Why your blog won't post in blogger: The elusive “form error” problem

You've just finished a new post for your blogger blog. Whew! Another great post ready to go. But when you click “Publish Post” it says it cannot post due to “form errors.” Wha?? Before you go tearing your hair out, try this:

Getting a post to publish even though the error message says “form errors”

First, click the Edit HTML tab, and select all text and copy it (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C or however you like to select and copy). Make sure it is ALL selected. Now save this text somewhere. That way if blogger doesn't save all your changes, you have backed them up.

Next, look at the URL of the webpage that you edit your blog from. If it starts like this:

http://draft.blogger.com/home

Change the word “draft” back to plain old “www” like this:

http://www.blogger.com/home

…and hit enter to visit the www version of blogger.com/home. Now edit your post normally. It will probably save and publish now. The new blogger interface occassionally causes this problem. However, I recommend you use http://draft.blogger.com/home at all times, and only use http://www.blogger.com/home if you encounter this specific problem.

If you're looking for more tips and tricks, particularly how to deal with problems that come up when embedding videos in blogger, read the last part of this article about optimizing your blog.