will get a 404 error when you try to publish.

STEP TWO

Find on your computer where the OLW program is located at.  IF you have an icon for OLW on your desktop, or on your taskbar, you can find this out by right clicking on the icon and looking at properties.  By doing this, you will see a new small window open that looks like this below:

Click on the “Open File Location” and an explore folder will open that looks a bit like the one below:

Differences YOU will see on your computer compared to the image above is that in the image above is that I already renamed the “Update.exe” file to “OldUpdate.exe” (highlighted in blue).  “IF” you don’t rename or delete this file, when you start up the beta version of OLW, it will open multiple times because it will keep looking for a new updated version of OLW...it does not recognize that this beta is an update.  Also, in the folder above YOU will probably see a OpenLiveWriter.exe file, AND you will not see the “app-0.6.3” folder.  Loading the new beta version creates the new folder, and moves the "exe" file into that folder...so don’t worry about any of that stuff…all you need to do for Step Two is remove or rename the “Update.exe” file.

STEP THREE

It is now time to load the new Beta Program…and this is easy and seamless.  The program can be found at this link: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/dotnetfoundation/openlivewriter/builds/21747043/artifacts

The file you want to click on is this one below:

Doing so will start the download process in your browser.  Depending on your Internet connection, it should not take very long because it is only a 5 MB file in size.  When download is complete, you need to install it as you would any other program you download through your browser.  Since each browser is different, you will need to figure this out yourself.  When install is complete, it will automatically open up the Beta OLW. 

STEP FOUR (FINAL STEP)

You are probably anxious to see if the beta version works…but eventually you are going to close OLW and step four is just making sure that any shortcut you have for OLW works.  I found that the icon on my desktop, and the one in the start programs area when you click on the windows start button normally found at the bottom left of your computer screen, each worked.  The one on the taskbar did not…so I just deleted it, and dragged the icon on my desktop down to the taskbar and all is well.  Again, you may or may not have an icon on your desktop or in your taskbar...that is something you would have done while using the older version of OLW.

WARNING – Since you now have the beta version 6.3 on your computer, when you start it up OLW does not check to see if a newer version is available.  So periodically YOU will need to visit openlivewriter.org to see if they have a new updated 6.3 (non beta) version available, or follow OLW in twitter where they are sure to tweet out that a new version is available, or just watch other blogs, someone will mention it sometime.  Other than that, you are good to go.  (Openlivewriter.org does not even mention this beta version…frankly, makes one wonder how much longer OLW will be around...who will fix it the next time Google-Blogger make a change in something?)

NOTE:  I am not sure how this beta version bypasses publishing photos to Google Photo, but from what I can tell, it skips that step.  Other places which give information about installing this beta version are found here:

Thanis Lim’s Blog: http://www.thanislim.com/2019/03/how-to-fix-open-live-writer-error-400.html

Hacking University by RISHABH JAIN: https://www.hackinguniversity.in/2019/01/fix-bad-request-photo-upload-error-blogger-open-live-writer.html

ANOTHER CHANGE

After March 15th, when Google took Picasa Down, the above directions stopped working.  I reverted to the method found in a previous post dated January18th, "IF" you do the above and get the 400 error, then click here and follow the directions in this previous post.  The only difference I have found compared to the January 18th directions is that you can put the pictures in ANY Google Photos Album, AND when you are ready to import into OLW, be sure to click on the picture you want to import, then right click and view image, then copy it to import.  What I find useful is to put my blog together with pictures off my computer, then when I am finished and ready to publish, I copy the pictures I used into Google Photos Album, then replace the one in OLW one at a time with the same photo found in Google Photos Album.

Open Live Writer Error Fix

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

This blog will be boring for most of you…but for the person who blogs using the Open Live Writer software…well, this is for you.  For the past two days (since January 16th) Open Live Writer has been impossible to blog with for those on the blogger platform unless you did not have pictures…what good is a travel/RV blog without pictures???

