Fixing Common Template Errors On Blogger

I realized that I had gone too much into designing widgets, losing track of the basic stuffs which drove a lot of traffic to my blog - those articles and tutorials which helped the newbies solve their common problems. With that being said, I plan to post articles and refresh on topics that are already existing on my blog with a better view and knowledge about them in the upcoming weeks.

In this article, I plan to provide solutions for the most commonly encountered template problems on blogger. I guess webmasters shall find this article way too silly but, I'm sure this is a life saver for many newbies out there. I'll just list out the problems, as it appears on the dashboard, when you try to make a change on your blogger template. Obviously, solutions shall follow below them:)

Most commonly encountered problem on blogger - "Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure that all XML elements are closed properly." This error message is usually accompanied by another message that indicates the actual reason for this reason. Hence, you should watch out for the next statement which may be one among the following.

XML error message: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference.

SOLUTION: Just look out for the place where you modified the codes on your template. I'm sure you'll find the following symbol - &, somewhere in the newly inserted code. Just add amp; to the right of the symbol or in other words, suffix amp; with that symbol to fix the error.

XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute "{1}" associated with an element type "href".

SOLUTION: The element type may be src or type or class or id or anything for that matter - not necessary that it should always be href. Well, it is pretty simple to solve this one! You just missed an a quotation mark some where in the code. Consider the example below.
<a href=http://abc.com">Example</a> should become <a href=''#">Example</a>

XML error message: The element type "img" must be terminated by the matching end-tag "</img>"

SOLUTION: This error occurs when you miss out a trailing slash ( / )that should appear before you close the img tag. This could be better explained with an example as shown below.
<a href=''source link"><img src="img link"></a> should be changed to
<a href=''source link"><img src="img link"/></a>

More than one widget was found with id: HTML1. Widget IDs should be unique.

SOLUTION: This occurs when the id name is found to the same at two instances. Just change the id name to solve this issue. For example, from id='HTML5' to id="HTML57" - a unique name that does not appear anywhere on your template.

We were unable to save your template. Please correct the error below, and submit your template again. There should be one and only one skin in the template, and we found: 2

SOLUTION: Simple! You defined two different skins on your template. Make sure you delete one and the problem should be fixed - occurs at very rare instances. But, it does happen:)

bx - xxxxxx error

SOLUTION: You'll find bx followed by some number when you try to save your template - usually occurs when you try to shift tabs between "Page Elements" and "Edit HTML". Just make sure you save your widgets at their respective positions before you shift the tabs to avoid this error. Clearing your browser cookies might help sometimes. Saving your template by manual deletion/removal of widgets using "Page Elements" section is better than using the wrench icon to delete them - avoids the errors.

Well, only few errors are mentioned in the article above. There are plenty of errors which you might have encountered. Just share them via comments - possibly with their solutions as well. If not, just post the error you encounter and I'll try to fix it up for you!

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gia said on September 18, 2011 at 3:02 PM :

your post is extraordinary and very helpful. I have a question for you: "why you do not use cloudflare to speed up loading the blog?". sometimes if I use google chrome, your site is very slow.

M.Pinto @ ProHacker said on September 18, 2011 at 3:39 PM :

Hello Mukund,
First of all, Thank yo for this post!

I was trying to validate my blog's markup..

There are only two errors,

1. general entity "t" not defined and no default entity

2. reference to entity "t" for which no system identifier could be generated

And I just wanna get rid of them!!
So, Please - can you help me??

M.Pinto from www.ProHacker.IN

Mukund said on September 18, 2011 at 11:44 PM :

@gia: That's an awesome comment! Hmmm! I never felt very comfortable changing the name servers and I'm not sure about their service too! May be I'll consider one when Google launches its page speed service! Thanks for the comment buddy!

Mukund said on September 18, 2011 at 11:45 PM :

Just let me know the code which you try to insert so that the above mentioned error pops out! Probably, I can solve it by then:)

M.Pinto @ ProHacker said on September 19, 2011 at 12:06 PM :

This is the link. Validator.

