Fix – bloggingIT

Prevent WordPress from Hanging when You Log on

I’ve set up a WordPress site for a client and have had no end of troubles trying to get the site to behave – however there seems to be a constant problem of WordPress hanging.

Looking further into it – I discovered that the feeds in the Dashboard were making the browser and site hang. There is likely to be an issue tied into the host / browser / Javascript.

Anyway, if you find that you are having the same problem, follow these directions:

Restart your web browser (if it isn’t already closed)
Beofre visiting your blog, open up the settings and disable javascript. (IE / Firefox / Opera Instructions)
Open up your blog site and log on in the normal way.
On the Dashboard panel, you’ll see that there are now a number of panels that state they require Javascript – great!
On each widget – click on the configure link. Delete the contents of the RSS feed URL and then click on Submit
Once done, you can turn Javascript back on in the broswer settings. You’ll see the widgets appear with errors on them.
Now just go to the top of the page and click on Screen Options. Disable the widgets that show an error message and all will be right with the world once again!

It’s a bit of a pain, and I haven’t managed to get to the bottom of the problem as I am never in charge of hosts where the problems lie.

However, this workaround will at least get you going with your blog without any more hassle!

Task Switching in Compiz-Fusion

Being a sucker for all kinds of eye-candy, I’ve been running the latest builds of Compiz-Fusion. I’ve got to say that it is fantastic and makes the desktop experience a much more pleasurable one.

One of the things that has caused an issue is that the Application Switcher plugin (ALT+TAB) keeps on switching to every second window. Very annoying if you have only an even number of windows on the desktop.

Today, after breaking Compiz with an update, I managed to get it behaving itself by essentially reinstalling it – but the fix for the application switcher is even easier!

To fix the switcher

Open up the CompizConfig Settings Manager
Under Window Management, click on Application Switcher
Click on the Actions tab
If you have multiple entries for the application switcher (like in this screenshot), you need to make sure that YOU ONLY HAVE SHORTCUTS SET FOR 1 GROUP.
Once you have cleared the settings so that only one ‘Next Window’ and ‘Prev Window’ shortcut is used, test it out.

And that is it! I think that the only reason that it became an issue was that some settings were inherited from Beryl.

Ubuntu 7.04 fails to mount USB drive after kernal upgrade

After the recent Feisty kernel update, I found that I couldn’t access a USB drive without using root privileges in the command prompt.

When plugging a USB flash drive in, I’d get the following error:
Cannot Mount Volume

Cannot mount volume.

You are not privileged to mount the volume ‘drivename’.

The problem is the new way that Ubuntu identifies disk drives on your system, and also some changes in the mounting system. What I had to do was edit the /etc/fstab file to correct the error. So here goes:

Insert the USB pen drive into the USB port
Click Applications > Accessories > Terminal
type dmesg
Read the last entry that appears on screen (you should see some errors or warnings), and then type sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Here you need to find the connection between your error:

<code>[ 1025.759465] NTFS-fs warning (device hde1): parse_options(): Option utf8 is no longer supported, using option nls=utf8. Please use option nls=utf8 in the future and make sure utf8 is compiled either as a module or into the kernel.
[ 1026.098973] NTFS volume version 3.1.
</code>

and the fstab:

<code>proc /proc proc defaults 0 0</code><code>
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :</code>
<code>
UUID=2966f4fe-7f28-4017-b986-1ca801944b4f / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1</code>
<code>
# Entry for /dev/sdb5 :</code>
<code>
UUID=68989c2d-87a1-4a4f-b5d7-210790b336c4 none swap sw 0 0</code>
<code>
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0</code>
<code>
/dev/ /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0</code>
<code>
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=100,devmode=666 0 0</code>
<code>
/dev/sda1 /media/VistaHDD ntfs umask=222,utf8 0 0</code>

For me, the connection is the ntfs-fs error and the list listed drive. The error says that I can’t use UTF8, so it’s stopping before it mounts the USB drive.
If you think that you’ve found the connection, comment out the line with a hash:
```
<code>#/dev/sda1 /media/VistaHDD ntfs umask=222,utf8 0 0</code>
```
Save the file, then try and put the USB drive back in the computer again
If it works, great. If not, run dmesg again, and check the error is the same – then comment out the appropriate entry again.

This is mainly to do with recent kernal upgrades, which are changing a number of features. I’m sure it’s good in the long run!