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Google Reader Seems Buggy as Heck

Posted by Bob Warfield on December 21, 2008

Is it just me or is this new version of Google Reader buggy as heck?  I’ve waited patiently for the bugs to subside, but it almost seems like they’re getting worst. 

They mostly manifest as a ton of repaint issues.  The list of feeds, for example, doesn’t show all of my feeds and frequently corrupts itself.  I can see them all in “Manage My Subscriptions”, but the list is a mess.  I’ve got 180 odd feeds, but I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone with a lot of feeds to try to use it like that.  Worse, I can no longer create new folders because the drop down box showing the list of folders is also corrupted.

Sorry to be harsh, but when is Google going to get over producing software as a hobby?  These are real tools that people expect to work right.  Presumably Google wants broad adoption and means to stick with something like Google Reader.  The occasional problem is one thing, but these would be Priority 1 bugs at any software company I ever worked with.

I’m not the only one:

See comments here.

Why are news readers so buggy?

This entry was posted on December 21, 2008 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Google Reader Seems Buggy as Heck”

  1. Sandy Kemsley said

    December 21, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    I current have 238 subscriptions in Reader and never see the problems that you’re describing. I’m using it on Firefox and Chrome under XP, plus the iPhone Reader page on my iTouch. I had a few weird refreshing issues offline with Gears at the beginning, but those have gone away in the past six months. I’m not sure what you mean by the the list “corrupting itself”, I’ve never had feeds disappear nor have I had problems with folders. What’s your browser and O/S platform? Are you using Gears or purely online? Have you tried exporting your OPML, deleting all of your subscriptions, then re-importing?

  2. Google Reader Offline: Smart Yet Dumb| Zoli’s Blog said

    December 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm

    […] Update (12/21/08):  Google Reader Seems Buggy as Heck […]

  3. smoothspan said

    December 22, 2008 at 3:30 am

    Sandy, it’s IE on Windoze and purely online.

    The corruption is only in the UI so far as I can tell. I haven’t exported/imported. The whole list was built in Google Reader. It ought to take better care of it!

    And sure enough, it does work better in Firefox. But I don’t choose to switch. This kind of thing is something they should fix.

    Best,

    BW

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