THIS (above) is the error that Open Writer Users are getting as they attempt to post their blog.  The problem is that photos posting through Open Writer automatically are posted onto Google Pictures in an album called “Open Live Writer”.  When that folder reaches 2000 photos, it starts a new folder.  About a year or two ago, once this folder reached 2000, it would not start a new one…we have to go in, rename the folder, and then it would automatically create a new folder named “Open Live Writer” and it allowed us to post again.  THIS problem is different.  It will not automatically load the pictures into Google Pictures…we NOW have to do this manually.  WHAT A PAIN, but “Open Live Writer” is still the best way to post blogs in my opinion.  Below is the work around for using “Open Live Writer” and posting pictures to your blog…

STEP ONE
Load your pictures onto your computer, edit the photos as needed, store in a folder on your computer of your choice.  Personally, I always store my pictures by year, by month within the year, by day within the month.  Above you can see my July 2018 folder, and the daily pictures listed by the date that I put them on the computer.  For me, it makes it easier when I need to “find” a picture I had taken even years ago.  You probably have your own system, just use that system…you just need to know where your pictures are so that you load them into the next step.

STEP TWO
Load the pictures you are going to use for you blog into the Open Live Writer Album folder in Google Pictures.  This is easy to do by just moving them from the folder on your computer into the browser you are viewing your Open Live Writer Album with.  Be sure that the Open Live Writer Album is shared to all.  Above shows the icon you click to share your album.  Once you click it, a new small window will appear, and in the bottom left is a link to “create link”, which will then make the folder public.

STEP THREE
When you are ready to put a picture into “Open Live Writer”, and you have followed steps one and two above for that picture, all you have to do now is to click on that picture in Google Pictures.  I use Firefox, and this trick should work for other browsers….I just right click on the picture, it opens a window and “Copy Image” is one of the choices.  Once copied, I go back to “Open Live Writer” and paste it where I want to place the picture.  There are other ways to paste it into “Open Live Writer”, but this is the simplest for me.

STEP FOUR
Complete your blog, now it is ready to post to blogger.  Personally I always post via the “Post draft to blog” method.  That allows me to bring it up in blogger, add Labels, Location and Search Description, and also do a “Preview” to see how it is going to look in a browser.

FINAL NOTE
I am hoping that this problem gets fixed like the last problem … but only time will tell.  This method will be a pain in the … this is going to be if they don’t fix it.

Also, just because I can...the weather here in Florida is wonderful.  Today it got to 71 degrees, it is 56 now (10:30), and our coldest day in the upcoming week will be Monday with a high of 59.  Marcia had her first Doctor Appointment, and all went well.  Other than high cholesterol, which does not mind and won't treat because higher cholesterol is good for people with MS because MS is a demyelinating disease, and cholesterol protects the myelin sheath.  The doctor has tried putting her on statins for three years now...this year they gave up.  Marcia despises statins, she says her first husband, his brother, a cousin and a cousin's husband and brother each took statins, and they died within a few years.  But her MS is the biggest reason she does not want to treat it.

And just a few minutes ago my youngest son Ryan sent the following picture...

This is Kaelyn, they plan to get married in the fall...and he FINALLY gave her a ring, and it does not appear to be one from a Crackerjacks Box!

Camp Verde Arizona, Live Writer Glitch

Here we are at Krazy K RV Park in Camp Verde, Arizona.  Although it looks like we are “checking in” to the park, in reality we are in the one last open spot available at the park, a spot they call “The Office” spot.  Reason…that is the office right in front of us.

I was a bit concerned about the spot at first…but quickly realized that we have no close neighbors.  But that has not stopped me from meeting people.  Just in the distance to the RV and Car you can see a couple of 5th Wheels.  Bob lives in one of those, and he came over to say hello and talk as I was setting up.  Said, “This grass up here is for use by anyone…just not dogs…and we can move the table and chairs if you need them under shade.”  I thanked him, asked about how long he lived in the park (7 years now), he mentioned that he recently lost his wife (7 years ago), and he misses her every day.  On Saturday I did laundry and two different ladies were in there…one before I arrived and the other after I arrived.  There are only 3 washers and 4 driers…$1.50 to wash and $1 to dry, not a bad price at all.   Anyway, these ladies were as nice as can be.  One has lived in the park for three years.  The other is visiting her daughter, who lost her husband unexpectedly two years ago, and is from Indiana.  Talked to a Viet Nam Era Vet (he was stateside the entire length of his service) and he has lived here for three plus years, his wife works at the Casino nearby, and he loves it.

