To the people who are in my circles on Google+, I am very very sorry. If you were actually on the network this morning you will have noticed that the stream was poluted by one single post (from my account) that was reposted many many many times. I apologize for the inconvenience.
And so, I think Google+ put me in “jail.”
It’s my fault, sort of… I began using a Chrome extension a few weeks (months) ago called Do Share to schedule updates to my Google+ account. I give +1 and comments to others’ posts all the time, but don’t often post myself. I’ve been waiting for Hootsuite to incorporate this as one of the channels I can add (I do already have my SandraSays Google+ page, which has little activity). I kept thinking that I would make more time to post better content. And, I should note, it never actually happened. One day I discovered the Do Share extension and started using that. My sharing on Google+ increased, the interactions I have with my network increased, and I was pleased.
Until this morning.
I’ve been getting better about scheduling one update to go out every morning. I usually pick something I think my connections will find interesting. And the update goes out about 6am or so.
This morning I hopped onto my account late morning and noticed that the same update was posted and reposted and reposted and reposted and reposted and resposted… well, you get the picture. From my attempts to delete the duplicates I believe that the update was reposted 20-30 times a minute from the time it was originally scheduled (and I don’t remember exactly what time that was supposed to happen) until about 6:45 am.
We’re talking about 20-30 times a minute for probably more than 30 minutes. That’s math I don’t want to do.
So I frantically deleted the extension and hoped for the best. I updated a few more times, in real time using the actual Google+ page. Everything seemed to be fine. Then I started to get the error message.
There was a problem saving your post. Please try again.
I started to see this message whenever I tried to post something new. Not for comments, those were working fine. Not with the +1s, those were working fine too. But every time I tried to post something new I got that error message.
I assumed that it meant I had been put in Google+ “jail” — i.e., that my access was temporarily suspended because of unsual activity. This happens on Facebook and Twitter when you have too much activity in one time span. But when that happens there (in the very rare cases that happens to me) I get a message telling me what’s up.
There was a problem saving your post. Please try again.
There’s no message on my profile page. I didn’t get an email. There’s no explanation… anywhere. So I did what any reasonable internet citizen does when presented with an unknown error message: I Googled it.
The results are lots of entries about it being linked to suspended account — different products, different reasons, but mostly suspension. So I’m going to assume that that’s why I’m getting the message.
I will try back tomorrow and see if my ban is lifted. Since I’ve actually deleted the offending extension, I’m hoping they’re going to take that into account.
Wish me luck. And, if you need to contact me, try Facebook; as of right now, that’s still working.
UPDATE: It looks like my suspension has been lifted! A learning event.
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