GAURANG JOSHI said on September 19, 2011 at 7:45 PM :

Great tips as i commit many mistakes during editing template theme. Excited after seeing your website since i found no one using blogger as this level.

GAURANG JOSHI said on September 19, 2011 at 7:46 PM :

Great advise as i commit many of those errors while editing template theme.

protechking said on September 20, 2011 at 12:31 AM :

Thanks when i new i got many error. I hope this post help many one good work.

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 1:34 PM :

@M.Pinto @ ProHacker: Hey! Those are errors in JavaScript! In other words, that do not match with the W3C standards! But, this article deals with errors on blogger! Hope you understand the difference between the two:)

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 1:36 PM :

@GAURANG JOSHI: Yup! Even I do them, at times! Thanks for the comment buddy! I hope see more comments from you to keep me going:)

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 1:42 PM :

@protechking: Yup! Even I had to face a lot of errors when I started blogging way back in 2007-08! Anyway, thanks for the comment!

shree said on September 20, 2011 at 5:01 PM :

dude you'r chennai!!!
i'm also

M.Pinto @ ProHacker said on September 20, 2011 at 5:22 PM :

Of course I know that those are JS errors!

An may be, I shouldn't have asked you this question in this post!! :P

Anyhow, I just want to validate those two ERRORS!!
So that - my site will be 100% VALID. :)

Can you help me in this??

M.Pinto from www.ProHacker.IN

Suhanesh Madav said on September 20, 2011 at 6:09 PM :

Thanks for the tips brother.Must be bookmarked.

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 7:57 PM :

@shree: Just ping me on gtalk to post off topic issues rather than commenting on articles. Sorry, if I sound too harsh:)

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 7:59 PM :

@M.Pinto @ ProHacker: Sure! I'll try my best to solve those errors! Connect with on gtalk buddy!

Mukund said on September 20, 2011 at 8:00 PM :

@Suhanesh Madav: Yup! Hope you bookmarked the same! Thanks for the comment buddy!

Pavan said on September 22, 2011 at 1:23 PM :

@M.Pinto

It is very difficult to validate blogger page as XHTML translational , If you feel that your blog is 100% translational it would be a mistake , Please look into the following url HERE.
and there is not much problem if your site is not XHTML translational as you know it. Concentrate on blog post and your blog seems to be pretty cool.

keep good work going bro :)

M.Pinto @ ProHacker said on September 22, 2011 at 7:25 PM :

@ Pavan :

Yep.. I know that there is not much problem.
But, I really wanted make it 100% Valid..

I'm pretty happy after seeing other popular blogs with 200/300 Errors and Warnings!!

After-all, I've got only 2 Errors, Which doesn't matter.. :)

So, any how,, Thanks for your advice / suggestion!!

M.Pinto from www.ProHacker.IN

Saras said on October 4, 2011 at 8:35 AM :

Mukund, why is it that I get so many errors and warnings for xml/css even when I use a Blogger template. Is there any auto correcting tool to correct these errors by just entring my webpage url. Please help.
Saraswathan

Mukund said on October 5, 2011 at 1:10 AM :

@Saras: Well, usually errors pop out when you don't close your tags at the right places and when the code is not parsed. Let me know what error do you face and I'll be able to solve your problem:)

James said on October 10, 2011 at 9:25 PM :

Thanks for taking time for sharing this article, it was excellent and very informative. as a first time visitor to your blog I am very impressed. I found a lot of informative stuff in your article. Keep it up. Thank you.

Mukund said on October 11, 2011 at 1:57 AM :

@James: Ah! Glad that you found useful information on my blog! Comments like the one you posted keeps me going! So, don't stop them. Keep them coming:)

Blaby Architecture said on October 13, 2011 at 4:00 PM :

Magic, thanks - just the fix I needed to sort my blog errors. Paul from Blaby

Yogi Haris said on December 11, 2011 at 5:34 AM :

Thanks to Tips, for Fixing Common Template, this a very nice for SEO index, and checker in Validator.

Thanks.

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