Another plus as to where we are parked is that the dog walk is right across the gravel road from where we are parked.  This is where I talked to the veteran, who also loves to carry his gun on his hip…seen this a lot here in Arizona, which is a open carry state.  Unlike many dog walks, I have not seen one sign of dogs after they have been walked…EVERYONE picks up after their pets, which is fantastic.

Our Internet Speed ever since we hit New Mexico has been slow.  To the left is my current speed, and the is fast for here.  Yesterday we were having speeds as low as .15 down and .25 up.  (Down is the download…like when your Internet page is loading onto your browser.  Up is when you post a blog, send a picture through email, etc.)  However, we have had 2 bars of 4G here.  So I called Verizon just to see if the new aircard we got before we left did not automatically “cap” our data.  The nice guy from Alabama assured me that we have 40 gigs of data, nothing is being throttled.  He had me turn off the aircard, remove the battery, remover the sim card, and put it all back together again and turn on…to no avail.  About 15 minutes later we were watching “Undercover Boss” and Darius Rucker was on.  Marcia says, “You know, he is playing at the Casino…”  A light bulb went off in my head…the crowd of folks who came to see him are overloading the Verizon Tower, slowing us up to a slow crawl.  Sure enough, about 9 pm, it sped up again…and around 10:30 or 11 pm it slowed down again as the concert got out.

As I was posting the last blog about Sedona just before leaving Cottonwood, I got the dreaded “Can’t publish files” message in Live Writer.  Like others, I was having problems publishing from Live Writer to Blogger with pictures in it.  So I had to remove the pictures, publish a draft, then add the pictures in Blogger itself…which is why the post about Soldotna did not have any pictures side-by-side, and the pictures were either large or larger, unlike with Live Writer where you can customize the size and placement much easier.  The fix, which is well published, was to: 

Go to Google Photos
Create a new album; insert a single photo
Name it: Open Live Writer
Then you can post your blog with pictures

Well, I had two albums already in Google Photos with the name ‘Open Live Writer’, both with 2,000 photos in it.  Many other albums also had 2,000 pictures in it.  So I renamed the two albums named ‘Open Live Writer’ as OLW1 and OLW2, created another ‘Open Live Writer’ album, putting one picture in it, and did a test blog and it worked again.  So apparently, when you fill up an album, you may need to rename it and create a new one to get things to work again.  Lesson learned.  Hope this helps other Bloggers if they run into the same problem.

Test Posting of New Open Source Live Writer

Many of the Bloggers who use Google’s Blogger use a non-Google program to write their blogs, and then post them Blogger.

Microsoft has a free program called Live Writer.  Many use that program, however….

In early December Live Writer and other programs would not authenticate with Google’s Blogger, hence, we could not mover our blogs over to Blogger to publish.

Well, Microsoft released Live Writer out to the world of Open Source, and on the same day Google turned off access (ability to post using the new or the old Live Writer) until the new Open Source Live Writer could meet the proper authentification methods demanded by Google.  The Open Soure team worked hard for a good ten days to make this happen, and it finally happened yesterday.  This blog is my test to be sure it works, and as you can see from my different sizes and shapes of pictures, and text styles, it seems to be working great.  So Microsoft Live Writer has been replaced by Open Source Live Writer, and for me, as you can tell above, it does everything the Microsoft version was doing.  Now, as an Open Source, I think we will see additions and improvements over time.

All I can say is that I am glad it went down now and not during our trip to Washington State.  All of these pictures on the test post were taken in Washington along the west side of Olympic National Park, in the City of La Push within the Quileute Indian Reservation.

 Test Over

PS:  Health Update:   We stayed home from Church Sunday and Wednesday.  I am feeling real good, Marcia is still coughing, at times a bit hard.  We rescheduled a few meetings with others for lunch, etc.   I have 90+% of the items transferred from motorhome to condo, got our car and RV registrations done for the year, renewed Marcia’s ADA placard for parking, paid bills, cleaned ceiling fans, changed A/C filters, and we still have a bunch of cleaning up.  Since Marcia got this crude about 6 days after I did, I figure she will be out and about again by Sunday.