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IntenseDebate – super charge your commenting system

I installed IntenseDebate to offer highly interactive commenting system to the readers of GigaThoughts.  As always it started with a lot of research, which led to final two competitors to choose from – IntenseDebate and Disqus. After testing both commenting system on local machine for a week, I finally chose IntenseDebate primarily because it’s an Automatic company and for those who are not aware they are the same guys behind wordpress and more so IntenseDebate offers all the features that are offered by Disqus.  I have been using it since a week on the live site and I am really thrilled with interactivity it can offer to the readers.  I would recommend using IntenseDebate to everyone who wishes to offer a better user experience to their readers.

Errors, issues, problems and fixes while installing IntenseDebate on WordPress 2.7.1

Like a lot of people who tried installing IntenseDebate I was faced with several issues and it wasn’t a smooth installation process.  But persistence and the urge to offer better usability to the readers i was able to find solutions of each one and hence I wish to share my experience so that other people can benefit from it and I am sure it can help ease their installation issues.

Error 1: “Login failed. Please check your credentials and try again” Login Failure while accessing ID via wordpress admin once the plugin is activated. This is the first error which most people would face and it blocks the further installation and synching process.

Solution 1:

• First try and reset the plugin by downloading the cleared.php and do the following:
  Please use these instructions:
  1. Uninstall and remove the IntenseDebate plugin
  2. Install, activate the clearID.php plugin
  3. Uninstall it.
  4. Install the latest version of the plugin and activate it.
• Step 2 is to change your username and password on the ID website and try installing the plugin again and try again. Make sure your password does not contain any special character like #$% as that will not work
• Step 3 is to check missing Blog Title, while accepting the username and password ID check if the blog has a valid blog title if not it will reject the request. So if you don’t have a title you need to have one but this will lead to the text appearing above your logo in the header. You need to reduce the font size in the theme CSS to 0 so for the application the title will still be there but it not be visible on your site.

Error 2: Post installation all the comments have not been synchronized.

Solution 2:

• I would say first check for the comments on the ID website in your account if they are there.
• if not wait for couple of days after installation and try and synching process again and see if that works
• Under your WP admin settings section there is an option under the ID tab to reset the plugin in most cases this should solve the problems of missing or disappearing comments in ID

Error 3: IntenseDebate plugin has skewed the layout of the site.

Solution 3:

• The issues is noscript tag present in your comment.php or main php file
• Or one of your existing plugin is dynamically adding a noscript tag

ID works on Java Script and there are a lot of browsers, themes and plugins that block java script and as a result the layout is thrown out of order.  There can be a case where in your comments.php, or your main php file or the comment template file has a <noscript> tag if you can locate that then your problems is over normally the lines would say

<noscript> Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser“.
</noscript>

The problem arises because that is part of a block of content that gets nested in another <noscript> tag, which becomes invalid and throws the nesting out in your HTML.

You can do two things either remove those lines and yes its ok to remove those lines or add a // before these lines and it will indicate that the text following // is for information only and not action and then you layout should be back to normal.

If this does not solve then it means that one of your other plugins might be dynamically adding the noscript tag to your comment form. The solution for that is to disable all plugins and activate only ID plugin and check if works and i am sure it will work. The next step is to activate each plugin one by one and check if it’s creating any conflict with ID plugin.  After this long exercise you will be able to identify a plugin which is causing the layout issue. Once you have identified the plugin you need to click on edit option where the plugin is listed and again look for the noscript tag in that plugin and follow the same // process  mentioned above.

In my case it was the plugin WP-SpamFree plugin dynamically adding the noscript tag and hence causing the conflict with ID plugin. I added the // tag and it worked fine.  But remember once you upgrade the WP-SpamFree plugin the next time it will again add the noscript tag so be careful before upgrading.

IntenseDebate Support:

The support team at ID is amazing and they have been through the entire episode with me and have helped me with solution at every stage of my problem.  We all need to remember that ID is a open source utility and it’s an unpaid support as a result you will have to be patient with the team and they will surely help you with all your issues.  I would particularly like to thank Beau form the ID team who have helped me almost on a daily basis to resolve my issues.

Contacting ID Team:

Getsatisfaction.com there is wealth of information and i am sure it will solve most of your issues by visiting the ID page

IF that doesn’t work email ID support team on support@intensedebate.com and try and give as much information as possible also first do some research then they will be able to help you better

Follow ID on twitter: twitter.com/IntenseDebate

Follow ID on Facebook: IntenseDebate on Facebook

Contact me:

Please feel free to contact me and I shall be more than happy to help you solve your queries.

• Email: desaiamit (at) gmail (dot) com
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amitdesai
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